Tadashi Suzuki is one of the world’s foremost theatre directors, as well as a seminal thinker and practitioner whose work has a powerful influence on theatre everywhere.

He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) based in Toga Village, located in the mountains of Toyama prefecture, Japan. He is the organiser of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival), and the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training. Suzuki also plays an important role with several other organizations: as General Artistic Director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (1995-2007), as a member of the International Theatre Olympics Committee, as founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (jointly organized by leading theatre professionals from Japan, China and Korea) and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a nationwide network of theatre professionals in Japan.

Suzuki’s works include On the Dramatic Passions, The Trojan Women, Dionysus, King Lear, Cyrano de Bergerac, Madame de Sade and many others. Besides productions with his own company, he has directed several international collaborations, such as The Tale of Lear, co-produced and presented by four leading regional theatres in the US; King Lear, presented with the Moscow Art Theatre; Oedipus Rex, co-produced by Cultural Olympiad and Düsseldorf Schauspiel Haus; and Electra, produced by Ansan Arts Center/Arco Arts Theatre in Korea and the Taganka Theatre in Russia.

Suzuki has taught his system of actor training in schools and theatres throughout the world, including The Juilliard School in New York and the Moscow Art Theatre.

Jessica Swale is a writer and director, and the Artistic Director of Red Handed Theatre Company.

Her first play, Blue Stockings, premiered at Shakespeare's Globe and won her a nomination for Most Promising Playwright in the Evening Standard Awards 2013. Other plays include Nell Gwynn and Thomas Tallis (both Shakespeare's Globe); All's Will That Ends Will (Bremer Shakespeare Company); adaptations of Far from the Madding Crowd, Sense and Sensibility (Watermill Theatre), The Secret Garden (Grosvenor Park) and The Jungle Book (UK tour 2017 & 2018); and an original play, The Mission, about illegal adoptions in the 1920s.

She has directed a number of award-winning productions for Red Handed, which is dedicated to creating new work and rediscovering forgotten plays. Recent productions include The Rivals starring Celia Imrie, the London premiere of Palace of the End by Judith Thompson, and the first major revival of Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem, which won her a nomination for Best Director at the Evening Standard Awards.

Other direction includes Bedlam (Shakespeare's Globe); Sleuth (Watermill); Fallen Angels (Salisbury Playhouse); Winter (TNL, Canada); The Busy Body, Someone to Watch Over Me (Southwark), The School for Scandal (Park Theatre); and productions at RADA and LAMDA. She was Max Stafford-Clark's Associate Director at Out of Joint from 2007–2010.

She is an associate artist with Youth Bridge Global, an international NGO which uses theatre as a tool for promoting social change in war-torn and developing nations.

She has written three titles in Nick Hern Books' popular Drama Games series: Drama Games for Classrooms and Workshops, Drama Games for Devising, and Drama Games for Rehearsals.

Dr Tara Swart is an executive coach with a background in psychological medicine and neuroscience. She has written widely for journals of neuroscience and coaching.

Sophie Swithinbank is a playwright whose work includes: Surrender (Arcola Theatre, London, & Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2024); Bacon (Finborough Theatre, London, 2022; winner of Soho Theatre's Tony Craze Award); Circle Game (Oxford School of Drama, shortlisted for the Phil Fox Award 2020); Even In Arcadia (longlisted for the Verity Bargate Award); The Fellowship (Picturedrome, University of Northampton); Where There Is Smoke (National Theatre Learning); Come Inside (Bush Theatre, London) and The Superhero (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith).

She teaches Playwriting at the University of Northampton.

John Millington Synge (1871–1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, travel writer and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the co-founders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for his play The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots in Dublin during its opening run at the Abbey Theatre.