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Born in Nyasaland, Kit Hesketh-Harvey (Stage Director and Libretto) was Head Chorister at Canterbury, and choral scholar at Cambridge. He studied theatre writing under Sondheim. Staff producer for BBC-TV, he left to write screenplays (including Maurice for Merchant/Ivory and work on The Vicar Of Dibley) and at the Comedy Store began thirty years of Kit and the Widow, the cabaret for which he writes the songs. In addition to three West End runs, they have starred in Salad Days (Vaudeville) and Tomfoolery (with Dillie Keane, with whom they recently joined forces in Cowardy Custard). As a broadcaster Kit is best known as a panellist on R4's Just A Minute. For his column in Country Life, he won Writer of the Year.Plays include Five O'Clock Angel (Hampstead) and A La Villa Bab Azzoun (also Hampstead). He co-devised Putting It Together (Sondheim), and worked with fellow Vivian Ellis awardwinning composer James McConnel on Writing Orlando (Barbican) and Yusupov (Bridewell).
As librettist/translator Kit has worked on Fledermaus and Magic Flute (Scottish Opera), Daughter Of The Regiment (ETO), Il Turco and La Belle Helene (ENO), Merry Widow (Opera North, sydney opera House and, shortly, Melbourne), Bartered Bride (Royal Opera), Bluebeard and Veronique (Buxton), Le Roi Malgre Lui (Grange Park), Figaro and Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Armonico). Original libretti include Monteverdi's Flying Circus (Armonico), Varjak Paw (Linbury, composer Julian Phillips), and he co-produced The Caribbean Tempest (Holders Barbados, with Kylie Minogue). Married to actress, academic and Bond Girl Kate Rabett, they have two children, dividing their time between Norfolk and Cornwall. Kit directed Merry Opera’s La Belle Hélène/Troy Boy in 2011.
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Stephen Hose (Music Director) trained at the Royal Academy of Music where he held a Vaughan Williams scholarship, and has worked extensively as a Musical Director and conductor in London and regional theatre. Projects abroad have ranged from the English Theater of Frankfurt to The Lost Colony at the 2,000 seat outdoor theatre on Roanoke Island, USA. TV work has included being the pianist on Channel 4‘s Titanic, The Mission, accompanist for The Choir, and 5 years as Musical Director for TV productions of Christmas Glory. He was Chorus Master for Jessye Norman’s Ellington’s Sacred Songs at the Barbican Theatre and Epidavros, Greece. He is Music Director for OperaUK for whom work has included A Night at the Opera, The Barber of Seville, cosi fan tutte, The Merry Widow, Olé and El Amor Brujo. He was Music Director for Orpheus and The Barber (Unexpected Opera). In 2010 he became Music Director for Merry Opera’s first tour of a staged Messiah and toured with them in 2011 with La Belle Hélène/Troy Boy and their second staged Messiah production, which he will be directing again in revival tours in 2012.
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