Production Team
Lucy Rayfield - Director
Lucy is a final-year graduate student reading for a DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages. She specialises in French and Italian Renaissance theatre and is currently working on the transmission of dramatic texts from Italy to France via printers, patrons and performers. Aside from directing each play by Vitruvian Productions, she also directed two original plays whilst teaching drama at the Oxbridge Advanced Studies Program (Brasenose College, 2014). In addition, Lucy was director of an ambitious French-language version of Beaumarchais’ ‘Le Mariage de Figaro’ (Woodland Road Auditorium, 2011). Recent acting roles include Diana in 'French Without Tears' (Holywell Manor, 2016), Rosencrantz in 'Hamlet' (Somerville College, 2016), Gwendolen in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (Holywell Manor, 2015), Goneril in 'King Lear' (Somerville College, 2015), and King Ahasuerus in ‘Esther’ (St John’s College, 2014). Lucy is also a keen screenwriter and has written two plays: ‘A Christ Church Carol’ (2014) and ‘The Harsh Road Home’ (2014).
Ben van Leeuwen - Music Director
Ben is a third-year English student at Balliol and its Senior Organ Scholar. He wrote the music for both 'Orpheus' and the 'Bacchae', and also enjoys composing chamber works for larger ensembles. He uses his identity as an oboist, violinist, pianist and organist to write idiomatically for all the orchestral families. Amongst his main influences are early, pre-atonal Schoenberg, late Mahler, Richard Strauss, and certain elements of Shostakovitch, Brahms and Debussy. For his compositions for Vitruvian Productions, he has employed a much earlier style with nods to Purcell, Leoncavallo and Dowland, complete with abrupt mode switches, recitative-like sections, and alternations in style between sprightly dance and mournful elegy.
David Maskell - Translator
David was Fellow and Tutor in Modern Languages at Oriel College (1979-2004), and has published extensively on French classical theatre. He is now a freelance writer, translator, and percussionist.David specialises in translation and adaptations of verse plays from French, Italian and Ancient Greek. He was delighted that the challenging double-bill of 'Sparagmos', comprising Euripides’ ‘Bacchae’ and Poliziano’s ‘Orpheus’, was undertaken by Vitruvian Productions.
Plays previously translated by David and performed in Oxford include Voltaire’s ‘Mahomet' and 'Zaïre’ (2011), Jean Racine’s ‘Esther’ (2014), the medieval French ‘Play of Adam’ (2014), as well as ‘Chastity on the Verge’, an adaptation of a medieval French romance (2013).
In addition David has written original plays in prose: 'Toussaint' (2011), ‘Blight’ (2013), ‘Peace on Earth’ (2013), 'Alternative Nativity' (2014) and 'The Italian Woman’ (2015).
James Gilbert - Photographer
James is a DPhil candidate in Astrophysics and a former electronics engineer. He has been interested and involved in theatrical lighting and special effects design for over a decade, and has been a keen photographer for even longer.
Before moving to Oxford, he lived and worked in Sydney, Australia. There he took advantage of the thriving music scene as a semi-professional concert photographer for several printed and digital publications. He has photographed a wide range of acts, from intimate performances at the Sydney Opera House to arena shows by Metallica. James worked as a photographer for Vitruvian Productions' performance of 'Sparagmos', which had him weaving in and among the actors, trying to capture the breadth of action and emotion.
