Rosemary Ashe

Rosie trained at the Royal Academy of Music & The London Opera Centre. She has sung major roles with English National Opera.
West End roles include: Carlotta in the original cast of The Phantom of the Opera, Madame Thenardier in Les Miserables, Widow Corney in Oliver!, Hortense in The Boyfriend, Forbidden Broadway, Felicia Gabriel in The Witches of East wick  (for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress)& Miss Andrew in Mary Poppins. She recently played Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd for the Gothenburg Opera. For more info on Rosemary, click on the photo.

The Musical Director on the course will be either:

Francis Goodhand

Francis studied Music at the University of Liverpool . He follows a varied career as a performer, and as a musical director, songwriter and composer for theatre. 

Francis was associated with the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds for five years, writing music and songs for in-house productions as well as devising and leading education, community and outreach work.  He works extensively in children’s theatre, writing six young people’s musicals, and songs and music for productions by companies including National Youth Music Theatre, Youth Music Theatre UK and Oldham Theatre Workshop.  He is a performance coach and musical director for theatre colleges including GSA, Mountview and Italia Conti.

or

Paul Knight

Paul studied at Chethams School of Music, Colchester Institute and The Royal College of Music. He won the Canon Jack Award for solo recital playing and the Stephens Award. He has appeared as soloist and accompanist in the UK and Europe, most recently performing the Gershwin Piano Concerto at Brussels Cathedral and Wembley Arena. He has broadcast for the BBC on “The Pianist Entertains” and “Friday Night is Music Night”. Paul appears regularly with Noel Tredinnick and the All Souls Orchestra. As conductor Paul has specialised in ‘lost’ works such as “The English Ring” (Maritana Bohemian Girl and Lilly of Killarney) which he revived after a silence of fifty years.

Paul has appeared as actor musician in a number of shows including “Grimsley and Tibbs” “Champagne Charlie” “The Killer Soprano” (with Rosie Ashe) “Two’s a Crowd” (with Rosalind Plowright) “Here’s a How Dee Doo (UK tour, West End, Canada, and BBC radio 2 series) and the infamous “Forbidden Broadway” at the Fortune, Jermyn Street and Albery Theatres.

As musical director he has played and arranged many shows including “Goodnight Mr. Tom “ “Applause” “Jacques Brel is…” “Little Shop of Horrors” “Marry Me a Little” “Into the Woods” “Godspell” and endless pantomimes and revues. He was musical director for five national tours for David Wood’s Whirligig Theatre Company. He is musical supervisor and arranger for “Spot’s Birthday Party” and the 60’s musical hit “Shout”. Film and TV credits include “Night on the Town” “Handel’s Ressurection” “Campion” BBC’s “Pebble Mill” and “The Late Show”.

His directing credits include “A Butler Did It” (Calgary) “Let’s Do It” (Arts Theatre)
“The Song is … Jerome Kern” (Fortune Theatre) “Mame” (Bloomsbury Theatre) “Fiddler on the Roof” (Chaucer Theatre).

Paul is also a sought after vocal coach, and has been connected to many world famous vocal establishments such as The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Drama Studio London, Arts Educational School and Birds College of Performing Arts. He has also been active in youth theatre working with the National Youth Music Theatre, the Curtain Theatre in East London, the Cockpit Theatre and has given many vocal workshops for both amateur and professional singers.

He is Artistic Director of Pneuma Arts (see www.pneuma-arts.com) a production company which in 2003 performed “Esther” at the Palace Theatre London and produced its first pantomime “Mother Goose”. The company has also released its first two albums, “Esther – a live recording” and “Afraid” an album based on scripture to encourage positive thinking. The company is at present working on a musical version of “Billy Budd” based on the Hermann Melville Novel, a film version of “The Selfish Giant” and a reality TV project.

As a writer/composer Paul’s output includes the ballet “City Slick”, “Bunter” (Northcotte) “Ello Ello Ello” (Oldham Coliseum) “Prisoner of Panto” (Calgary and London) “Esther” (Spitalfields Festival and Palace Theatre) “Shake the Nation” (Liverpool Cathedral and Spitalfields Festival) “The Happy Prince” a children’s musical “Toothy Towers” as well as eight Christmas pantomimes for Oxford Playhouse Productions. He has arranged and written scores for Caucasian Chalk Circle( Box Clever) Othello (Wooden O), Winter’s Tale, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor for Oxford Shakespeare Company. In 2006 he composed an original score for the 400th anniversary of the first performance of Macbeth which was produced in its original setting at the Great Hall Hampton Court also for OSC. For Hidden Pearl Productions Paul has written music and lyrics to ‘Christmas Carol’ (Shaw Theatre) and ‘Treasure Island’ (Kings Head). He was opera arranger on Stephen Poliakov’s film ‘Capturing Mary’.