Artistic Director: Charlotte Windmill
Charlotte trained as an actor at Drama Studio London. Her acting credits include Olivia in Twelfth Night and Bianca in The Taming of The Shrew (for bold & saucy), Henry V (Bloomsbury Theatre), Her Alabaster Skin (BAC), Sofa (The Etcetera and The National Theatre Bucharest), A Love Story (Edinburgh Festival Fringe) and Hamlet (The Broadway Theatre). She co-founded the OSC and became its Artistic Director in 2002. She also produces new writing.
Producer: Emma Randle
Emma has been involved with the OSC as Company Secretary since its formation and became Producer in 2008, working on its productions of Telling Tales at The Tower and Romeo & Juliet. She was previously General Manager of the Urdang Academy, a leading college for the performing arts in London.
Previous producing credits include Miracles at The Royal Albert Hall with London Musici and Nebuchadnezzar at Theatre 503. She is currently an Associate Producer for the London based theatre arts charity Only Connect, working with ex-offenders creating rehabilitative and socially impactful theatre.
Co-Director: Nicholas Green.
Composer: Nicholas Lloyd-Webber
Nick has been composing original score and song for the OSC since 2008. His beautiful and rousing compositions for Twelfth Night in 2008 were a major contribution to the production’s excellent critical and audience reception and a Time Out Critics’ Choice.
Nick is the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind the band Archangel, who are currently receiving a wide spectrum of media attention and praise in the run-up to their debut album release. Nick has also been producing Marc Almond's long awaited come-back album. His Go! Team-infused seasonal themes for the BBC's CBeebies are redefining children's TV music. Nick is also an accomplished pianist and string-arranger and has written orchestral scores for numerous award-winning short films.
The Oxford Shakespeare Company was founded in 2001 by Artistic Director, Charlotte Windmill and Directors, Nicholas Green and Kevin Hosier. It established a summer residency at Wadham College, taking over from the well respected bold & saucy theatre company who began performing at Wadham in 1992; thereby making the college Oxford's longest standing professional open air theatre venue.
The OSC specialises in site-specific event theatre. The inaugural Oxford productions in 2002 established an immediate critical reputation and the Company were quickly invited to perform at other historic venues in Oxfordshire and London. The second season in 2003 saw an audience increase of 38% with over 7,500 attending the shows with the first London production at Lincoln’s Inn in the same year being twice awarded Time Out Critic's Choice.
In the years since the OSC has continued to build its audience and repertoire of highly popular and critically acclaimed interpretations of Shakespeare and other classic texts. The productions attract a broad audience, in terms of age and nationality, from local and tourist communities.
Our exceptional historic venues include The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; The Historic Royal Palaces of Hampton Court, Kensington and The Tower of London;The Inns of Court at The Walks Gray’s Inn; the North Garden Lincoln's Inn; the private estate of Cornbury Park, Charlbury; Waterperry Gardens; the King's Head in Aylesbury (the National Trusts 600 year old coaching Inn), the gardens of Barnsley House Hotel Cirencester, Shakespeare’s House, Wolfson College Oxford and onboard the Orient Express.
Since we are unfunded to date the company produces all its work from box office sales, the support of its audience and business Friends and much volunteer assistance.
2010 will see the launch of the much anticipated Friends of the Oxford Shakespeare Company, a charity dedicated to funding the development of the OSC’s productions and educational programmes.
It's a sin to be dull. We must all examine our environment, always gaining inspiration from existing natural features; we will then enhance rather than overwhelm our surroundings. Rosemary Verey
It is our policy to perform dynamic and intimate productions of Shakespeare and other classic plays. We strive to de-mystify what are often perceived as intimidating texts and to further our artistic conception of a particular style of event theatre which our audiences have come to so enjoy.
We are constantly evolving all aspects of our highly imaginative yet accessible productions. Our shows are driven by the physical, musical and vocal skills of the actor. We work with artists united in the aim of creating a theatrical world not elevated or separated from the audience, but rather encompassing them; and just as the world of the play often appears all around them, so too do the technical workings of the piece.
The art is to expose the trickery without losing the magic. If achieved the outcome is even more magical in that audiences experience two worlds that co-exist simultaneously and in complete harmony.
Original music is already a key component of our productions and in the future we seek to integrate the talents of other theatrical media including dance, circus and mime.
We aim to translate these production values into further inspirational indoor spaces as well as regional theatre venues and to extend the open air season by performing internationally.
Ultimately we wish to accomplish our ambition of commissioning new literary and musical adaptations that complement our existing classical repertoire.
Consistently high audience attendance reflects our ability to make productions enjoyed not only by those already acquainted with classical texts but also newcomers and those for whom English is not a first language.
Our audience spans a wide age range; children are successfully encouraged to attend by our subsidised ticket scheme; free for the under 5’s and £10 tickets for the under 12's.
The numerous children in the audience seemed to be laughing as much as the rest of us. Perhaps the actors played up to the younger ones on the front row once or twice. Making the play accessible to all can only be a good thing" - BBC
We also strongly believe
that much our work has a future in a broader commercial context; bringing the
shows to a far greater audience and creating an income return that will propel
new productions.