King Lear Crew

PJ has directed for the English Theatre Frankfurt Huck Finn, Shockheaded Peter (Covid cancelled) and for next season will direct Girl with a Book by Nick Wood. He is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Frankfurt, for whom he directed the film Spiritus Vitae, The Breath of Life, and for the 2021-22 season is directing Travelers, Fools and Thieves, Antony and Cleopatra and next years Garden production As You Like It. Other plays he has directed for SF include, Trojan Women by Euripides, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (Covid cancelled) and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. His production of The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh was at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt in the Fall of 2019. From 2015-18 he was the Director in Residence at The LOFT, where he directed Shakespeare in the Garden:Hortus Inclusus, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Grounded by George Brandt and was the co-creator of Where. For 10 years he was the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Anyone? founded in New York City in 2005, where he directed, produced and/or performed roles from all but 5 of Shakespeare’s plays. He was the Associate Artistic Director of WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Laboratory. He also cast and directed BFA playwriting thesis projects for NYU’s Tisch school of the arts. He has taught Acting, Scene Study, Stage Combat and Shakespeare courses at the collegiate level as well as high schools and private institutions for over 20 years. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri-KC in Acting and Directing.

Julia Rilling (she/her) has been working in theatre for over 10 years. After working as Second Assistant Director at Staatstheater Karlsruhe, she moved to Frankfurt to further pursue theatre in and around Hessen. In 2013, Julia first worked at Schauspiel Frankfurt on Marieluise Fleißer’s Fegefeuer in Ingolstadt under Constanze Becker and MAKING OF :: MARILYN by Alexandra Althoff, Lothar Kittstein, and Bernhard Mikeska. This was followed by further projects under Ted Stoffer, Achim Lenz, and Sandra Wissmann, among others. Julia’s experience ranges from classical and contemporary theatre to Musiktheater and musicals in which her classical training as a violinist has benefitted her greatly. She has recently co-produced and created the radio drama series Meanwhile at 3am that has been published on several well-known podcast platforms. This is her first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.

Elena (she/her) was born and raised in FFM Nordend. She moved to Bristol and then Canterbury to pursue her theatrical studies. She thrives in creative environments and has been working within the theatre for over 10 years! She has worked in most production and performance roles/areas and FINALLY found her niche in a School of Arts Workshop whilst neck deep in paper-mache! She, one day, hopes to work as a dramaturg or PROPfessional Prop Maker (sorry – I should mention another passion of mine is puns). Her influences range anywhere from David Bowie to Team Starkid and she would say her personal aesthetic and style lies somewhere in between them. She is ecstatic to have found her way to Shakespeare Frankfurt in October 2020 and is more than excited to join the company as a designer and Prop master.

Mathias Kunzler (He / Him) is a freelancing fight director and stage combat teacher who studied with teachers from the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat and the Society of American Fight Directors and became a Certified Teacher for Stage Combat Deutschland in 2015. Being also an archaeologist, he trains the gladiator group “Ludus Gorgonis” for the department of Classics at Giessen University. He has been working as fight director for Shakespeare Frankfurt since 2018.

Tom Freischläger regularly appears in classical concerts as an oboist, orchestra conductor, presenter and narrator. He has previously played roles in multiple productions of the Chaincourt Theatre Company at Goethe University. This is his first appearance with Shakespeare Frankfurt.

Francesco Schiavio is a 16-year-old student from Italy. He has always had a special interest for theatre and was involved from an early age in school productions as well as improv classes. This is his first project with Shakespeare Frankfurt, working both on and off-stage, and he hopes it can be the start of a long series of experiences in the world of acting.

Vera Mark (she/her) has been involved with the theatre since she was a teenager. She has participated in numerous productions of FEST, the Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre, acting, crewing and directing. In 2016, Vera joined Shakespeare Frankfurt as Adrian in ‘The Tempest’; in the past few years she has served SF as stage manager and assistant director and in February 2020 played the part of Andromache in Euripides' 'Trojan Women' at the International Theatre Frankfurt. After a year’s forced break, she is very happy to be Front of House manager for the 2021 open air production of ‘King Lear’!

Wanying Li-Ang was born in China and grew up in Hessen, Germany. She graduated from the Frankfurt School of Clothing and Fashion. She has been working at The English Theater Frankfurt since 2012, her first play was Sweet Charity. This was followed by many other plays such as Saturday Night Fever, Strangers on the Train, Ghost The Musical, Alice in Wonderland, Cabaret and Sweeney Todd.