Danny Ashok and Darren Kuppan rehearsing Guards at the Taj. A Bush Theatre production. Photo: Marc Brenner
Jamie Lloyd directs the European premiere of this wickedly funny award-winning play from Pulitzer Prize nominee Rajiv Joseph.
It’s 1648. Agra, India. Imperial guards and best mates Humayun and Babur keep watch as the final touches are put to the mighty Taj Mahal behind them. The emperor has decreed that no one, except the masons, labourers and slaves who exist within those walls, shall turn to look at the building until it is complete.
Now, as the building nears completion and the first light catches on the pure white domes behind them, the temptation to steal a glance at the most beautiful monument the world has ever seen grows stronger. But beauty has a price and Humayun and Babur are about to learn its true cost.
Guards at the Taj takes as its starting point an enduring legend and prompts contemporary audiences to revisit questions about art and privilege. The play premiered at the Atlantic Theater in New York to great acclaim in 2015 and is the recipient of both the Obie Award for Best New American Play and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play (2016).
George Dennis’s theatre sound design credits include: The Homecoming (The Jamie Lloyd Company/Trafalgar Studios, Olivier Award nomination); The Pitchfork Disney, Killer (Shoreditch Town Hall); The Convert, In the Night Time, Image of an Unknown Young Woman, Eclipsed, The Edge of our Bodies (Gate Theatre); Babe, the Sheep-Pig (Polka Theatre/UK Tour); Harrogate (also HighTide Festival), Fireworks, Liberian Girl, Primetime (Royal Court); The Mountaintop, The Island (Young Vic); Imogen, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Fidelity (Traverse/HighTide Festival); Noises Off (Nottingham Playhouse/Northern Stage/Nuffield Southampton); German Skerries (Orange Tree); Brave New World, Regeneration (Royal and Derngate/Touring Consortium); Forget Me Not, Visitors (Bush Theatre); Eventide (Arcola Theatre/UK Tour); Chicken (Eastern Angles/Unity Theatre); Beautiful Thing (Arts Theatre/UK Tour); A Breakfast of Eels, The Last Yankee (Print Room); peddling (Arcola Theatre/59E59, New York/HighTide Festival); Mametz (National Theatre of Wales); Minotaur (Polka Theatre/Clwyd Theatr Cymru); Spring Awakening (Headlong); Love Your Soldiers (Sheffield Crucible Studio); Thark (Park Theatre); Moth (Bush Theatre/HighTide Festival); Hello/Goodbye (Hampstead Theatre); Liar Liar (Unicorn Theatre); Good Grief (Theatre Royal Bath/UK Tour); The Seven Year Itch (Salisbury Playhouse); When Did You Last See My Mother? (Trafalgar Studios 2); Debris, The Seagull, The Only True History of Lizzie Finn (Southwark Playhouse); A Life, Foxfinder (Finborough Theatre).
Jamie Lloyd is the Artistic Director of The Jamie Lloyd Company. His recent work, presented by The Jamie Lloyd Company, includes Doctor Faustus (Duke of York’s) and The Maids, The Homecoming, The Ruling Class, Richard III, The Pride, The Hothouse and the Olivier Award-nominated Macbeth (all at Trafalgar Studios). His other recent work includes Assassins (Menier Chocolate Factory; Evening Standard Award nomination for Best Director); Urinetown (St James & Apollo); The Commitments (Palace); Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout Theatre Company; American Airlines Theatre, Broadway); The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); She Stoops to Conquer (National Theatre; WhatsOnStage Award nomination for Best Revival); The Faith Machine and the Olivier Award-winning The Pride (Royal Court); Inadmissible Evidence, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the Evening Standard Award-winning Passion and Polar Bears (Donmar Warehouse); Piaf (Donmar Warehouse, Vaudeville Theatre, Teatro Liceo in Buenos Aires & Nuevo Teatro Alcala in Madrid; Olivier Award nomination for Best Musical Revival, Hugo Award for Best Director, Clarin Award for Best Musical Production, ADEET Award for Best Production); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); Three Days of Rain (Apollo; Olivier & WhatsOnStage Award nominations for Best Revival); The Lover and The Collection (Comedy Theatre); Elegies: A Song Cycle (Arts); The School for Scandal (Theatre Royal, Bath); Salome (Headlong); Eric’s (Liverpool Everyman); and The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible & Tricycle). For radio, he directed and co-adapted Orson Welles’ Heart of Darkness (BBC Radio 4). He has also directed work as a part of the Old Vic’s 24 Hour Plays and Musicals and at the Royal Court International Residencies, and was on the panel for the 2015 Kevin Spacey Foundation Theatre Awards. He was Associate Director of the Donmar Warehouse from 2008 to 2011 and a former Associate Artist of Headlong. Jamie is frequently featured in the top 20 of The Stage 100 list and the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 list, and was a Macgeorge Fellow with the University of Melbourne in 2016.
Kate Waters is one of only two women on the Equity Register of Fight Directors. Her theatre credits include Disgraced at the Bush. Other recent work includes: Othello, As You Like It, Our Country’s Good, Rules For Living, Dara, Hotel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and War Horse (National Theatre); Hand To God (West End),The Last Goodbye (The Old Globe, San Diego, California), Dr Faustus, The Maids, Macbeth, Richard III, East Is East, The Ruling Class, The Hothouse, The Pride (Jamie Lloyd Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Anthony & Cleopatra, Dr Faustus (The Globe); Liberian Girl (Royal Court); Black Comedy (Chichester Festival Theatre); Urinetown The Musical (St James Theatre &West End); Don Giovanni (ROH) and Bugsy Malone, Herons (Lyric Hammersmith). Kate is a regular fight director for Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks.
Lydia C Crimp trained in Fashion Design at The University for the Creative Arts before taking on full time roles as Production Coordinator at Academy Costumes and later as a costume buyer at The National Theatre. Since then Lydia’s work as Costume Supervisor has included, for the National Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time (West End and Broadway), People (UK Tour), Cocktail Sticks (West End), Evening at the Talk House, Les Blancs and Love. Other work includes Fireworks at The Royal Court, The Maids at Trafalgar Studios, This House at Chichester Festival Theatre and the Garrick Theatre and My Brilliant Friend at The Rose Theatre. Lydia is also a keen portrait artist when time allows.
Rajiv Joseph‘s Broadway play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for drama, and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. Joseph’s New York productions include Guards at the Taj (Atlantic Theater Company, 2015) which was awarded the 2016 Obie award for Best New Play and the Lucille Lortel award for Outstanding Play, The North Pool (Vineyard Theater, 2013), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Stage Theatre, 2011), Animals Out of Paper (Second Stage Theatre, 2008), The Leopard and the Fox (Alter Ego, 2007), Huck & Holden (Cherry Lane Theatre, 2006), and All This Intimacy (Second Stage Theatre, 2006). Other recent plays include Mr. Wolf (South Coast Repertory, 2015), The Lake Effect (Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey, 2013) and Monster at the Door (Alley Theatre in Houston, 2011).
Rajiv wrote for the Showtime series Nurse Jackie for seasons 3 and 4 and was the co-screenwriter of the film Draft Day, starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner. He is the book-writer and co-lyricist for the musical, Fly, which premiered at the Dallas Theater Center in 2013. Jack Perla and Rajiv’s opera Shalimar the Clown, adapted from the novel by Salman Rushdie, recently had its highly anticipated world premiere at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. The Wall Street Journal called Joseph’s libretto “a remarkably succinct and faithful distillation” of Rushdie’s novel.
He received his BA in Creative Writing from Miami University and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and now lives in Brooklyn.
Soutra Gilmour is a designer. Her theatre credits include: Strictly Ballroom, Les Blancs, Evening at the Talk House (costume), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (costume), Strange Interlude, Antigone (Evening Standard Award, Best Design), Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Double Feature, Shadow of a Boy (RNT). Hecuba, Candide, The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes (RSC); The Commitments (Palace Th) From Here to Eternity (Shaftesbury); Urinetown (Apollo/St James Th); Dr Faustus,The Homecoming, The Ruling Class, Richard 111,The Pride,The Hothouse, Macbeth (Jamie Lloyd Company/Trafalgar Transformed); Merrily We Roll Along (Menier Th/ Harold Pinter), Assassins & Torchsong Trilogy (Menier Th); Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout, New York (Tony nomination Best Costume Design); The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); Reasons to be Pretty (Almeida); Inadmissible Evidence (Evening Standard Award, Best Design), Piaf (& Vaudeville/ Teatro Liceo, Buenos Aires, Olivier nomination for Best Revival), Polar Bears (Donmar); In a Forest Dark and Deep (Vaudeville);) Reasons to be Happy (Hampstead Th)The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); Three Days of Rain (Apollo); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Close the Coalhouse Door, Our Friends in the North, Ruby Moon and Son of Man (Northern Stage); The Pride (Olivier nomination, Outstanding Achievement). The Lover /The Caretaker (Olivier nomination, Best Set Design) and The Collection (Comedy); Angels in America (Lyric, Hammersmith), Baby Doll, Thérèse Raquin (Citizens Th); Bad Jazz, A Brief History of Helen of Troy (TMA nomination, Best Touring Production) (ATC); The Birthday Party, The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible/Tricycle); Bull (Sheffield Crucible/ Brits on Broadway,Young Vic); Hair (WhatsOnStage, (Time Out Live nominations), Witness ( Gate Th ); Ghost City , Arcola, New York; Into The Woods, Open Air Th/ Public Theater, NY (Olivier nomination, Best Musical Revival); When the World Was Green (Young Vic) Through the Leaves (Duchess/ Southwark Playhouse).
Dance: Jekyll & Hyde (Old Vic Th)
Opera: Recent credits include Iris (Opera Holland Park), Carmen (Opera North) Opera Shots (2011/2012 9ROH)
