CASTING: CINDERELLA

Jacquelin Barrett is a ballet teacher, coach, ballet mistress, and stager who has also been assistant to Christopher Wheeldon since 2009. Barrett trained at The Royal Ballet School and danced soloist and principal roles with London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet). She has worked as a ballet mistress for Central School of Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre, and English National Ballet. In demand as a teacher internationally, she taught at The Royal Ballet School from 1997 to 2008 and has worked as a guest teacher at Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, The National Ballet of Canada, and in Australia and Japan. Barrett has staged Wheeldon’s work for companies around the world, including The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, and Dutch National Ballet. She was associate director of the Broadway production of An American in Paris. 

Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. Lucas has written the plays Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Prayer for My Enemy, The Singing Forest, Ode to Joy and I Was Most Alive with You. He has written the screenplays for Longtime Companion, The Secret Lives of Dentists, Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, and The Dying Gaul. Lucas has written the libretti for The Light in the Piazza, 3 Postcards, Sousatzka, Two Boys, Orpheus in Love, and Amélie. He has directed the world premiere of The Light in the Piazza, This Thing of Darkness, Saved or Destroyed, Play Yourself, Ode to Joy, and the films The Dying Gaul and Birds of America. He has been awarded the NY Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay, a Sundance Audience Award, the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and three Obie awards. 

Julian Crouch is a director, designer, writer, special effects creator, and teacher of theater, opera, film, and television. Originally a mask and puppet maker, Crouch began designing for theater in the late 1980s. Crouch co-created, co-directed, and designed the award-winning Shockheaded Peter. He began an ongoing partnership with Phelim McDermott in 1992 and in 1996 co-founded Improbable Theatre, whose productions have achieved international recognition. He has designed and created operas for the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Lausanne Opera, Staatsoper in Berlin, and the Salzburg Festival, among others. He designed A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum for the National Theatre and, on Broadway, Crouch has designed Hedwig and The Angry Inch, Big Fish the Musical, and The Addams Family. Crouch collaborated with Christopher Wheeldon on The Nutcracker for The Joffrey Ballet in 2016. He has illustrated two books: Maggot Moon and Jedermann. 

Natasha Katz is a Tony Award–winning lighting designer for Broadway, ballet, opera, and film. Born in New York City, Katz studied at Oberlin College. She has collaborated with Christopher Wheeldon on his ballets The Winter’s Tale, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Tryst for The Royal Ballet; Continuum© for San Francisco Ballet; and Carnival of the Animals and An American in Paris for New York City Ballet. She has also designed lighting for American Ballet Theatre and The National Ballet of Canada. Katz has designed lighting for more than 50 Broadway productions, winning Tony Awards for her work on Long Day’s Journey Into Night, An American in Paris, The Glass Menagerie, Once, The Coast of Utopia: Salvage, and Aida. Her lighting designs are featured at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Rio casino in Las Vegas, and Niketown in New York City and London. 

Cinderella earned puppeteer Basil Twist, a San Francisco native, a 2013 Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie) for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design. Twist’s other hometown credits include the award-winning Symphonie Fantastique (Zeum), The Araneidae Show (Theatre of Yugen), Wonderboy with The Joe Goode Dance Company, and Purple Haze with The Kronos Quartet at City Hall. In dance, he has collaborated with Christopher Wheeldon on The Winter’s Tale for The Royal Ballet and The Nutcracker for The Joffrey Ballet, Dorothy and the Prince of Oz, a Tulsa Ballet and BalletMet collaboration with Edwaard Liang, Darkness and Light with Pilobolus, and Underground River with Jane Comfort & Company. Broadway credits include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oh Hello, and The Addams Family, for which he won a Drama Desk Award. Twist has received a MacArthur “genius” grant and most recently the Rome Prize. Other recognitions include an Obie, five UNIMA Awards, two Bessie Awards, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Henry Hewes Award, a Guggenheim, a USA Artists fellowship, and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. Twist serves as Artistic Director of HERE ’s Dream Music Puppetry Program in New York City. 

A freelance projection designer and multimedia artist specializing in theatre, dance, film and live music, Brodie has designed projections for Broadway productions including Motown the Musical, Jekyll & Hyde, and Disney’s Aladdin. His imaginative and concept-driven visuals have seen him become a go-to designer for some of the biggest names in entertainment, including Disney, Kanye West and Mariah Carey. Daniel has also designed for Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale, and worked numerous times with award-winning puppeteer Basil Twist. Daniel is a recipient of the United States Institute of Theatre Technology’s Rising Star Award (2011).

Frank McCullough (Associate Scenic Designer) has also worked with Wheeldon and Crouch on The Joffrey Ballet's Nutcracker, and with Wheeldon on An American in Paris on Broadway, London, Paris, Tokyo, and its tours. He has been Crouch's scenic associate on the Broadway productions of The Addams Family, Big Fish, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Head Over Heels... and Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors. Some of McCullough’s other Broadway credits include Book of Mormon, War Horse, Once, Coast of Utopia, and Disney's Frozen. McCullough is originally from Evansville, IN and trained at Webster University in St. Louis.