Director Michael Oakley is a recipient of the JMK Award for Young Directors for which he directed Edward II at BAC. In 2014 he directed Rachael Stirling in Terence Rattigan’s Variation On A Theme at the Finborough Theatre and As You Like It for the Oxford Shakespeare Company. In 2012 he was Co-Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre’s pop-up space Theatre on the Fly. Other directing credits include April de Angelis’ Playhouse Creatures (Chichester Festival Theatre), Dido Queen of Carthage (Marlowe Society, Cambridge), The Changeling (Southwark Playhouse), Shooting Truth (NT Connections) and Graceland (The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices). Associate Direction includes The Pajama Game (West End), Relative Values (Theatre Royal Bath and West End), Kiss Me Kate (The Old Vic), The King’s Speech (West End and UK tour), Taken at Midnight, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End). Assistant Direction includes Inherit The Wind (The Old Vic), A Month in the Country, The Critic and The Real Inspector Hound, Oklahoma!, Cyrano de Bergerac (Chichester Festival Theatre), tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ! (Bush Theatre) and Much Ado About Nothing (Globe Education).
“Michael Oakley’s production is compelling” The Times on Variation On A Theme
“Marvellously entertaining and stylishly directed by Michael Oakley, in sum one of those evenings when theatre is more alive than life” Five Stars, The Daily Telegraph on Playhouse Creatures
“A sure gift for racy, pacey storytelling that bodes well for the future and his classical career; a young director who already knows that it is telling the story that really counts” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, on Edward II