Julian Crouch
Julian Crouch is a director, designer, writer, and teacher whose career has spanned Theatre, Opera, Film, and Television.  Initially a mask and puppet maker, Couch designed Chivari for Trickster Theatre Company, a company he toured the world with in 1985 and 1986.  In the following years, Julian specialized in site specific design including seventeen productions for Welfare State International.  In 1992, he began a successful creative partnership with Phelim McDermott, for whom he designed Dr. Faustus, Improbable Tales, The Servant of Two Masters, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which earned him a TMA nomination for Best Designer of the Year).  They also co-directed and designed The Quest for Don Quixote which received a Best Director Nomination in the London Fringe Awards and A Midsummer Night's Dream (TMA Best Touring Productions Award) for the English Shakespeare Company.  Along with Lee Simpson, Crouch and McDermott formed their own company, Improbable Theatre in 1996.  Their productions of Animo, 70 Hill Lane, Lifegame, Coma, Spirit, Sticky, and Angela Carter's Cinderella have gained far-reaching national and international recognition, winning several major awards.  Crouch and McDermott's most enduring collaboration to date has been Shockheaded Peter for Cultural Industry (Olivier Awards - Best Entertainment, also nominated for Best Direction and Best Design, TMA Best Director Award, Critics Society Best Designer Award and a South Bank Show Theatre Award Nomination).  This production, based on the Struwwelpeter book, has returned to the West End after four years of record breaking international touring.  In 2000 they produced a German version, Struwwelpeter, for the Deutches Shauspielhaus, Hamburg.  They returned in 2002 to mount Ein Sommernachstraum.  In 2000 Crouch collaborated with Ballinese puppeteers and musicians in The Theft of Sita for the Adelaide Festival, which appeared in London as part of Lift and at BAM as part of 2001 Next Wave.  Most recently Julian designed Tiny Dynamite for Paines Plough and Frantic Assembly.