Hamlet

Kevin Hopkins (Claudius)
Kevin has worked in the industry for over 30 years mainly as an actor and director, and also as a teacher. He has performed in all states of Australia and internationally, and has been an ensemble member of the Australian Shakespeare company for almost 20 years. He has appeared in over 60 productions, predominantly in Shakespeare. As an acting teacher Kevin has previously focused on traditional Western acting methodologies, including Stanislavski, Method, Meisner, Laban, Michael Chekhov and others, but more recently has been interested in alternative forms. The relationship between the body and space, and the organics of form through training and preparation, pursuing an opportunity to actualize a non-psychologically based acing paradigm through the body. Kevin has trained in Shin Bu Kai Karate Do, and holds a second Dan black belt in that style.

Claire Nicholls (Polonius)
Claire is an Australian actor, director and educator specialising in Shakespeare. Between 2005 – 2011 Claire worked and trained with physical theatre company, Liminal Theatre and Performance, performing locally and internationally in several productions, the most notable of which being Oedipus: A Poetic Requiem, which won the 2008 Melbourne Greenroom Award for best independent production. In 2010 Claire relocated to Hong Kong to work with Theater Du Pif on their touring verbatim piece, The Will To Build. From 2011 – 2020 Claire has worked as an actor and educator with the Australian Shakespeare Company, playing roles in numerous productions including Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Henry IV Part 1, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Alice in Wonderland. She has conducted hundreds of in-school performances throughout Australia over the past nine years and been instrumental in the management and direction of the ASC’s Graduate Players program, which has toured shows to the Prague Fringe Festival over the past seven years. Claire assisted ASC colleague, Kevin Hopkins in the direction of King Lear, Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus as part of the Summer Shakespeare Intensive for Prague Shakespeare Company since 2019. 

Dmitry Toryanovsky (Director)
Director Dmitry Troyanovsky stages productions, teaches, leads workshops, and develops new theatrical material at national and international institutions such as Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center (China), American Repertory Theatre, Opera Idaho, Bard Music Festival, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Shanghai Theatre Academy, Moscow Art Theatre School, and 92 Street Y in New York.  A refugee from the former Soviet Union (now Ukraine), Dmitry’s brings an outsider experience to his work. He is an MFA graduate of the American Repertory Theatre Institute for the Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.  Dmitry teaches in the Department of Theater Arts at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.