David Brandon

Born "David Cain Haughton" in Cork, Ireland. After graduating from Cambridge he worked in London with a theatre group he had formed at university. In late 1973 he began to take part in Lindsay Kemp's classes at London's Dance Centre, and within a few months became part of the cast of the first London performance of "Flowers", at the Bush Theatre, where he played the Archangel Gabriel. He thus joined Kemp and his company just at the point where, over a few months, the sudden flight upwards to success began. As the Company began its international touring he also increasingly started to collaborate with Kemp on company organisation and artistic direction. For 10 years he continued full-time collaboration, performing in all productions and also working with Kemp on the conception, dramaturgy and direction of all new shows, and on the running of the company. He was at various time Kemp's collaborator and companion, a performer, director's assistant, dramaturge and writer, Co-Director and organizer of the Lindsay Kemp Company. Since 2002, he has been responsible for the lighting design of all Kemp's projects. From 1982 - although always returning to collaborate on all Kemp's new productions, including those not involving the Kemp Company (e.g. dance or opera productions) - he began also working on his own projects, settling in Paris (where he worked for a time with Maguy Marin) and in Rome. In Italy, he established himself as a film actor, avoiding problems with his complicated surname by adopting the stage name David Brandon. Under this name, from 1982 until today he has appeared in leading or supporting roles in roughly 100 Italian or international films. At the same time, he began directing, designing and lighting Italian theatre productions... among them, three adaptations of Shakespeare for the Viterbo Festival; versions of The Bacchae, Waiting for Godot and his own text, Rehearsing Freedom, all with inmates of Rome's Rebibbia prison; three prize-winning plays written by Maurizio Donadoni; and four musicals adapted and directed for Rome's Teatro Nazionale, produced by the Teatro dell'Opera. In 2012, for the theatres of Livorno, Pisa and Lucca, he directed the Brecht-Weill Threepenny Opera. He also has worked and still works frequently as a voice artist, dubbing or voice-overing, and as a writer; publishing two books of poetry, two librettos for contemporary operas composed by Maurizio Squillante, two books on the life and art of Lindsay Kemp and abundant communication material on Kemp and his creations. He is also a prolific translator.