EOIN COLFER
Best-selling Irish author Eoin Colfer is internationally recognized for his Artemis Fowl series of books and graphic novels.
He attained worldwide recognition in 2001, when the first Artemis Fowl book was published and became a New York Times Best Seller, as did the sequels. Among his other popular works are Half Moon Investigations, The Wish List, The Supernaturalist, and a series of Eoin Colfer’s Legends. In January 2008, Colfer published a book titled Airman, another best-seller. His latest novel, Warp The Reluctant Assassin has been nominated for the CBI Book of the Year.
Director Kenneth Branagh will direct the film adaptation of the first two in the series for Disney in August 2019. The movie will star Judy Dench and Josh Gad.
In April 2016, Eoin teamed with Marvel to release to create the latest Iron Man novel, The Gauntlet
In 2009 Colfer was chosen to write the sixth installment of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy”, by the author’s wife, Jane Belson.
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Doctor Who series, the BBC commissioned Eoin to write an eBook in 2013.
A former schoolteacher, Eoin Colfer lives in Wexford, Ireland with his wife, Jackie, and two children, Séan and Finn.
Eoin is a laureate for children’s literature in Ireland.
LIAM BATES
Liam Bates is Irish composer, orchestrator and conductor. Based in Wexford, Liam works internationally and has studios in Ireland and London. Renowned for his elegant brush strokes of orchestral colour he has quickly gained a reputation as an innovative and highly sought after composer.
As a composer for film, productions include Last Passenger directed by Omid Nooshin (starring Dougray Scott) for NDF, Future Films and Pathé and Earthbound directed by Alan Brennan starring Rafe Spall and David Morrissey. Songs he has produced include those for the romantic comedy Leap Year (starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode) directed by Anand Tucker.
Liam studied composition with Giles Swayne and Susan Bradshaw. He won the John McCabe prize for his composition Seven Last Words and a Promax World Gold Award for his orchestral work Part of Life. Liam went on to study conducting with Norman Del Mar and Austrian born conductor Albert Rosen and in 1993 he took up a six month position as conductor of the Teatrul National Opereta, Bucharest. During this period he was a regular guest conductor with the Bucharest State Opera Orchestra.
In the concert hall, recent commissioned works include Automaton, performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra at the National Concert Hall, Dublin and the Lincoln Centre in New York and Psalm, performed in the Vatican this October. In September 2012, Liam was commissioned to write a new work for Irish ballet dancer and choreographer, Monica Loughman.
He is regularly engaged as a conductor both in the concert hall and in the recording studio, having worked with Pete Townsend, Nancy Gustavson, Luciano Pavarotti, Meat Loaf and Bryan Adams and as well as other film composers.
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SAM SCALAMONI - DIRECTOR
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Mr. Scalamoni is a freelance New York based director of theatre across the US and world wide. He is the director of the critically acclaimed National Tours of Elf the Musical which launches its 10th and 11th company this year with two tours crossing the US in 2017, one playing The Theatre at Madison Square Garden in December! Currently in development is a new musical, 1000 Faces, based on the life of film legend Lon Chaney, Unbelievable, based on baseball legend Jackie Mitchell and a stage adaptation of the MGM musical Summer Stock.
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Most recently he directed Disney’s Beauty and the Beast for the Ogunquit Playhouse. Mr. Scalamoni served as the Associate Director of the most recent National and International Tours of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast which he also supervised on Broadway and mounted multiple companies world wide. He also directed Les Miserables winning the SALT Award for Best Director of a Musical and Best Musical of the Year and Agatha Christie’s An Unexpected Guest, winning the Broadway World Award for Best Director of a Play both at Cortland Repertory Theatre. Other tours directed; Nickelodeon’s Storytime Live! which broke box office records at Radio City Music Hall and the National Tour of The Gazillion Bubble Show.
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Mr. Scalamoni’s direction of original works include the two original incarnations of Alan Menken’s Broadway musical Leap of Faith in workshop, the original development workshop of Mulan Jr. for Disney Theatrical Productions, a workshop presentation of Sense and Sensibility at Playwrights Horizons, workshops of the musical At the Back of the North Wind at the the National Arts Club and The Village Theatre, a workshop of The New Picasso at New World Stages, Treaty 321! at the Lucille Lortel, and Fidelity Futurestageat New World Stages for Richard Frankel Productions. He currently serves as the Artistic Director of Skyline Theatre Company, a professional non-profit theatre company in New Jersey.
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