I think artists like Francis Bacon, Lowry and David Hockney were perhaps the most influential in terms of how they tell story and present character, with real, honest beauty.

In terms of theatre directors, there are people whose work continually inspires me; I grew up seeing lots of plays directed by Stephen Daldry’s, which I constantly found inspiring. Katie Mitchell, whose specific style, which is very much based in the European model of character, has always thrilled me.  In terms of someone I really look up to and hope I have a career like: Matthew Warchus, who can go from new plays to classical plays, from Shakespeare to musicals adding his own style and unique vision. Then obviously Michael’s (Grandage) work on the Crucible stage was a big part of my development – I learnt a great deal from him and it has influenced me.

When presented with any play, all I want to do is read it as many times as I can and fall in love with it in a thousand different ways, before one is forced to start "directing" and making choices.

Once that honeymoon period is over, I guess the important thing with a play like this is to start to think about how the play can work physically and how this is clearly communicated to an audience. There are many different locations, and the playwright makes many demands on the director and designer, so I guess the environment in which the play exists has been the starting point with this adventure.

Also, hearing the voices of the actors is helpful. Often plays don't make such extreme demands on the leading actors, so once I knew who was playing Salieri, the title role and the girl, I felt more equipped to storyboard and invent a production, based entirely around the supremely talented actors I would be working alongside. 

The Crucible is an amazing stage, where there is no better space for an audience to experience how exhilarating live theatre is and where the actor never feels more free or uncensored.  The arena affords actors and audience an intense, deeply personal relationship second to none. The stage is like a movie camera; it offers epic, wide shots, bursting with dynamism and dramatic imagery and can just as easily cut to extreme close-up, where rich detail and intimate lives come into the foreground, the world fading into the distance. Because there is no room for gratuitous scenery, the director is forced to tell the story with the words afforded them by the playwright and spoken by the actor. Nothing more. This certainly electrifies every nerve in my soul. 

Other things making this an extra special place include the front of house staff, those who work in box office and the restaurant, who always make me smile and have so much generosity of spirit and enthusiasm to offer. Then there's the audience. So supportive, so daring and brave, who seem to have as much love for the place as I do. 

I think it is interesting working with an actor like Gerard, as he has an incredible grasp of language.  He’s very imaginative and also very intelligent, so what tends to happen is that he can over complicate the play and his relationship to the audience within the play.  I’m trying to push him towards a more simple approach to it, so when he’s talking to the audience he’s talking to them as an audience and when he goes back in time and shares with us some of his experiences he’s felt during the times he’s describing, he will take us back in a very naturalistic way to that place.  Because Gerard is so intelligent, at the moment he is trying to do something rather brilliant, but too complicated, which we can’t achieve in within the play. You could possibly achieve it in film, but not on a stage because the play is complicated enough without complicating it further, which with the greatest respect to the audience in the world, they are not going to pick up on and it’s going to confuse them and then that means that actions, activities and objectives are unspecific. 

So I’m trying to make everything as clear and as specific and as rigorous as possible, so that when Salieri is talking to the audience we know he’s talking to the audience, when he’s in a scene with a character he’s in that scene, then when he’s relating a scene to us, he then goes back in his mind to that period.   So there are three strands :  i) His relationship to the audience; ii) his relationship to the other characters when he’s in a scene and then going on from that his relationship to an experience he is having that he’s also narrating – which are versions of parts i) and ii), and iii) his relationship to God.

That is something that I was conscious of and something that we’ve actively fought to keep away from, so that yes the play is at some points Salieri’s view point, it has to be because he is saying it, but the play also ought to provide a balanced view. Otherwise the play would become boring, we would know what happened at the end before we got there, we would know it will have to finish the way Salieri wants it to finish.   If there’s not a feeling that Salieri falls out of control at times, then the play never really takes off and we never really get into the thrust of it.

What’s great about the writing, and it is quite subtle but its in there, is that Shaffer is very specific and quite detailed.  Through Salieri, Shaffer presents all of the characters in a well-reasoned way, there are subtle bits of the language that absolutely mean that it’s not though Salieri’s blinkered goggles – but it’s absolutely a well reasoned view of the characters. 

Also, we are working with very strong actors, who would never let their character be pushed into a corner by the way in which Salieri narrates the play. 

Fact matters enormously. I feel a tremendous responsibility to the characters - more-so than fictional characters - because they were real men and women, and with the actors want to ensure this is an accurate, detailed reading of their lives. Of course we will never know what they were really like, however, there is sufficient research material to form a well-balanced view. It matters what is fiction, as this is where the imagination can really fly, and one can really indulge the senses!

Fact matters enormously. I feel a tremendous responsibility to the characters - more-so than fictional characters - because they were real men and women, and with the actors want to ensure this is an accurate, detailed reading of their lives. Of course we will never know what they were really like, however, there is sufficient research material to form a well-balanced view. It matters what is fiction, as this is where the imagination can really fly, and one can really indulge the senses!

We live in an ever increasingly secular society, where religion, is generally speaking not a massive part of a lot of people’s lives. Therefore it becomes difficult when dealing with characters in plays where the whole crux of it is their relationship to God. If you are not religious or you have grown up in a culture where religion plays a big part of your life, this immediately creates my first challenge.

Shaffer’s big argument, within a lot of his plays is of course that God is dead. What Shaffer suggests is IF God did exist, he would have to exist in a human form, in the shape Mozart.   Well we all know that Mozart was not a god, but a genius and a man.  So the notion that God is up in the sky and that he is an ethereal presence, Shaffer says “no, he has to exist in the man” and therefore he’s suggesting that it isn’t that God is dead, but that in fact that there is no God. 

In terms of Salieri’s relationship with God, that is where religion stands in the play.  Salieri is born and bred Catholic; his relationship with Catholicism and what it means to believe in God are complete and absolute at the beginning of the play. 

Even though I’ve said that we exist in a secular society, religion is still important today where, only three weeks ago in Pakistan 150 people were blown up because of beliefs born out of a religious view-point.  Of course, there are a lot of wars nowadays which are born out of religious hatred or ideals, but if we are doing a play where the central thrust of it is God is dead, or doesn’t exit that immediately makes it very political and current.  If there is no God to fight for, why all of these wars? I realise this is a terribly simplistic description of some very complicated ideas, but one can see how a play has vibrations away from the literal world the playwright creates.

One would hope people leave the theatre and think about some of the issues the play quietly raises. As well as Amadeus being a celebration of art, music and a great story, but maybe the audience will consider some of the politics Sir Peter is addressing.

I don’t want to be dismissive of the play in anyway, but Shaffer is a master craftsman and understands the trickery, smoke and mirrors we can use in the theatre to create effects and tell a story.  Sometimes we felt over the rehearsal period, that when we’ve really got down to the nitty gritty, when we’ve really tried to understand the characters psychology and relationships, whether it’s in the past, present or future, they only exist in the present. 

So, although Wolfgang’s relationship with Leopold Mozart is mentioned in the past, when you scratch beneath the surface there’s not a lot of subtext or psychology to drink from (in terms of the words we are offered by the writer).  Of course, reading Mozart’s letters and history books we know that his relationship to his father was pivotal – he toured Europe with him for the most formative parts of his life and his father was an exacting, strong and powerful influence when he was growing up, (but that’s a contradiction because Mozart never grew up) as he got older and all of his life choices, whether he could marry Constanze or what opera he should write – were largely based on securing his father’s affirmation.  Within the nuggets the play gives us we are really trying to show the audience how Mozart’s relationship with that father figure would work. 

Of course, what Shaffer does brilliantly, is to show through Mozart’s operas, the father figures are very potent: to begin with in Don Giovanni the father figure was a brutal, destructive force, and by the time he (Mozart) gets to The Magic Flute, the father figure is something that is forgiving and offers love.  So through his art, Mozart was able to reconcile his relationship with his father.  One hopes when Mozart died in that horrible hovel, he died in peace knowing that relationship had been resolved.

For Brian (Dick) it’s exciting, because although the play presents a study of an artist, it is also about a father / son relationship.  All the way through the play, Mozart’s relationships with Salieri, Van Swieten, Von Strack and the Emperor, all offer different aspects of a father-son relationship, in different stages of development.  There is some indication, I think, that if you melted all those characters together you would get Leopold Mozart.

I initially trained as an actor at Drama Centre London. It was during my training I saw an advert for the Channel Four Theatre Director's Scheme. I applied, and was successful and worked at the Theatres for three years.

I first came to Sheffield during a remarkable period in the Theatres' development. Working alongside Michael, Grahame (Morris) and the exceptionally gifted technical team here, I learnt my craft and began to understand what regional theatre is all about. Personally therefore, it is a place I will be forever grateful to.

During my time at the Crucible as Resident Director, I did just about everything. I was determined to learn about every aspect of theatre and knew there was no better place to drink in all of this information. My main role was assisting guest directors and did just about every other job in the theatre, from working with the Marketing Department to joining the crew, helping with get-outs and building sets, which is where I learnt the most and had the most fun!