David Sulkin


David Charles Chester Sulkin OBE is an English theatre and opera director and currently Director of Artist Development at the National Opera Studio.. In 2017 Sulkin is the recipient of a Finzi Scholarship to work in Brno, Czech Republic to complete work on his new play about Leoš Janáček and the composer’s relationship with his wife and other women: 'My Life with Janáček'.

Biography

Sulkin is the younger son of Emmanuel and Dorothy Sulkin. He was born and grew up in Worthing, West Sussex and decided to be an actor at the age of 8 when he saw his first professionally performed play. His grandparents on his father's side were Jewish immigrants from Poland arriving in London in 1904.
Sulkin studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at Rose Bruford College, and graduated in 1973. Since then he has worked as an actor, theatre and opera director and producer. He has taught at RADA, RBC and the Royal College of Music. He has held executive roles in two music charities – National Foundation for Youth Music and Help Musicians UK. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for his work in the arts, education and charity.

Early career

1975 – 1984: Actor, director, workshop leader and community activist

Sulkin was co-founder of the Hoxton Theatre Trust where he was a resident actor, director, workshop leader and community activist. In 1980, he became director of the Young People's Theatre and the Young Writers' Festival at the Royal Court Theatre working with Max Stafford-Clark. While at the Royal Court, Sulkin received an Anglo-Soviet Study Scholarship to investigate the impact of the long-established national network of Theatres of the Young Spectator across Russia . He helped start the International Festival of Young Playwrights in Australia and was the founder of the Baylis Programme at English National Opera working with the international opera director, David Pountney .

1986 – 1997: Opera Director

In 1987, the Baylis Programme commissioned him to write and direct Gretel and Hansel, an opera by Alec Roth for young people to perform based on the opera Hansel and Gretel by Englebert Humperdinck on a story by the Brothers Grimm. While at ENO Sulkin began working extensively in the Czech Republic and became associate director of Janáčkovy Hukvaldy – the Janáček Festival where he directed Janáček's Liška Bystrouška, Benjamin Britten's Archa Noemova in collaboration with the Britten Pears Foundation, Zakladní škola, Hukvaldy and the Department of Alternative Theatre and Puppetry at DAMU, Prague. He later produced Hans Krasa's opera Brundibar. He worked at the National Theatre of Prague directing Ilja Hurník's opera Dama i Lupiči based on the Ealing comedy of 1955, The Ladykillers. He also directed Pozvání pana sloana at the Činoherni Studio, Ustí nad Labem. In 2006 Sulkin directed Dame Ethel Smyth's opera The Wreckers at the Hall for Cornwall.

Later career

In 1999, Sulkin became the director of policy and programmes at the National Foundation for Youth Music promoting young people who would not normally have access to music training. Genres included, among many, rock, jazz, hip-hop, folk, and classical music. In 2008 Sulkin was invited to become executive director of Help Musicians UK, which provides a wide range of services for musicians, helps talented young artists get a foot on the ladder of success. He oversaw the charity change its name to Help Musicians in 2014. He continues to maintain his acting, directing and writing work.

Personal interests

Sulkin speaks Russian and Czech. His personal interests include cookery and especially bread-making; motorcycling and the gramophone.
Voluntary roles. Sulkin has held numerous voluntary roles, which have included being a governor and chair of the Cripplegate Foundation, a trustee of the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, a trustee of the Association of Charitable Organisations, a trustee of Nuance Music, trustee and chair of the Hastings and East Sussex Creative Partnership and a trustee of Theatre Centre. He is chair of the New London Children's Choir and chair of governors of Clerkenwell Parochial C of E Primary School in London.

Publications

Sulkin edited two collections of plays by young writers as part of the Royal Court Young People's Theatre. Entitled Young Writers and Primary Sauce, they were plays mainly by primary school children.
As the result of an Anglo Soviet Scholarship, he wrote a report called Young People's Theatre in the Soviet Union. An abstract was published in Drama – The Quarterly Theatre Review under the title Russian Youth Theatre. Times Educational Supplement also published Sulkin's article entitled Art of the State.
Amongst his publications are New Old – Thirty Thousand Years of Experience with Katrina Duncan. This was a research project and report which makes recommendations about how artists might develop their careers after the age of 50 and what people who have had other working lives, but have creative urges, do to become fulfilled artists after 50. This report was published by SEA and funded by the De Hahn family .
In 2000, Sulkin contributed to Reflections on the Rose Bruford College by Robert Ely, and using his pseudonym, Dave Chester, he wrote a short story, Immigrant, published in a collection of stories called Rough Stuff. . The editors were Simon Sheppard and M. Christian.
In 2012, Sulkin edited a facsimile edition of the 1927 book The New River Head by G F Stringer, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Amwell Society. An article in the Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society Summer 2012 Vol 2, No 2 describe the preservation of the New River Head site.
Sulkin contributed a section entitled Salomon Gruschka and candles to Traces of Jewish Presence in Prague 2 by Martin Šmok and a team of authors published by the City of Prague 2 in 2015.