John Caird was born in Edmonton, Canada, in 1948 and educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. John is a freelance theatre director who was first an Associate Director of the Contact Theatre, Manchester, before moving on to the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was an Associate Director for twelve years and is now an Honorary Associate Director. John’s numerous productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company include A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, AS YOU LIKE IT, TWELFTH NIGHT, ROMEO AND JULIET, and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, and classic plays by such writers as George Bernard Shaw and Ben Jonson, as well as many premieres of new work. Together with Trevor Nunn, John directed the first production of PETER PAN, at the Barbican Theatre in 1982 (and two subsequent revivals), and then NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, which played on Broadway in 1981 and 1986 and in Los Angeles in 1986 (it was also produced for television in 1984) and for which they won the Tony Award for Best Director. They won the same award in 1987 for their production of LES MISERABLES, which has played to audiences all over the world including Japan, Australia, France, Canada, Israel, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Holland, Hungary, and the United States. In the West End, John directed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s SONG AND DANCE, which ran for two years at the Palace Theatre and the musical CHILDREN OF EDEN, which played at the Prince Edward Theatre and which he co-wrote with Stephen Schwartz. In 1989 John wrote and directed a show in Las Vegas with the internationally renowned illusionists Siegfried and Roy. In 1984 he directed AS YOU LIKE IT in Stockholm, Sweden, both at the Klarateatern and for Swedish television, and in 1991 directed ZAIDE by Mozart at Batignano in Italy. John also directed TRELAWNY OF THE WELLS at the National Theatre.