Victor Kazan (Book & Lyrics)
Victor has worked in the entertainment industry for more than fifty years – in theatre, radio, film and television.
Born and educated in London, he studied Romance Languages at university before training at the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. After gaining acting experience in repertory companies in York, Sheffield and Exeter, he turned to directing and was soon being hired by commercial producers. Over the next decade he travelled extensively in the UK, Europe, Canada, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, directing a wide variety of productions – from the hit comedy Two and Two Make Sex to the popular thriller Deathtrap; from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author – and it was during this period that he began his screenwriting career.
Musical Theatre has played a major part in Victor’s life ever since 1955, when as a young lad he was cast in the role of Little Jake in an amateur production of Annie Get Your Gun. Just twenty years later he would write the lyrics for his first musical A Little Bit of Fluff.
His film and TV writing credits include Requiem for a Wren, Smithy Revisited, The Madness That Was Kolberg, Stoker’s Boat, Hit the Ground Running and Dalkeith, which screened at the London Film Festival. For the theatre, he penned the revue Rome & All That Jazz and, most recently, the trilogy A Question of Identity.
Kazan & Purcell’s other musicals include, Rebecca (based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier) and The Stranger from Seville (Based on the novel, The Mapmaker’s Opera by Béa Gonzalez).