Melly Still: Director The vision for Beasts and Beauties came from director and designer Melly Still, who, when reading the stories on the page, was able to imagine how they might be translated into dramatic action on the stage. As director, Melly says that her role is to help actors make the right choices both for themselves and for the overall coherence of the eventual performance. Melly believed that these ancient tales were part of a cultural heritage that had stood the test of time; these stories worked, and could be trusted to do so again without the need for over-ambitious adaptation or elaboration. Melly Still has an unusual set of skills: in addition to directing she also designs sets and costumes and adapts stories for the stage. To design the set and costumes, Melly had to have a clear visual sense of what she wanted, and to create an overarching style for the performance as a whole that was both practical and affordable. For the costumes, she made her choices not only in order to suggest key things about the characters who wear them, but also to enable the actors to move quickly between the different characters they play in the eight stories. She also went for simplicity when designing the set, and says that rereading the text helped her get back to the dramatic core of the stories and make sure that during rehearsals, the staging didn't become too elaborate. | 
