Claire van Kampen

Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance (3 November 1953 – 18 January 2025) was an English director, composer, and playwright. She was the founding director of music at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from 1997 to 2015, first as assistant to her husband, actor and director Mark Rylance, then with his successor, Dominic Dromgoole, often creating "period" music for Shakespeare's plays. Van Kampen composed music for productions in both London's West End theatres and on New York City's Broadway which often starred her husband, covering a wide range of repertoire from Helen by Euripides to contemporary plays such as Nice Fish. She also worked as musical director and stage director for some of them. She ventured into composing music for a film, Nights and Days, advising and arranging music for the Wolf Hall television series of the BBC, and composing a ballet for the New York Theatre Ballet. She wrote a play, Farinelli and the King, which was successfully performed both in London and on Broadway.