Woolford is currently Head of Musical Theatre at Guildford School of Acting. He was Head of Postgraduate Musical Theatre from 2012 - 2016.
Sevenoaks Playhouse
Woolford was artistic director at Sevenoaks Playhouse, the Global Search for New Musicals at the International Festival of Musical Theatre, and associate director of the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch. As artistic director of the Sevenoaks Playhouse he directed Vita & Virginia, The Railway Children, Wallflowering, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Wind in the Willows and Jeffrey Hatcher's version of The Turn of the Screw. During Woolford's tenure Sevenoaks Playhouse won an award of £100,000 from the Arts Council and the 2006 Best Of Business Award for Best Marketing Campaign.
Director
In 2015 Woolford became the first person to direct a commercial musical in Egypt when he staged The Sound Of Music in a 2,000-seater tent in the desert outside Cairo, with a West End cast. Julian Woolford directed the national tour of Oklahoma! which toured the UK in 2010. In 2009 he wrote and directed Liberace Live From Heaven at Leicester Square Theatre, directed Two Pianos, Four Hands and I Do! I Do! at Vienna's English Theatre and Ben Travers's play The Bed Before Yesterday at the Mill at Sonning. Woolford reset the time-frame of I Do! I Do! and Bed Before Yesterday: I Do! I Do! was moved from spanning from 1900 to 1950 to being set between 1950 and 2000, and The Bed Before Yesterday was set in 1966 rather than the 1930 of Travers' original script. In 2008 he directed a revival of his 2003 production of Fiddler On The Roof, this time starring Joe McGann as Tevye, and he directed the premiere of Deadly Game at Vienna's English Theatre. In 2007, he directed the UK National Tour of South Pacific. In 2006, he directed the UK premiere of The Musical of Musicals, at the King's Head Theatre and Sound Theatre, London. He directed the 2003 British national tours of Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel and Murdered to Death and his productions at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch include Turn of the Screw, Dames at Sea, The Sound of Music, The Fifteen Streets, Who's Under Where? and The Underworld Project. Other productions include The Oedipus Complex and Oedipus Rex ; and The Comedy of Errors.
Writer
Woolford has written a number of musicals and plays. He was commissioned by the Estate of Lionel Bart to write a new book for the musical Twang!! which is licensed through MTI His stage adaptation of "" toured the Netherlands in 2015 -6 He wrote 'Liberace Live From Heaven for pianist Bobby Crush which had voice-over roles performed by Stephen Fry and Victoria Wood and played at the Leicester Square Theatre, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and toured New Zealand. Woolford writes book and lyrics to music by Richard John. Their musical The Teddy Bears' Picnic toured the UK in 2017. Their musical versions of Wind in the Willows and The Railway Children which were both produced in highly successful productions at Sevenoaks Playhouse. The Railway Children is published by Samuel French and has been produced many times by community theatre companies in the UK and has also been produced in Bermuda. His 10-minute musical Terminal Four Play was commissioned by Theatre 503 as part of their Urban Scrawl project. Their musical "Comrade Rockstar" based do the life of Dean Reed was produced in concert at GSA in 2015.
Awards
He is also a winner of the Stage One Award for new producers and produced the 2009 national tour of Totally Looped.
