NINA WESTER
ARTISTIC LEADER
Nina Wester is a trained director and playwright from the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm. She has been theatre director at Hålogaland Teater (2013-2016) and has extensive experience with a number of large theatre productions in both Sweden and Norway, including at Den Nationale Scene, Dramaten, Stockholms Statsteater, Riksteatern and Turnéteateret in Trøndelag.
After her time as a theatre director, she has again worked as a freelancer, including directing Mattias Andersson's Openberringa for the Norwegian Theatre (2019) and the musical Cabaret for The National Stage (2020).
Wester has won several awards, including Hedda of the Year in 2022 together with Rimfrost productions for the performance Develop Senior. She was also nominated in the categories of best script and best direction during the Hedda Prize 2023 for the performance IDIOT! which she wrote and directed at Turneteatret. She is originally from Otterøya, but lives in Oslo.
INGRID FORTHUN
DIRECTOR
Ingrid Forthun was born in 1963, and is a director as well as a lecturer on subjects related to the fields of directing, acting technique, dramaturgy and leadership, as well as subjects related to creativity and creative processes. She is a trained director from Statens Teaterhøgskole 1995-98 and is otherwise trained as a teacher and musician with a master's in music from UiO.
Forthun has directed at, among others, the National Theatre, the Norwegian Theatre, the National Scene, Rogaland Theatre, Hålogaland Theatre, Theater Ibsen, Hedmark Theatre, the Opera in Kristiansund, Agder Theatre/Kilden Theater and Kilden Opera. She has directed both theater and opera performances. She has, among other things, directed Et dukkehjem -15 years after, Hedda Gabler, Tonje Glimmerdal, Tosca and La Boheme.
For NRK Radioteatret, she has directed four productions, three of which have won international awards. In 2009, Forthun received NRK Radioteater's honorary award Blue bird for the performance Hawk and dove.
Forthun worked as theater director at Kilden theater and concert hall from 2009-2014 and as project manager/artistic director for the development of the IBSEN Museum & Theater in Oslo 2020-2023.
She has taught for a number of years at the State Theater College, the acting school (KHiO) and the Norwegian Academy of Music, and for 5 years was the artistic director of the Norwegian Council of Cultural Schools' Creative Growing Up Environment projects (KOM).
THOROD WIGUM
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Torod Wigum was born in Trondheim in 1970, and he conducted at Stiklestad for the first time last year. In addition to being the musical director of "The Play of Saint Olav", he is currently artistic advisor to the Ringsaker Opera.
After studying at the Trøndelag Conservatory of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Music, he was employed as a solo violist in the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and a central member of the Trondheim Soloists for many years, before he followed his dream and devoted himself fully to conducting.
In the years 2007-2009, Wigum was assistant conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, an arrangement that was the first of its kind in Norway, and in the period 2010-2016 he served as house conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. In the years 2016-2024, he was chief conductor of NUSO, the Norwegian Youth Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to regularly conducting the Norwegian symphony orchestras and defense corps, Wigum has also conducted more and more opera in recent years. He has conducted opera productions at the Funen Opera in Denmark, at the Ringsaker Opera, at the Opera in Kristiansund, with Opera Trøndelag at Steinvikholmen and Stjørdal and Henning Sommerro's opera "Querini" at Røst in Lofoten. In the fall of 2025 he will conduct Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" at the Ringsaker Opera and in 2027 he will again be a guest at the Opera in Kristiansund during the Opera Festival.
Wigum also has a growing international career, and in recent years he has guest-conducted, among others, the Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Estonian National Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Sonderjylland Symphony Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic and the MDR Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig.
Cina Espejord
CHOREOGRAPHER
Cina Espejord is educated at the Norwegian Opera's Ballet School and the Ballettschule des Hamburg Ballett. She has worked as a dancer in the Norwegian National Ballet from 2003-2025.
As a choreographer, she has also created many works for the Norwegian National Ballet, including Critics' Award nominees. Over the Head Under the Skin (2014) and How Did I Get Where (2019). Espejord also received the Critics' Award for his choreography in Ghosts – Ibsen's Regulars in 2015. Espejord has also created several works for the National Ballet Young and she has worked with children and young people through projects such as On tiptoe og Dance foot.
In 2017 she directed and choreographed the performance The Music Factory at the Oslo Concert Hall with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra which was further developed into an experience in the Hunderfossen family park in 2023. The Music Factory at Hunderfossen won a Thea Award (2024) for best attraction.
This fall she will be performing in the show A Tale of Swan Lake which is danced by the National Ballet both at the Opera and on tour in several cities in Norway.