About

Conrad Murray is an award winning (OFFIE Award, Pick of The Fringe, The Arts Foundation Nominee, Fringe First) theatre-maker, writer, director, actor, performer, rapper, beatboxer, live looper and singer. Raised in Mitcham, South-West London, he is passionate about making work through hip hop and beatbox theatre. . Within his work, he has used his Anglo Indian working class heritage to address issues such as class , race and heritage.

He is the founder and Artistic Director of the BAC Beatbox Academy

and theatre company Beats & Elements.

He is Director and writor of the ***** Off West End Award winning hit show

‘Pied Piper- Hip hop musical’. After sold out run at Battersea Arts Centre, a Christmas run at the Gulbenkian, the show is heading towards the Belgrade, to central London’s Iconic Southbank Centre, and is building a larger national and international tour.

He was recently Co-director and writer of Romeo & Juliet at the Polka theatre, Published by Methuen Drama. It has been nominated for four Off West Awards- Writing, Music, Performance and Production.

He is the founder and Artistic Director of the BAC Beatbox Academy - which has resident at the Battersea Arts Centre. since 2008.

In 2023 he was Musical director and composer/ lyricist for Michael Rosen’s Unexpected Twist working alongside Roy Williams , James Dacre & Yaya Bey touring to 15 venues. The play text published in 2023 on Methuen.

He authored his first two books in 2022 - a book on Hip Hop theatre titled ‘Making Hip hop Theatre ‘ , And a trilogy of his plays ‘Beats & Elements - A hip hop theatre trilogy’ with Katie Beswick for Methuen Drama /Bloomsbury.

He was listed as one of the Top 100 in The Stage newspaper’s annual industry list, as well as being part of The Observer’s top ten theatre shows of the year 2020 with Pilot Theatre’s Crongton Knights, where he was musical director and composer.

He has a passion for theatre and is a qualified secondary school teacher with QTS, and has taught Drama from Primary to BTEC , A level and degree level.

He believes collaboration is a craft, and his first full ensemble production had it’s first professional run in 2006, and consisted of 10 people from many diverse backgrounds, including Chinese, Indian and Caribbean. Collaborating with , and creating platforms for artists that would not usually be given the opportunity is part of his practice. This has led to lots of ensemble work and experimenting with new forms and voices.

Since 2003 he has been pioneering new forms of theatre, experimenting with hip hop culture and theatre. He's been writing and performing regularly around the UK at venues and events such as; Battersea Arts Centre, Tate Britain, Roundhouse, Camden People’s Theatre, Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, The Lowry, Jazz Cafe, Latitude, WOMAD, Gloucester Guild Hall and the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as having his music showcased on the BBC Asian Network. He has written and performed in Denmarked as well as co-writing and performing in the critically acclaimed No Milk For The Foxes (Beats&Elements, 2015).

As the artistic director, he has led the BAC Beatbox Academy since 2008. He has developed a musical and theatrical devising practice to create new forms of performance and theatre. The beatbox academy have created many different theatre productions over the years. (The First Instrument, Home, Rave,) finally leading to creating a Battersea Arts Centre production in 2016, starting off with a devising process, going through loads of different iterations and ideas , leading to the 5 star rated (Observer, The Stage) Frankenstein, which won an Offie (Off West End Award) sold out the Traverse theatre at the Edinburgh Festival 2019, and was rated no.1 reviewed show in The List (official list of top shows the Edinburgh festival) and won the Total Theatre Award. The show was on an international tour in 2020 and kicked off with the Adelaide Fringe Festival where it won the Pick of the fringe award. In 2020, Frankenstein was made into a film for television and appeared on the BBC and iPlayer.

in 2013, he started collaborating with Spoken word poet Paul Cree to create a fusion of hip hop and spoken word leading to several musical performances and releases. They set up Beats & Elements as an outlet for their fusion of hip hop, theatre and spoken word. Their first production ‘No Milk For The Foxes’ was produced by Lara Laurence Taylor and put on by Camden People’s Theatre in 2015. It was re uploaded as a digital piece in 2020 to great acclaim and multiple positive reviews.

They have led workshops in schools, colleges Drama Schools and Universities such as LAMDA, Central, Mountview, Kingston Uni Fourth Monkey, Goldsmiths, Exeter Uni and others.

In 2017 Conrad Murray was selected by the British Council and People’s Palace Projects to travel to Brazil as part of a an artistic residency. He joined 9 other Brazilian artists from a range of cultural organisations from Rio de Janeiro on an extraordinary trip to the Xingu Indigenous Reserve in Mato Grosso State, central Brazil, where the group worked for 15 days in the Ipatse village at the invitation of the Kuikuro Indigenous Association, AIKAX.  On the artists’ return to Rio de Janeiro, Conrad worked at Casa Rio, PPPdoBrasil-run artists’ residency centre, and with community development and arts NGO Redes da Maré. There was a public sharing of the results of the exchanges and collaborations at the end of his stay. His work culminated in the production of a song and music video filmed in the sub-Amazonian jungle.

Current projects include directing and performing in High Rise eState of. Mind, a Beats and Elements production. The show has been performed at Battersea Arts Centre, Wilderness Festival and Camden Peoples' Theatre.

Conrad is an actor, who trained at the BRIT School of performing arts, South Thames College and BAC Young People’s Theatre.

He did a theatre degree at Kingston University, and an MA in performance at Goldsmiths.