[citation needed] 1977-2000 After reading Drama at Bristol University, Dornford-May was offered an assistant directorship with the Royal Shakespeare Company, working with Terry Hands on Coriolanus and The Duchess of Malfi as well as directing The Invisible Man, based on the book by Ralph Ellison dealing with black identity and the political struggle to find it, and coordinating The Plays Banned by Television Season at the then RSC Warehouse Theatre.
In the late 1980s he worked for a number of years teaching on the Motley Theatre Design Course then based at Riverside Studios as well as at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Central School of Speech and Drama.
He also during this period directed four large-scale community plays, each involving well over a hundred people in Bradford-on-Avon, England, Milford Haven, Wales, Lille, France and Ghent, Belgium.
Other stage work includes co-productions with the Young Vic of The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo, featuring Mozart's score transposed for an orchestra of marimbas, and A Christmas Carol – Ikrismas Kherol.
In the summer of 2012, La Boheme – Abanxaxhi, a unique partnership with The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, played at Hackney Empire in London for five weeks.
The company also produced another feature film Breathe - Umphefumlo, which had its premiere at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival and had a special gala screening in South Africa in March 2015, hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.In 2016, Isango Ensemble adapted Jonny Steinberg's book A Man of Good Hope in co-production with the Young Vic, the Royal Opera, Répons Foundation, BAM and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.
Isango then undertook a multi-city tour of the US for nine weeks between late September and mid-November, visiting cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York with productions of Aesop's Fables, A Man of Good Hope and The Magic Flute - Impempe Yomlingo.
Isango since it was formed has toured to Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Martinique, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Turkey, the UK and the United States.