CREATIVES

FESTIVAL TEAM

Festival Director: Camilla Gürtler

Festival Coordinator: Maria Laumark

Production Manager: Charlotte Brown

Marketing Manager: Sasha Butler

Stage Management Team:

Bethan Shaw, Maria Majewska, Ulrikke Hermansen

DIRECTORS

JACK NURSE - Refuge (Iceland)

Jack Nurse is a director and theatre-maker. He co-founded Glasgow-based theatre company Wonder Fools in 2014.

Currently: Origins Artist with Headlong, Creative Engagement Director at the Ayr Gaiety and artistic lead of the international participatory project Positive Stories for Negative Times.

Training: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Theatre Studio Directors’ Course

As Director: 549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War, McNeill of Tranent, The Coolidge Effect (Wonder Fools); Larchview (National Theatre of Scotland); Meet Jan Black (Ayr Gaiety); The Lost Elves (Citizens Theatre/RCS); Lampedusa (Citizens Theatre); The Mack (Play, Pie, Pint/Traverse Theatre).

As Associate/Assistant Director: Red Dust Road (National Theatre of Scotland/HOME); The Broons (Sell A Door); Dr Dolittle (Music & Lyrics); Oresteia: This Restless House (Citizens Theatre/National Theatre of Scotland), Blackbird (Citizens Theatre); The Winter’s Tale (Royal Lyceum); Hay Fever (Royal Lyceum/Citizens Theatre).

EMILY LOUIZOU - The Woman Who Turned Into A Tree (Sweden)

Emily Louizou was born and raised in Athens, Greece.

She trained on the MFA Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London. She also holds a BA in English Literature from University College London.

Emily is the Founder & Artistic Director of Collide Theatre which specialises in modern ensemble-led theatre and re-imaginings of classics.

Her new opera TROY (2018) and her new dance-theatre version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (2019) received funding from Arts Council England and have had sold-out runs in London and Manchester.

Emily has worked as a Resident Assistant Director at HOME in Manchester, an Artist Mentor for the Barbican Theatre, a Facilitator for The Old Vic, a Staff Director for OperaUpClose’s Olivier-award winning La Bohème, and most recently a Resident Assistant Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is also an Associate Lecturer and Visiting Director at UAL.

www.emilylouizou.com

JANISÈ SADIK - Searching for Being (Faroe Islands)

Janisè Sadik is based in London and is a British Turkish Cypriot Theatre/Film Director/Actor.

She trained at Identity School of Acting and is a former Trainee Director at Paines Plough 2019.

Currently an associate for Coney. She’s facilitated in various creative buildings such as Park Theatre, Hoxton Hall, Lyric Hammersmith, Oval House and Wimbledon Arts College and nationally across the UK.

She set up a Youth Theatre company at We Are Spotlight working with young actors that don’t have access to training. She’s also worked internationally in rural parts of South India to run creative theatre projects with young children to empower and build their confidence.

She is passionate about social change and hoping to make change on our stages and screen shifting the narrative that we see.

ELEANOR CHADWICK - Counting to Zero (Norway)

Eleanor Chadwick is a theatre maker and academic. With her company Sleight of Hand she is a resident artist at the Watershed Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, creating multi-sensory work through interdisciplinary collaborations with technologists, artists, academics, and communities. Ellie has worked internationally, including in Europe, China, Bali, and Borneo: teaching, facilitating, researching and directing theatre. Currently she is making experimental work for performance/exhibition at the Tate Modern, the Watershed, and with BBC R&D, and she was recently awarded Future Themes funding for innovative digital theatre work during social distancing. Ellie is also Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Acting and Musical Theatre at Plymouth Marjon University.

LUCIE DAWKINS - Garage (Finland)

Lucie Dawkins is co-artistic director of SCRUM theatre, and works as assistant director and freelance dramaturg for Cheek by Jowl. She holds an MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama, and trained at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is currently collaborating on a new adaptation of ‘Agamemnon' at Theatre for a New Audience in NYC.

Recent work includes ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Pentecost’, and ’The Hands that Could’ (YSD), and ’The Ugly One’ ,‘WOLF/ALICE’ and 'Styx Songs’ (Yale Cabaret). Outside theatre, Lucie is a digital producer for museums, focussing on decolonisation and mental health initiatives.

ROBERTA ZURIC - No Planet B (Denmark)

Roberta Zuric is a freelance theatre director and facilitator.

Directing credits include: Reset The Stage (The Mono Box/Apatan Productions), The Burning (Pleasance, Edinburgh Fest 2019), The Wave (Almeida Young Company), All Quiet on the Western Front (Pleasance and SoHo Playhouse, NYC). Alice in the Cuckoo’s Nest (Librarian Theatre/UK Tour), Zero for the Young Dudes! (Orange Tree Theatre/Albany/National Theatre), Thisbe (Door Ajar Theatre National Tour), A Christmas Carol (Librarian Theatre/UK tour), Naked (Brockley Jack).

As associate: What We Leave Behind (Roundhouse).

As assistant: RSC.

Alongside directing, Roberta is an associate of the Incognito Theatre, National Youth Theatre and The Mono Box.

WRITERS

MATTHÍAS TRYGGVI HARALDSSON - Refuge (Iceland)

Matthías Tryggvi Haraldsson is the author of Refugeand directed the original production in Iceland.

He graduated with a BA in Theatre and Performance from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, where Refuge was his graduation piece. Since then, he has written short plays for both Reykjavik City Theatre and the National Theatre of Iceland, as well as participating in independent productions in Reykjavik.

He is also a founding member of award-winning anti-capitalist BDSM-inspired controversy-courting performance art collective Hatari, amongst which he represented Iceland at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.

Matthías has also worked as a translator for theatre and as a reporter for RUV, Iceland’s national broadcaster.

KATARINA G. NOLSØE - Searching for Being (Faroe Islands)

Katarina G. Nolsøe is a Faroese playwright and actor. She suffered from depression in 2006 and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital at several occasions. Searching for Being is her journey through depression, fear and anxiety, written as a collection of poems.

LISA LANGSETH - The Woman Who Turned Into A Tree (Sweden)

Lisa Langseth is a Swedish playwright and director who lives in Stockholm.

Her first play Beloved was performed at Sweden´s National Theatre (Dramaten) in 2004 and starred Noomi Rapace. Langseth also wrote Approve (Stockholms stadsteater, 2003), Slättskymning, (Uppsala Stadsteater 2004), Climax (Dramaten 2006).

Lisa has also written and directed three feature films: Pure (2010) and Hotell (2013) starring Alicia Vikander and Euphoria (2017), which also featured Eva Green, Adrian Lester and Charles Dance.

At the moment she is shooting her first TV series called Love & Anarchy, which will air on Netflix later this year.

Mika Myllyaho is a multi-talent of Finnish theatre: playwright, director, and actor. He received a masters in directing from the Theatre Academy Helsinki in 1999.

Since 2010, Myllyaho has been the director of the Finnish National Theatre. Prior to that, he worked as artistic co-director of the Helsinki-based Ryhmäteatteri.

As a playwright, Myllyaho is best known for his acclaimed trilogy of plays: Panic (2005), Chaos (2008), and the final instalment Harmony (2009).

The three works tackle the struggle of the individual amid the demands of contemporary society, when the framework of how one should live is externally defined. The trilogy has been translated into numerous languages, making Myllyaho one of Finland’s most-translated and internationally recognized playwrights.

Garage premiered in Helsinki in 2018.

MIKA MYLLYAHO - Garage (Finland)

Kristofer Blindheim Grønskag is a Norwegian playwright. He has written a number of plays that have been performed in Norway and abroad. His work has led to several nominations and awards, including winning the prestigious Jugendtheaterpreis Baden-Württemberg 2018 for Satellites in the Night Sky. The play was also longlisted for the Deutscher Kindertheaterpreis 2016 and nominated for the Ibsen Prize 2019.

Counting to Zero was nominated for the Ibsen Prize 2018 and longlisted for the Deutscher Jugendtheaterpreis 2018.

Other plays include: Hybris, The Noise and Anger, Corrections,Democracyand Kinder K. Grønskag has been a resident playwright at Dramatikkens Hus and is affiliated with the playwriting collective Propeller.

His work has so far been translated into eleven languages.

KRISTOFER GRØNSKAG - Counting to Zero (Norway)

Vivian Nielsen graduated from the theatre school of Aarhus Theatre in 1987 as an actress. She has performed in many Danish theatres and then trained as a director with Ralf Långbacka and as a screenwriter with Dara Mark. Today she is known as one of the most productive and performed Danish playwrights with an impressive number of plays. Her oeuvre of more than 30 plays includes numerous adaptations of novels and films, among them film director Lars von Trier’s BREAKING THE WAVES.

Nielsen may take existing material as her starting point, but she certainly has a voice of her own.

She writes about contemporary society with a sharp, critical eye, often from a woman’s point of view. Characteristically for her plays is a magnificent and poetic stage vocabulary with a surprising use of language – almost Shakespearesque, a reviewer once wrote.

Vivian has received several grants and acknowledgements for her work, among them a Reumert Prize for her play BRANDES.

VIVIAN NIELSEN - No Planet B (Denmark)

DESIGNERS

Niall McKeever is an emerging Theatre Designer who graduated from Wimbledon College of Art. As well as a Set and Costume Designer, he continues to work across many disciplines including site-responsive design, art installation and sculpture. In March 2018 he was awarded the Production Design Assistant residency at the National Theatre.

Recent work includes: Associate Set and Costume Designer on Translations(National Theatre), and Designer for The World We Made- a new play using the latest low environmental impact sound and lighting technology.

Other work includes: Little Shop of Horrors(The Pleasance), I Run(The Pleasance/Vault Festival) and Herons, Mary Barnesand Some Voicesfor Drama Centre Lonson. In 2018 he worked in the Art Department on Peter Strickland’s film INFABRIC and BBC Film’s LOVE, Directed by Alexander Zeldin. Niall is currently designing for LAMDA’s productions of Appropriateby Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as well as Nine Nightand How Love is Spelt.

NIALL McKEEVER - Garage // No Planet B // Counting to Zero

Cara Evans is a London based performance designer with particular interests in devised and text-based work. She graduated in Design for Stage from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with First Class Honours and Fine Art at the University for the Creative Arts Farnham.

She enjoys working with particular materials to create tactile relations between performers/audiences and the environment. She has been involved in the Royal Court Theatre's Participation programme where she has become passionate about the development of new writing in collaboration with design. She also has interests in mime, puppetry and site-specific performance and would like to continue working in a range of different contexts.

Her most recent projects include design for Superstar at the Southwark Playhouse (Sadie Spencer, 2019), assisting Fly Davis and Naomi Dawson, and as designer for OPIA Collective as part of The Bunker Theatre’s final season.

CARA EVANS - Refuge // The Woman Who Turned Into A Tree // Searching for Being