CAST

UNDERSTUDIES

Band

Jerome van den Berghe

Musical Director

Theatre includes: Spitting Image: The Musical (Musical Supervisor, Phoenix Theatre); High Society (Musical Supervisor/Orchestrator, The Mill at Sonning); Clueless the Musical (Music Associate, Churchill Theatre, Bromley); Catch Me If You Can (Orchestrator, Arts Ed); Smile and Time after Time (Orchestrator, Mountview); Big Fish (Associate Orchestrator, The Other Palace); Crazy For You (Musical Director, UK Tour), Mamma Mia! (Musical Director, RCCL); Beauty and the Beast (Musical Director, The Hexagon, Reading); Bat Out Of Hell (Assistant Musical Director, UK Tour); Calendar Girls (Assistant Musical Director, UK Tour); The Producers (Assistant Musical Director, International Tour); I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical (Co-arranger, Crazy Coqs, Edinburgh and more); The Girl from the North Country (Music Assistant, Old Vic, Noel Coward Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Copyist, Old Vic); Matilda (Copyist, International Tour).

Pete Billington

Pete is a multi-instrumentalist known for his diversity. He is equally likely to be found playing jazz at Ronnie Scotts, performing in the West End, touring with artists such as Rick Astley and ABC or collaborating on various recording projects. His recent album with Fleur Stevenson was nominated for album of the year by Jazz Fuel and Jazz Views. 

Theatre includes: Bat Out Of Hell, The Bodyguard, Thriller, The Band, Zorro, Smaller (West end), Strictly, The Professionals (various other Strictly), Aljaz and Janette, Vincent and Flavia, Brendan Cole (On tour).

TV includes: The Justin Lee Collins Shoe (house band), The Jonathan Ross Show, BBC Proms.

Ikechukwu Onwuagbu

Ikechukwu Onwuagbu is a multi genre musician that plays electric bass and double bass. He has played a multitude performances ranging from large crowds at festivals to intimate settings in private functions. 

He trained at Guild hall school of music and drama where he got his masters in music degree.

He has played with the likes of Tankus the henge, The Black Bohemians, Sancho and me and a multitude of other groups.

JT Taylor

JT Taylor plays drums and percussion in a variety of contexts across the musical spectrum. His passion for music and social equality combine into a practice spanning performance, community music facilitation and educational projects.

Theatre includes: Macbeth (Rambert), Dorty Letters of James Joyce (Tete a Tete), Sancho and Me (UK tour).

Film includes: Downhill (James Rouse, Crisis Films Ltd), Kickbox Hijabi (Alnoor Dewshi, LSFF).

Live events include: Art Terry and the Black Bohemians (UK tour, Tate Modern), Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin (UK tour, Glastonbury Festival).

Community music facilitation includes: Concert for Winter (Globe Theatre), Croydon Borough of Culture (Fairfield Halls), Drumworks (Barbican), Soundmix project (Amnesty International)

CREATIVES

Stew Stewart

Lyricist and Co-composer

Stew Stewart is a Tony Award and two-time Obie Award winning playwright/performer, a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter, and veteran of multiple rather sticky dive-bar stages. He is a founding member of The Negro Problem and currently Professor of the Practice of Musical Theater Writing at Harvard University. Stew’s work has been featured on multiple occasions at Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Getty Museum, Hammer Museum, UCLA Live, Seattle Repertory Theater, NPR, and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, among others.

Works include: High Substitute for the Head Lecturer, Notes of a Native Song (Harlem Stage), Resisting My Resistance to the Resistance (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Mosquito Net (NYUAD Arts Center, Abu Dhabi), Wagner, Max!!! Wagner!!! (Kennedy Center, DC).

TV includes: Maybe There’s Black People in Fort Green, A Clown with the Nuclear Code written for Spike Lee’s TV show She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix), co-composer of Gary Come Home, Sponge Bob SquarePants. 

Stew & The Negro Problem have released 12 critically acclaimed albums between 1997 and the present.

Heidi Rodewald

Co-composer

Heidi Rodewald is a Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning co-composer who joined the band The Negro Problem in 1997, where she began a longtime collaboration with singer/songwriter, Stew, and with him released ten critically acclaimed albums.

Theatre includes: Passing Strange (The Public Theater, Belasco); Brooklyn Omnibus (BAM Next Wave Festival); Making It (St. Ann’s Warehouse); Family Album (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Notes of a Native Song (Harlem Stage); Wagner, Max! Wagner!! (Kennedy Center); The Total Bent (The Public Theater). Composer with librettist Donna Di Novelli: The Good Swimmer (BAM Next Wave Festival); A Lifesaving Manual (UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance).

TV includes: SpongeBob SquarePants (Nichelodeon); She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix).

Film includes: Passing Strange (40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks and Apple Core Holdings Production); Criminal (The New Yorker); Over The River & Through The Woods (Contemptible Ent); Reprieve (The Interval); I Dream Too Much (77 Films, Attic Light Films, Pantheon of Women).

Liesl Tommy

Director

Liesl Tommy is a groundbreaking, multi-award-winning director and producer of theatre, television and film. She is the first Black woman ever nominated for a Tony Award® for Best Direction of a Play, which she earned for Eclipsed by Danai Gurira, starring Lupita Nyong’o. Liesl has directed over 50 stage productions throughout the world. Liesl’s childhood in Apartheid-era South Africa has deeply influenced her passion for stories about people fiercely pursuing personal and cultural freedom, propelling her to launch her production company Crocodile Eyes with co-producer Jennifer Mudge in 2020.

Theatre includes: Kid Victory, Frozen, Les Miserables (Dallas Theater Centre). For these she made the groundbreaking choice to shift the casting to centre people of colour, laying the foundation for future productions. 

Film includes: Respect (MGM)

TV includes: Queen Sugar (Oprah Winfrey Network), Insecure, Mrs. Fletcher (HBO),The Walking Dead (AMC).

Ben Stones

Set & Costume Designer

Ben is an Olivier Award nominated stage designer who trained at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Previous Young Vic: The Bear/The Proposal

Theatre includes: Standing at the Sky’s Edge (Sheffield Crucible, National Theatre and Gillian Lynne Theatre West End), Operation Mincemeat (Fortune Theatre West End), Sylvia (Old Vic), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Leeds Playhouse and HOME Manchester), Miss Saigon, Rock (Sheffield Crucible), Happy Meal (Traverse), The Watsons (Chichester), Swive (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), HIR (Bush), Frankenstein, Breaking the Code, Doctor Faustus, A Taste of Honey and The Producers (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Creditors directed by Alan Rickman (Donmar Warehouse and Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY). 

Dance includes: Message in a Bottle (Universal Music Group and Sadler’s Wells), Some Like It Hip Hop, Into The Hoods (Sadler’s Wells and UK tour), The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (Royal Opera House and Roundhouse).

Opera includes: The Merry Widow (English National Opera).

Richard Howell

Lighting Designer 

Previous Young Vic Includes: Nachtland, The Island.

Theatre and opera includes: Tartuffe, Coriolanus, All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC); The House of Shades, The Writer (Almeida); Aristocrats, Privacy (Donmar); I See You (Royal Court); All My Sons, Jekyll and Hyde (Old Vic, London); Dr Semmelweis, Pinter 5 & 6, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bad Jews, Killer Joe, The Homecoming, East Is East (West End); Assassins (Chichester Festival Theatre) Closer, God of Carnage (Lyric Hammersmith); Habeas Corpus, The Watsons (Menier); Breaking the Code, Little Shop of Horrors (Manchester Royal Exchange); Rock, White Christmas, The Wizard of Oz (Sheffield Crucible); Dr Semmelweis, The Grinning Man, The Crucible (Bristol Old Vic); The Madness of George III (Nottingham Playhouse); Cabaret (Gothenburg opera); Breaking the Waves, Flight (Scottish Opera); Madame Butterfly (Danish National Opera).

Tom Gibbons

Sound Designer 

Previous Young Vic: Best of Enemies (also Noël Coward Theatre), A View From the Bridge (also West End/ Broadway), Life of Galileo, Happy Days, A Season in the Congo, Disco Pigs. 

Theatre includes: Long Day’s Journey into Night (Wyndhams); Dear England, Hedda Gabler, Sunset At The Villa Thalia, The Red Barn (National Theatre, West End); Jesus Christ Superstar (DeLaMar Theatre, Amsterdam); Opening Night, Good, All About Eve (West End); The Enormous Crocodile (Leeds Playhouse); Here We Are (The Shed, New York); Dead Man Walking (The Metropolitan Opera); Grey House (Lyceum Theatre, Broadway); Hamlet, Oresteia, The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory, Almeida Theatre, West End); Animal Farm (UK tour); West Side Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Broadway); Cabaret (Göteborg Opera); Judas, Oedipus, The Doctor (International Theatre Amsterdam); The Antipodes, Home, I’m Darling, People, Places and Things (Winner for Best Sound Design, Olivier Awards 2016), Our Town (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); The Doctor, Wild Duck (Almeida/West End).

Will Duke

Video Designer

Will is a video and projection designer working across Theatre, Opera, Dance, Musical Theatre and Experimental performance. Will’s work has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally. Will was nominated for a Stage Award in 2022 as part of the design team for Into The Woods.

Previous Young Vic: The Convert; Wings

Theatre includes: Macbeth (ETT); The Girl on the Altar (Abbey Theatre Dublin); Into The Woods (Theatre Royal Bath); The Girl On The Altar (Kiln Theatre); The Meaning of Zong (Bristol Old Vic); The Long Goodbye (Manchester International Festival); The Cherry Orchard (International Theater Amsterdam); Grief Is The Thing With Feathers (Barbican & St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York); I’m A Phoenix, Bitch (Battersea Arts Centre); The Encounter (Complicité; Barbican, International Tour & Golden Theatre, Broadway); Pygmalion (Headlong & West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Narrow World (with Melanie Wilson & The British Council); The Snow Queen (Bristol Old Vic); Beware of Pity (Complicité & Schaubühne, Berlin); Queen Anne (RSC).

Brandon Michael Nase

Musical Supervisor and Additional Arrangements and Orchestrations

Brandon Michael Nase is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in New York. Brandon currently works as a producer, educator, director, and music director/supervisor. As a performer, Brandon has been seen across the United States in musical theater, pop, R&B, jazz, and classical music venues.

Theatre includes: Watchnight (Off-Broadway, NYC PAC), Cats (Revival National Tour; Old Deuteronomy), ExtraOrdinary! (American Repertory Theater), The Black Clown (American Repertory Theatre; Lincoln Center), Frozen (Hyperion). 

Brandon holds a Bachelor of Music (Music Education) from the renowned University of North Texas College of Music and received his Master of Music (Performance) from NYU. Brandon has studied voice with Michael Ricciardone, Dr. Jeffrey Snider, and Dr. Linda DiFiore and conducting with Dr. Alan McClung and Dr. Amanda Quist.

Dickson Mbi

Choreographer

Dickson Mbi is a world-renowned dancer, choreographer and composer, and the winner of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance 2023. Born in Cameroon, Dickson grew up in East London, trained at Lewisham College and London Contemporary Dance School where he obtained an MA in Choreography. He founded the Dickson Mbi Company alongside producer Farooq Chaudhry OBE in 2017; choreographic commissions for the company include Sadler's Wels, Dance East, The Barbican, Bush Theatre, The Lowry, Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet, BBC, Scottish Ballet & Desert-X Alula 202. Dickson has worked with award-winning artists such as Simon McBurney and Russell Maliphant for whom he toured extensively internationally. Dickson received nominations for Best Achievement in Dance, KU Theatre Awards 2017, Outstanding Male Performer & Emerging Artist, National Dance Awards, Times Breakthrough Artist, South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2018 and OFFIES 2022.

Previous Young Vic: Mandela.

Theatre includes: Can I live (Complicite), Red Pitch (Bush Theatre).

TV includes: BBC4 Featured Doc Street to Stage 2018, BBC Young Dancer 2019 & 2021

Suzanne Scotcher

Wigs, Hair and Make Up Designer

Previous Young Vic: Mandela

Theatre includes: Tammy Faye; Secret life of bees; Macbeth (Almedia), School girls the African mean girls; Cinderella; Peter Pan (Lyric Hammersmith), Pillowman (Duke of York), The human body (Donmar theatre), Starter for 10 (Bristol Old Vic), Underdog, Much Ado About Nothing; Trouble in Mind; When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other; One Man, Two Guvnors (National Theatre/ West End/ International tour), The Father and the Assassin; Home; Phaedra; Master Harold and the boys; An Octoroon; Amadeus; Saint George and the Dragon; Common; Ugly Lies the Bone; Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State; The Flick; wonder.land; The James Plays; The Elephantom; Men Should Weep; Never So Good; The Hour; Women of Troy; The Hothouse; Sing Yer Heart out for the Lads (National Theatre), Bach & Sons (Bridge Theatre).

As Wigs Hair and Makeup Designer: Jitney (The Old Vic), The Chairs (Almeida), The Second Woman (Young Vic)

Hazel Holder

Voice and Dialect Coach

Hazel Holder is a Voice & Dialect coach, Actor and Voice Associate for the National Theatre.

Previous Young Vic: The Homecoming, Mandela, Best of Enemies, Changing Destiny, Fairview, Death of a Salesman, The Convert, The Mountaintop, The Emperor.

Theatre includes: Death of England: Closing Time, Grenfell: in the words of survivors, The Crucible, Rockets and Blue Lights, Death of England: Delroy, Death of England, Small Island, Nine Night, Barber Shop Chronicles, Angels in America, Les Blancs and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (National Theatre); Clydes, A Dolls House; Part 2, Marys Seacole, Constellations (Donmar Warehouse); Mlima’s Tale, Retrograde, Wife of Willesden, Pass Over and The Father (Kiln Theatre); Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, ear for eye, A Kind of People (Royal Court); Jitney (Old Vic); August in England (Bush Theatre); Richard II (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); Sunset Boulevard, The Glass Menagerie, 2:22, To Kill a Mockingbird, C*ck, Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, Uncle Vanya, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Dreamgirls (resident director) and The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (West End).

Television includes: Silo, The Power, The Baby, Small Axe, The Anansi Boys.

Film includes: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Aisha, The Silent Twins, ear for eye, Death on the Nile.

Heather Basten CDG

Casting Director 

Heather Basten is an English casting director based in London for Film, TV & Theatre. 

Previous Young Vic: Homecoming, Beneatha's Place.

Theatre includes: Red Pitch (Bush Theatre), God of Carnage (Lyric Hammersmith), Every Leaf A Hallelujah (Regent’s Park Open Air), Flip (Soho Theatre).

Film and television include: Dreaming Whilst Black (A24/BBC/Showtime), Speak No Evil (Universal Pictures/Blumhouse), Hoard (BBC Film).

Awards and recognition include: Royal Television Society Nominee 2023 for "Best Casting". Screen International ‘Star of Tomorrow’; BAFTA Breakthrough Artist; CDG Award Winner; CSA Artios nominee.

Tian Brown-Sampson

Tian Brown-Sampson is a British-Caribbean theatre director, producer, movement director, writer, dramaturg, translator and facilitator. Her focus lays mainly within Black; East and South East Asian (ESEA); South Asian; and D/deaf and disabled theatre work within new writing, as well as promoting diversity, representation and accessibility on and off stage and in positions of power and leadership.

Previous Young Vic includes: Further Than the Furthest Thing, Like Yesterday, Ivan and the Dogs.

Theatre as Director includes: The Lesson, Embalmers, The Lost Boys (Theatre503); Violet (Pleasance Theatre); babydyke (Talawa, BBC Radio 4); Oils (Bloomsbury Festival); Bougie Lanre’s Boulangerie (Talawa Theatre); Two Billion Beats (Orange Tree Theatre); In the Black Fantastic (Southbank Centre); Days of Significance (Arts Ed); For Her 还装什么男 子汉 (Chinese Arts Now Festival); Different Book Covers (Tamasha); Lost Laowais (VAULT Festival); Sentenced to Silence (Camden Fringe); Jollof Court (Bunker Theatre).

Nathanael Campbell

Jerwood Trainee Assistant Director

Nathanael is a Director, Theatre Maker & Actor

As Director: Every Sinner Has A Future (Chelsea Theatre); Chicago, B (Mountview); The Secret Garden, A Little Night Music, Nine (Urdang); Faustus: That Damned Woman (Rose Bruford), Living Single (Arts Ed).

As an actor Nathanael was nominated for a Stage Debut Award.

Robia Brown

Robia has been performing, choreographing and teaching for over 20 years. Born and raised in London, she has worked with theatre companies such as Hofesh Schecter & Zoonation - The Kate Prince Company, commercial artists such as Beyonce & Raye, and Brands such as Tena & Elvie, as well as on films such as Wicked. She has taught masterclasses globally from Europe to Asia and is constantly expanding her network and sharing more about the connection between the body and brain. Having trained at the Brit School, Robia's choreography is a blend of Contemporary & Hip-Hop and she believes dance is her life and life is her dance.

Previous Young Vic includes: Young Vic: A Harlem Dream, main Dancer

Theatre as Movement Director includes: HYMN (Almeida), An Unfinished Man (The Yard Theatre), Lines (The Crucible), Bonfire (touring Derby, Sheffield and Nottingham), Shooting Pains (The Other Place). 

Theatre as Resident Director includes: Message In A Bottle (The Peacock)

Film and Music Videos include: Assistant Choreographer: Beyonce - Brown skin girl, Raye - Flip A Switch, Black Mascara, Escapism. Movement Director: Lola Young - Woman, Tena Campaign, Elvie Breast Pump Campaign.