Cast

Creatives

Kimber Lee

Writer

Kimber Lee has developed work with Lark Play Development Center, Ground Floor/Berkeley Rep, Page 73, CTG, Denver Center, O’Neill NPC, Hedgebrook, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Great Plains Theatre Conference, ACT Theatre/Seattle, Premiere Stages, and Magic Theatre. She is a Lark Playwrights Workshop, Dramatists Guild, and 2023 Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow, as well as a member of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, PoNY Fellowship, Hartford Stage New Voices Fellowship, and 2020-2021 Hodder Fellowship.

Theatre as playwright includes: the water palace (2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Special Commendation), to the yellow house (La Jolla Playhouse), untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play (2019 Bruntwood Prize International Award), saturday (2022 Colorado New Play Summit), antarctica (Radio Play for Two River Theatre), tokyo fish story (South Coast Rep, TheatreWorks/SV, Old Globe), brownsville song (b-side for tray) (Humana Festival, LCT3, Long Wharf Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Seattle Rep, Moxie Theatre, Shotgun Players), and different words for the same thing directed by Neel Keller (Center Theatre Group).

Awards and accolades include: Ruby Prize, 2020 Helen Merrill Award, 2020 & 2022 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (Finalist), 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (Special Commendation), inaugural winner Bruntwood Prize International Award 2019, 2021 Edgerton New Play Award, and 2021 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. MFA: UT Austin.

Roy Alexander Weise

Director

Roy Alexander Weise is Joint Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre. He was the 19th annual winner of the James Menzies-Kitchin Award, and was nominated at the 2018 Evening Standard Awards for the 'Emerging Talent' Award for his production of Nine Night at the National Theatre and in the West End.

Previous Young Vic includes: The Mountaintop 

Other theatre includes: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Mountaintop, All I Want For Christmas, Oh Woman (Royal Exchange), Much A Do About Nothing (RSC), Master Harold And The Boys (National Theatre), The Trick (Bush Theatre and UK Tour), Nine Night (National Theatre & West End), Dead Don’t Floss (National Theatre), The Dark (Fuel Theatre & UK Tour), Br’er Cotton (Theatre 503), The Ugly One (Park Theatre), Primetime (Royal Court) and Stone Face (Finborough Theatre).

Khadija Raza

Designer

Khadija Raza won The Stage Debut award for Best Designer in 2018 and the Linbury Prize for Dido in 2017.

Previous Young Vic includes: Sundown Kiki, Love Reign.

Other theatre includes: Every Leaf a Hallelujah (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); The Flood (Queen’s Theatre); Talking About a Revolution (The Barn); Antigone (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Julius Caesar (Shakespeare’s Globe & on tour); 10 Nights (Graeae & Tamasha Theatre in association with the Bush Theatre); Bach & Sons (Bridge Theatre); Skin Hunger (Dante or Die Theatre Company); Augmented (Told by an Idiot & Royal Exchange Theatre); Funeral Flowers (The Roundhouse & tour); The Bee in Me (Unicorn Theatre); White Pariahs (R&D at The Albany Theatre).

Loren Elstein

Costume Designer

Loren Elstein designs Set and Costume internationally for theatre, film and dance.

Theatre includes: Once Upon a One More Time (Broadway); Migrations (Dir. Sir David Pountney); The Magic Flute (WNO); Hamlet and The Cherry Orchard with Ian McKellen; Primetime (Royal Court Theatre); Wonderous Strange (RSC); The Man Who Almost Killed Himself (Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Old Vic, NT Online); RENT (20th Anniversary Tour, Michael Grandage Company); The Lie (Menier Chocolate Factory) and Terror (Lyric Hammersmith).

Joshua Pharo

Lighting Designer

Joshua Pharo won the Creative Innovation in Lighting Design in 2018 for his work on The Claim.

Previous Young Vic includes: The Bear & The Proposal

Theatre includes: Galatea (Marlborough and Wildworks); In The Realms Of Sorrow (London Handel Festival); A Christmas Carol (Rose Theatre); Let the Right One In (Royal Exchange Theatre); I Am Kevin (Wildworks); Corrina, Corrina (Headlong); Kerbs (Graeae & Belgrade Theatre for Coventry City of Culture 2022); The Odyssey: Episode 5, Jekyll & Hyde, (National Theatre); Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse); Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Litten Trees (Fuel Theatre); random/ generations, Crave (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Rape of Lucretia (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland); Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith); Vassa (Almeida); The Colour Purple (Leicester Curve & Birmingham Hippodrome); The Rolling Stone (Orange Tree Theatre); The Merchant Of Venice, Wuthering Heights, Consensual (West End); The Crocodile (Manchester International Festival). TV & Film credits: Where I Go (When I Can’t Be Where I Am) (China Plate Theatre).

Ruth Chan

Composer

Ruth Chan is a renowned composer for theatre, film, opera and concert music.

Previous Young Vic includes: Further than the Furthest Thing.

Other theatre includes: The Doncastrian Chalk Circle (National Theatre); The Hatchling (The Platinum Jubilee Pageant, Plymouth 2021, Wakefield 2023); Beauty and the Seven Beasts (The Opera Story, Brixton Jamm); Mokita (Hong Kong Arts Festival); Strange Tales (Traverse Theatre/Grid Iron Theatre); Hedda Tesman (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Taming of the Shrew (RSC); The Triumph of Time (Thailand International Composition Festival, Pianoforte Studio Chicago); Between Constellations (Pittsburgh Opera Festival & Grimeborn Festival); Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok (Royal Exchange Manchester) and Snow in Midsummer (RSC – nominated for The Stage Debut Award for Best Music, 2017); re-orchestration of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly (Opera Up Close, national tour). 

Film includes: Soundtrack for Around China With A Movie Camera (British Film Institute, Flatpack Film Festival and Royal Festival Hall), The Promise (BBC Short Animation), Faces (DreamCoat Films), A Very British Airline (BBC 2).

Giles Thomas

Sound Designer

Giles Thomas was nominated for Best Sound Designer for the Offie Awards in 2015 for his work on Pomona.

Previous Young Vic includes: A Harlem Dream, The Sound of Yellow

Composer & Sound Design theatre credits include:  Farewell Mister Haffmann (Ustinov Studios); The Vortex (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Contingency Plan (Sheffield Theatres); The Almighty Sometimes, The Glass Menagerie (Royal Exchange); An Octoroon (Abbey Theatre, Dublin); Fair Play (Bush Theatre); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Leicester Curve, ETT & Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, UK tour); Romeo & Juliet (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); The Comeback (West End); The Dumb Waiter (Hampstead Theatre); Marvin’s Binoculars, The Twits (Unicorn Theatre); Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, Lyric Hammersmith & Birmingham Rep); Master Harold and the Boys (National Theatre); Equus (Stratford East, ETT UK Tour, West End); Plenty, Cock, The Vortex (Chichester).

Sound Design theatre credits include: Private Lives (Donmar Warehouse); Sons of the Prophet (Hampstead Theatre); The Weatherman, The Ugly One, A Dark Night in Dalston (Park Theatre); Tao Of Glass (Manchester International Festival); Hijabi Monologues (Bush Theatre); Disco Pigs (Trafalgar Studios & Irish Rep Theatre NY).

Tayo Akinbode

Musical Director

Tayo Akinbode is a composer and musical director for theatre, film, TV, radio, circus and community projects for companies including: The National Theatre, The Generating Company, OCT East Shenzen, Almeida Theatre, Littlebigman Films, the Royal Exchange Theatre, Miami Gablestage, New York Public Theater, M6, Storyhouse Chester, Specsavers, and Spirit of the Union UAE fortieth Birthday celebrations in Abu Dhabi.

Theatre includes: The Baccae, King Lear, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Royal Exchange Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Manchester Youth Theatre); Grandad Anansi (Z-Arts); Robin Hood (Theatr Clwyd); The Island (Elysium Theatre Company); The Whip (RSC); Backyard, Rain Rain (Bamboozle); Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency (Cardboard Citizens); Jungle Book (Oldham Coliseum); My Voice Was Heard (Red Ladder Theatre); Jack Frost (TuttiFrutti); Spike (The Watermill Theatre/ tour).

Television includes: The World According To Grandpa (Channel 5 Milkshake).

Shelley Maxwell

Movement Director

Shelley Maxwell won the award for Best Choreographer at the inaugural Black British Theatre Awards in 2019 for her work on Equus.

Previous Young Vic includes: Beneatha's Place, Best of Enemies, Winter, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere (Young Vic); Cuttin’It (Young Vic & Royal Court).

Other theatre includes: August in England (Bush Theatre); The Secret Life of Bees (Almeida Theatre); Best of Enemies (Noël Coward Theatre); Tartuffe (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); The Time Traveller’s Wife: The Musical (Storyhouse); Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Story (Lyric Theatre); J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter Theatre); After Life, Master Harold and the Boys, Hansard, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night (National Theatre); Nine Night (National Theatre & Trafalgar Studios); Equus (Theatre Royal Stratford East & Trafalgar Studios); Tartuffe (RSC); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong at Lyric & Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Cinderella (Lyric); Grey (Oval House); King Hedley II (Theatre Royal Stratford East); J’Ouvert (Theatre503); Cougar, Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree); A Streetcar Named Desire (Nuffield, Clwyd Theatre Cymru & ETT); Rules for Living (Royal & Derngate, the Rose Kingston & English Touring Theatre); Apologia (English Theatre Frankfurt).

Television/Film credits include: Anansi Boys (Upcoming on Amazon); ear for eye (BBC/Fruit Tree Media); Romeo and Juliet (Sky Arts/PBS/National Theatre).

Haruka Kuroda

Fight and Intimacy Director

Haruka Kuroda is a British Academy of Dramatic Combat-certified instructor and has fight directed and taught in various theatres, drama schools and workshops in the UK and Europe. In 2020, Haruka completed the Intimacy Coordination Mentoring Scheme for under-represented groups organised by renowned IC Yarit Dor.

Fight/intimacy directing theatre includes: Miss Saigon (Sheffield Crucible); Titus Andronicus (The Globe); Starcrossed (Wilton’s Music Hall); The Woods (Southwark Playhouse); All My Sons (Queens Theatre Hornchurch).

Fight directing theatre includes: The Red Lion (New Wolsey Theatre), Comedy of Errors (Mercury Theatre); Love Letters The Musical, Neville’s Island (Queens Theatre Hornchurch); The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson (Park Theatre); Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet (Guildford Shakespeare Company); Pink Sari Revolution (Curve Theatre); Kanye the First (High Tide Festival); Beyond the Fence A New Musical (Arts Theatre West End); Harajuku Girls (Finborough Theatre); Yeh Shen, Last Days of the Limehouse (Yellow Earth Theatre); Incognito (Gate Theatre); Running the Silk Road (Barbican/Yellow Earth Theatre); The Ladies Cage (Finborough theatre); King Arthur (Orange Tree).

Intimacy coordinating (TV & Film) includes:  Protection (ITV), Rivals (Amazon Prime); Such Brave Girls, Life After Life, Superhoe, Sherwood, Strike: Troubled Blood, Silent Witness (BBC); Culprits (Disney +); Real Friends (Sky); History of a Pleasure Seeker (Hulu).

Caitlin Stegemoller

Voice and Dialect Coach

Caitlin is a voice and dialect coach originally from the USA. She coaches across film, television, and theatre. Caitlin holds an MFA in Voice Studies from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and a BFA in Musical Theatre from The University of Arizona.

Previous Young Vic includes: The Jumper Factory

Other theatre includes: The Band's Visit (The Donmar Warehouse), Ride (Southwark Playhouse, Curve Theatre, Leicester), Disruption (The Park Theatre), Tick, Tick, Boom! (The Bridge House Theatre), The Winter's Tale (Malting's Theatre), Belong (Clean Break).

Television/Film includes: Projects for Channel 4 and Apple TV.

Radio includes: People Who Knew Me (BBC Sounds).

Caroline Yu

Jerwood Assistant Director

Caroline Yu trained as a director at LAMDA. Prior to this she studied law at the university of Cambridge where she directed extensively at the ADC theatre.

Assistant Director theatre credits include: NDT Untapped and Fringe First Award Winner This Is Not A Show About Hong Kong (New Diorama Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe Festival); Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons (Harold Pinter Theatre); Cinderella (Theatre Royal Stratford East); 4000 Miles (Chichester Festival Theatre).

Directing theatre credits include: Origins Award-winner Walking Cats (VAULT Festival); Yen (LAMDA); Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area (Underbelly, Edinburgh Fringe); Footlights Pantomime: The Gingerbread Man (ADC Theatre); Essentially Black (Camden Fringe); Baby, What Blessings (The Park Theatre).

Yanni Ng

Jerwood Trainee Assistant Director

Yanni Ng has completed her final year studying Drama at the University of Manchester. She's been involved in several productions for their amateur Drama Society and recently worked on a new play, Behind the Curtained Door, which went on a regional University tour. Untitled F**k M*ss S**gon Play is her first professional production.

Helena Palmer CDG

Casting Director

Helena Palmer CDG is a freelance casting director with over twenty years of experience. She began her casting career at the Royal Exchange, Manchester and then with the National Theatre. She was Casting Director at the RSC from 2008 to 2021, casting over fifty classical and contemporary plays.

Recent theatre includes: Beginning, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, No Pay? No Way! (Royal Exchange Theatre); Cymbeline (RSC); The Tempest (RSC); Linck & Múlhahn, Mary and The Fever Syndrome (Hampstead Theatre); The White Factory, Dmitry (Marylebone Theatre); The Wind in the Willows, The Child in the Snow (Wilton’s Music Hall); Sarah (Coronet Theatre); Blackmail, Antigone (Mercury, Colchester); The Mirror and the Light (Gielgud Theatre).