First Draft 2014

Tara Alexis (NOT WHAT YOU SEE)

Tara Alexis began her career in the arts at the age of 9 after successfully auditioning for the Television Workshop in Nottingham. She went on to gain a bachelor’s degree in Creative Industries where creative writing featured as one of her main modules.

After gaining her bachelors, Tara then went on to train as an actress at the prestigious Drama Centre London where she obtained a Masters. Having been told by her English teacher at school to ‘never stop writing’ Tara continued to write alongside her training. In February of this year she produced her first theatre show, Right Of Way at the Lost Theatre. She is currently writing her second play which will be staged spring 2015. @TaraAlexis13

 

Mo (MOUSE AND LION)

Mo is an artist and writer.  She both enjoys and benefits from the interplay between the two disciplines. Her written work includes, short fiction, poetry and performance pieces. Amongst other works in progress, she is currently writing two new performance pieces and editing her novella.

 

 

 

Scott Pilkington (THE PRICE OF A HUMAN BEING IS NOW £60)

Jon Rowe (COMMUNITY NOT FOR SALE)

 

Andy Ryan (AN OFSTED INSPECTION)

Andy spent two exhausting but exciting years teaching English in a chaotic comprehensive in West London. He now works in emergency planning at the Government Office for Science. His journalism has included adventures with the Obama campaign, the decline of greyhound racing and a chess duel with a 95 year-old. He co-hosts Reverse Swept Radio, a cricket podcast focusing on the game’s history and literature, and is part of a seemingly never-ending attempt to make a documentary on a band called The Joker and the Thief.

 

 

 

Claude Starling (MACHU BLOODY PICCHU)

Claude is an actor/writer. Writing credits include the long list the Bruntwood Competition 2008, finalist in the Papatango Playwriting competition 2009, finalist of First Draft competition 2011 and winner of the Broadway Theatre Barking Scriptwriting competition. He has had work staged at The Tristan Bates and the Landor theatres. Other work includes three full length stage plays.

@ClaudeStarling

 

 

Padraic Walsh (EVENING)

Padraic is a writer and playwright based in London, but originally from Mayo, Ireland. He’s been a member of the Royal Court’s Young Writers Programme. His full length play The Fox was long listed for the 2012 Papatango New Writing Award and his short play The Marquis of Granby was produced as part of the CITY project for the 2013 Spirit Festival at the Camden People’s Theatre.

 

 

 

 

NOT WHAT YOU SEE by Tara Alexis

A teachers attempt to reach out to a troubled student. When Jamal is sent out of his class again, Mr Bell struggles to conceal his anger. A moment away from passing his judgement he is moved to look a little deeper and discovers that all is not as it seems.

MOUSE AND LION by Mo

M and L are a careworn, middle-aged couple. Though their conversation is full of old anger, they leave the stage half-smiling and holding hands.

THE PRICE OF A HUMAN BEING IS NOW £60 by Scott Pilkington

An English money-burning man and an Eastern European woman seemingly unaware of the existence of CDs  talk one night in bed about the future of the post-apocalyptic human race, talking animal adverts, the nature of identity, the impossibility of love and ultimately the price of a human being.

SUNNY by Tejal Rayamajhi

Sunny is about a young girl who is followed by a male ghost like figure called Sunny; he is a manifestation of Lucy’s depression and acts as her consciousness.  Sunny manipulates Lucy and makes her feel insecure about herself.

COMMUNITY NOT FOR SALE by Jon Rowe

A father and daughter living in Brixton are separated by children’s services when the man is forcibly evicted from his housing co-operative and cannot provide a home for his child. The man struggles to get her back as their relationship is so odd in the eyes of the system.

AN OFSTED INSPECTION by Andy Ryan

It’s the evening before the inspection. In the Headteacher’s office, the Head and Deputy plan to deceive the Inspectors. In the smoking area, a young teacher plans to escape the inspection. The result of their respective efforts is revealed in the morning.

MACHU BLOODY PICCHU by Claude Starling

An anonymous council flat. The door thuds, horrifically Alison’s son falls in covered in blood, he’s been seriously stabbed in the stomach. Alison comforts her son who is rapidly losing blood and consciousness. In the final seconds, a knock is heard at the door, but is it paramedics or perpetrators?

EVENING by Padraic Walsh

Evening is about a new couple with an unspoken agreement to consummate their relationship. Today’s the day. And this couple is in their 60s. They have to face up to themselves before they can face up to each other.

Jen Davis

Jen graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2013, after reading Drama and Theatre Arts. During her undergrad she directed a number of student plays and since then has directed four short plays: How It Turned Out (RealDeal Theatre), Cheers (Attic Theatre), Self Reflection (Theatre Exchange) and The Pudding Club (Lost Theatre). Jen has also tried to build her skills as a director by interning with Sixteenfeet Productions and working as a development director for actress and comedienne; Juliette Burton. She has recently been accepted onto Birmingham REP’s Foundry project and has just finished assisting on City of Angels at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Jen is also assistant producer of FIRST DRAFT.

Nicholas Anthony

Nicholas Anthony graduated from Bristol Old Vic’s Directing course in 2008 and has been working with Sixteenfeet as an Associate since then and also working with a company in Dorset helping to develop a youth training course. He is also a qualified teacher in both English and Classics currently working to inspire students in the New Forest. This summer Nicholas will be directing our first tour across London parks with the acclaimed family production of Alice in the Walled Garden.

Gemma Kerr

Gemma trained on the MFA Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London, and on the National Theatre Studio Directors Course.  She is an Associate Director of Omnibus Clapham and of Forward Theatre Project (an Associate Company of Paines Plough) and runs High Hearted Theatre.  Credits include ‘Airswimming’ (Courtyard Theatre), ‘Hitting Town’ (Southwark Playhouse), ‘Scarberia‘ (York Theatre Royal), ‘Cheer up, this is only the beginning (High Hearted at Liverpool Playhouse) and ‘This Place Means’ (High Hearted at Greenwich + Docklands Festival.  She will be directing ‘Macbeth‘ at Omnibus in November 2014.

Edward Dick

Ed trained as an assistant director with Cheek by Jowl.

 He has directed productions in theatres across the UK and abroad. Recent work includes The Pitchfork Disney at the Arcola; The Fastest Clock in the Universe at Hampstead Theatre; A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Sydney Theatre Company; Twelfth Night at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park; Much Ado About Nothing in Singapore; and a hugely successful tour of Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare’s Globe.

His work in opera includes The Rape of Lucretia (Aldeburgh); Elektra (Opera de Nice); The Turn of the Screw (King’s Head) and the world premiere of Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness at the Royal Opera House. In 2013 he will direct Rossini’s Maometto II for Garsington Opera. 

Ed’s first short film, An Act of Love, written by Ash Ditta and starring Stephen Mangan, Gina McKee and Raquel Cassidy, premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2010 and has played at festivals around the word. He has recently completed a second short, That Woman, a comedy drama by Amy Rosenthall, starring Maureen Lipman and Ben Caplan. 

He has just directed his first project for television, a Little Cracker by Katy Brand for Hillbilly/Sky1.

Click actors names for biographies

 Marva Alexander

 

 

 

 

 Kate Binchy 

 

 

 

Peter Bourke 

 

 

 

 

Sophia Carr-Gomm

 

 

 

 

 Ian Crow

 

 

 

 

Mark Ebule 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Moore 

 

 

 

 

Julian Moore-Cook 

 

 

 

 

Adanna Oji

 

 

 

 

 Valentine Olukoga 

 

 

 

 

Shaughan Seymour 

 

 

 

 

Nick Underwood

 

 

 

 

Izabella Urbanowicz 

 

 

 

 

 

Marina Caldarone

Marina has been a theatre director for 20 years – including time as Associate Director of Theatr Clwyd and Artistic Director Queens Theatre Hornchurch.  She enjoyed an extensive freelance theatre-directing career in Britain and abroad, directing over 100 productions. She has been a regular lecturer on contemporary theatre since 1998 and continues to work as a guest director in London’s leading Drama schools and has run workshops for professional actors and directors at The Actors Centre since 1986.

She has been a freelance radio drama producer since 1999 working both within the BBC radio drama department, and with Pier Productions and Fiction Factory.

She co-wrote Actions, An Actors’ Thesaurus with Maggie Lloyd Williams – an acting book, which is now set text in most drama schools in Britain and many in the States. And also 3 new radio monologue and duologue publications Radioactive, compiled with Marilyn le Conte and published by Methuen books. She has just completed two editions of The Good Audition Guides published by Nick Hern Books. She runs the Radio Drama provision at Rose Bruford College, and is managing, along with Theatre 503, the production of 53 new radio pod cast dramas about the Piccadilly line, Urban Scrawl, with www.TheatreVoice.com.

Joe Harbot

Joe Harbot lives in Brixton.  His first play, Gathered Dust and Dead Skin, was produced at Live Theatre in 2003.  Since then he has graduated from the Royal Court’s Young Writers’ Programme and written numerous plays, including The Boy on the Swing (Live Theatre and Arcola), Memories (Southwark Playhouse) and The Spinning Wheel (Forest Fringe), as well as a short film, Linked, directed by Jeremy Herrin.

In 2013, Joe’s most recent play Potholes had a short run at Theatre 503 and was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

He has read scripts for Live Theatre, The Bush Theatre and Headlong and has worked on numerous new writing projects and workshops.

Manjinder Virk

Manjinder was born in Coventry. She is an actress, writer and director, and was named as one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow in 2007.

As an Actress, she won great critical acclaim for her role as Lorraine Dunbar in Clio Barnard’s award winning film, THE ARBOR, about the life of playwright Andrea Dunbar. For which she was nominated as Best Actress and Best Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards, and Best Newcomer at The London Film Festival Awards 2010. Indiewire listed Virk as one of the “13 Underdog Actresses That Deserve Oscar’s Attention This Year” and quoted, “Manjinder Virk gave one of the most stunning performances ever by an actress in… a documentary.”

She also played the lead role of a British suicide bomber, Nasima in Peter Kosminsky’s BAFTA winning drama, BRITZ. Guardian’s Nancy Banks-Smith wrote, “Virk’s sensitive performance as Nasima and the slow, almost mesmerising pace of her story absorbs and engrosses you… Speech is minimal. It is all down to Virk’s speaking face…”

As a Writer, Manjinder has developed a sitcom, BEING JANE BROWN with Baby Cow/Henry Normal, co-written with Richard Lazarus. She was also commissioned to write a treatment for an original drama/biopic on Benazir Bhutto for Mammoth Screen. Before this she wrote TONIGHT I WRITE, a drama for BBC Radio 4 and GLOW, a play about an Asian girl boxer for Theatre Centre.

In 2004 she wrote, performed and co-directed AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE, a sell out One Woman show about a Punjabi girl who finds out her parentage is not as she had believed.

Her first short film as a writer/director was FORGIVE, (2008) about a broken relationship between a father and son starring Sacha Dhawan and Abdi Gouhad. Times Film critic, Wendy Ide described it as, “Economical, impeccably judged exchanges carry the weight of a lifetime’s guilt and grudges. This is short filmmaking of unusual depth and empathy.”

Her second short film, OUT OF DARKNESS (2013) was about an Aid Worker haunted by an experience they cannot forget. A story told uniquely by nine different actors including Tom Hiddleston and Riz Ahmed. Out of Darkness premiered at the 57th BFI London Film festival and won Best film and Best drama at Aesthetica Film festival.

A script writing workshop for beginner and intermediate level writers

Ever wondered what it takes to write a script? Why do some stories work as books, but not films or plays?

Bang, wallop, yak-yak. Be it radio, television, theatre, film or videogame, scripts are all about conflict, character and action. Working with award-winning scriptwriter Andrew S. Walsh (Byker Grove, Emmerdale, Prince of Persia, Fable:Legends and Brockwell Park’s Wind in the Willows) this two hour workshop gave particiapnts the chance to learn the essentials of scriptwriting and the opportunity to create some script samples that bring a story and character to life.

It took place on Friday May 2nd  7-9pm at the Brixton Library.

This free workshop was part of the Lambeth readers and writers festival