Going Through

Elena Peña designed the sound for Hir by Taylor Mac and Islands by Caroline Horton at the Bush Theatre. Other theatre credits include: The Caretaker (Bristol Old Vic, Royal & Derngate); Pixel Dust and Wonder (Edinburgh Festival); The Bear/The Proposal, Flashes (Young Vic); The Lounge (Soho Theatre – Offie Nomination For Best Sound Design); Boat (Company Three, Battersea Arts Centre); Years Of Sunlight (Theatre 503); Sleepless (Shoreditch Town Hall, Staatstheater Mainz); I Call My Brothers (Gate Theatre); Patrias (Sadlers Wells Theatre, Eif); Thebes Land, Brimstone And Treacle (Arcola Theatre); The Christians (Gate Theatre, Traverse Theatre); Brainstorm (ICT, National Theatre); The Kilburn Passion, Arabian Nights (Tricycle Theatre); Not Now Bernard (Unicorn Theatre); Pim & Theo (Nie With Odsherred Teater, Denmark, Unicorn Theatre); Mass Observation (Almeida Theatre); Village Social (National Theatre Wales); Quimeras (Sadlers Wells, Eif); The 13 Midnight Challenges Of Angelus Diablo (RSC); Gambling (Soho Theatre); My Name Is Sue (Soho Theatre, Bristol Old Vic); Under Milk Wood (Royal & Derngate).

Sound installation includes: Have Your Circumstances Changed? and Yes These Eyes Are The Windows (Artangel). Television/Online includes: Brainstorm Live at Television Centre (BBC4 and iPlayer); The Astro Science Challenge (Online Television Episodes, Unlimited Theatre). Radio includes: The Meet Cute (Recordist /Sd/Editor/Musician, BBC R4) Twelve Years (Recordist / SD / Editor, BBC R4).

Estelle Savasta is a French writer and director, and founder of the theatre company Hippolyte a mal au cœur. Her first production as a director for the company was Le Grand Cahier (The Notebook) by Agota Kristof, presented in a bilingual staging (French and Sign Language) in 2005. She wrote and directed the company’s second production, Seule dans ma peau d’âne (Alone in my Donkey Skin) which was nominated for a Moliere in 2008.

After working with the International Visual Theatre in Paris, integrating French and Sign Language, she wrote and directed Traversée (Going Through) in 2011. The play was translated in English and Spanish and has received multiple productions in France, Canada and soon Mexico.

She has worked for the DSN, Scène Nationale de Dieppe where her play Le Préambule des étourdis, created in collaboration with students of a local school, opened in 2014 and is currently touring France.

Estelle is an Associate Artist at Scène Nationale de Cavaillon where she is developing two new shows for 2018/2019. Her new play HIC et NUNC will open in January 2018 at Theatre de Sartrouville.

Kirsten Hazel Smith trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama. Going Through is her first translation. Kirsten’s theatre credits as an actress include: The Mousetrap (West End); Sideways (St James Theatre); Top Girls (Out of Joint National Tour); A Flea in Her Ear (Old Vic); The Importance of Being Earnest (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre). TV and film credits include: Catastrophe (Channel 4), Stones (Donroy), The Boy With A Camera For A Face (Camera Boy Films), Taggart (ITV).

Half-French, half-Scottish, her love of new writing has seen Kirsten working as an actress on new plays with David Greig and acclaimed stand-up comic Sara Pascoe, and as a bilingual reader for the Cross Channel Theatre Group: an initiative which aims to promote French new writing in the UK.

Omar is an award winning Italian/Palestinian theatre director, deviser and performer, who trained at Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. He joined the Bush in 2012 alongside Madani Younis and since then has been the resident Associate Director. He is in charge of the Bush’s talent development, leading on the Associate Artists and Project 2036 schemes. He is also involved in the development and delivery of the Bush’s artistic program and lead the programming of the RADAR festival between 2012 and 2015. His directing credits for the Bush include gig theatre sensation Misty by Arinzé Kene, the Edinburgh Fringe First winning NASSIM by Nassim Soleimanpour, One Cold Dark Night by Nancy Harris and Islands by Caroline Horton. As Associate Director, he has worked alongside Madani Younis on the Bush’s productions of The Royale, Perseverance Drive and Chalet Lines. Other credits include acclaimed site-specific production The Mill – City of Dreams, Olivier Award nominated You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy, Testa di Rame (Italy), Les P’tites Grandes Choses (France) and L’Envers du Décor (France).

Rajha Shakiry is a freelance theatre designer and maker, who works across the spectrum of scripted and devised theatre, dance, musical theatre, and opera. She was born in Iraq and educated in England, completing a degree in Mathematics before re-training in Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art (BA) and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (MA, distinction). Rajha’s work has most recently been exhibited at the V&A (Make:Believe, 2015) and as a World Stage Design 2013 finalist.

Recent projects include: Nine Night (National Theatre), Misty (Bush Theatre), The Mountaintop (Young Vic/JMK), Mobile (The Paper Birds), The Head Wrap Diaries (The Place, Uchenna Dance), I Stand Corrected and Muhammad Ali & Me (both Mojisola Adebayo). Rajha’s current collaborations include projects with Spare Tyre and Kali Theatre, alongside work at Trafalgar Studios, National Theatre and Bush Theatre.