Shifters

Alex Berry is a set and costume designer for theatre, opera and film based in London. She graduated with an MA in Theatre Design from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, having previously trained at the Royal Northern College of Music and Koninklijk Conservatorium, The Hague, as a clarinettist. She was a finalist in the 2015 Linbury Prize, working with Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

Recent projects include: Macbeth (an undoing) (Lyceum Theatre, Best Design CATS Awards 2023); A Matter of Choice (Panoptic Films); The Barber of Seville and Don Giovanni (Nevill Holt Opera); No Sweat (Pleasance); The Rape of Lucretia (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland); Spring Awakening (Redgrave Theatre); Right Place Wrong Tim (Channel 4); A Tender Thing (The Theatre, Chipping Norton); Rabbits (Park); The Cunning Little Vixen (Royal College of Music); The Lighthouse (Hackney Showroom); Song of Riots (Battersea Arts Centre).

As a visual artist, her work has recently been included in Re:Imagining Musicals Exhibition, V&A Museum.

Benedict Lombe is a Congolese British writer based in London.

Her debut play Lava received its world premiere at the Bush Theatre in 2021 to universal acclaim. Benedict was awarded the 2022 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Lava, becoming one of the first writers in the prize’s history to win the award for a debut play. Lava also won a Black British Theatre Award, Best Performance Piece at the 2022 Offies (Off West End Awards), and was nominated for the Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play of the Year.

Shifters, her new commission for the Bush Theatre, directed by Artistic Director Lynette Linton, premieres in Spring 2024. Further theatre work includes an attachment at the National Theatre Studio, a commission for the Charleston Festival and other new plays in development.

For screen, she has been commissioned to develop an original feature film for BBC Films and is developing original projects for television.

Chloe Stally-Gibson (she/her) is a freelance production manager. She is also the technical manager for ChewBoy Productions and is an associate of Zoo Co Theatre Company.

Her recent work includes: Pass It On and As We Face The Sun (Bush); Perfect Show For Rachel (Barbican); Welcome Home (Soho); The Secretaries (Young Vic); Caligari (ChewBoy Productions, winner of the 2022 Untapped Award); Space to Be (Oily Cart).

For the Bush Theatre: House of Ife, Lava, Overflow, The High Table.

Other theatre credits include: Snow Queen (New Wolsey); Cinderella (New Wolsey / Art Depot); We Anchor in Hope (Bunker); As You Like It (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); End of History (Royal Court); Inside Bitch (Clean Break); Snow White And Seven Dwarfs (Regents); Mysterious Gentleman (Courtyard); Treasure Island, Mr Tod, Richard The Third (Red Rose Chain – The Avenue); Fallen in Love (Red Rose Chain – The Tower of London); The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Comedy Of Errors (Red Rose Chain – Theatre in the Forest); Betty Blue Eyes, A View From The Bridge (Mercury); Zatopek (Second Movement); Commencing (Joined At the Hip – Etcetera Theatre); A Face In A Jar (Inside Job Theatre Projects); Buried Child (Ovation); Gambling (Soho).

Hayley Bowman is a freelance Assistant Stage Manager. She trained at LAMDA.

Recent works include: Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar); The Chairs, A Mirror, Tammy Faye (Almeida); The Road (Curve); Tribe (Young Vic).

Heather Basten is an English casting director based in London. She has been recognised as a Screen International ‘Star of Tomorrow’, a BAFTA Breakthrough Artist, CDG Award Winner and CSA Artios Nominee. Heather recently cast Dreaming Whilst Black, the first UK TV series commissioned from A24 (Euphoria, Ladybird and Moonlight Helmers), which will air later this year.

Theatre includes: Beneatha’s Place (Young Vic); Red Pitch (Bush / West End); God of Carnage (Lyric Hammersmith), Every Leaf A Hallelujah (Regent’s Park).

Film / TV includes: Dreaming Whilst Black (A24 / BBC); The Guests (Universal Pictures / Blumhouse); Hoard (BBC Film); Jungle (Amazon Studios).

Joel Trill’s recent work includes:

For the Bush Theatre: House of Ife, Strange Fruit.

Theatre: The 47th, A Number and Bagdad Cafe (Old Vic); All My Sons and As You Like It (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act (Orange Tree); Love Letters (Queens); J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter); Mirror Mirror, Master Harold and The Boys (National); Rockets & Blue Lights (Royal Exchange); Trojan Horse (Battersea Arts Centre); A Taste of Honey (Trafalgar Studios); Two Trains Runnin (Royal & Derngate); Red Dust Road (National Theatre of Scotland); One Night in Miami (Nottingham Playhouse); Glass Menagerie (Arcola).

Film and TV: The White Lotus, Riches, The Confessions Of Frannie Langton, Gangs of London (Season 2), The Crown (Season 5), Citadel, My Name is Leon, Empire, The Ancestors, Queen & Slim, Mama Ks Team 4, There’s Something About The Movies.

Lynette Linton is a BAFTA nominated writer and director for theatre, TV and film, and is the Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre.

For her production of Blues for an Alabama Sky at the National Theatre, she won the awards for Best Director at the 2022 Evening Standard Theatre Awards and 2022 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards.

Lynette’s directorial screen debut, My Name is Leon, a feature-length television adaptation of Kit de Waal’s award-winning novel, aired on BBC2 in June 2022. In 2023, she was nominated for the Emerging Talent: Fiction BAFTA award for her work on the film.

Lynette directed the UK premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat (Donmar Warehouse, Gielgud Theatre) for which she won Best Director at the inaugural Black British Theatre awards. Sweat also won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2019.

Her other directing credits include: Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage (Donmar); As We Face The Sun by Kit Withington (as co-director with Katie Greenall, Bush); August in England by Lenny Henry (as co-director with Daniel Bailey, Bush); House of Ife by Beru Tessema (Bush); an adaptation of Jackie Kay’s Chiaroscuro (Bush); Richard ii (as co-director with Adjoa Andoh, Globe); world premiere productions of Assata Taught Me (Gate) and Function (National Youth Theatre). She was Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse from 2017 to 2018.

As a writer, her credits include: Look at Me (ITV); Hashtag Lightie (Arcola); Chicken Palace and Step (Stratford East).

She is co-founder of theatre and film production company Black Apron Entertainment.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Malena Arcucci is a theatre designer and costume supervisor based in London. She is co-artistic director of Mariana Malena Theatre Company.

Design credits include: Strangers Like Me (NT Connect and Hackney Shed); The Bit Players (Southwark); Friday Night Love Poem (Zoo Venues Edinburgh); Point of No Return (Actor’s Centre); La Llorona (Dance City Newcastle); The Two of Us (Theatre Deli); Playing Latinx (Camden’s People’s Theatre) and various productions in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Associate Designer credits include: Dear Elizabeth (Gate); Chiaroscuro (Bush); Thebes Land and Tamburlaine (Arcola).

Costume Supervisor credits include: Sucker Punch (Queen’s Theatre); Bootycandy (Gate); Super High Resolution (Soho); The Boys are Kissing (Theatre503); Blues for an Alabama Sky (as Assistant, National); The Cherry Orchard (Yard / HOME); Chasing Hares (Young Vic); House of Ife (Bush); Lotus Beauty (Hampstead); Moreno and Milk and Gall (Theatre503); Raya (Hampstead).

Neil Austin is a triple Tony Award and double Olivier Award winner, designing internationally for plays, musicals, opera and dance.

Neil’s recent recent West End work includes: Medea, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Leopoldstadt, Company, The Night of the Iguana, Rosmersholm, Shakespeare in Love, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Red, Ink, The Goat, Photograph 51 and Bend it Like Beckham.

His Broadway work includes: Leopoldstadt, Company, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Ink, Travesties, Hughie, A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Evita, Red, Hamlet, The Seafarer and Frost Nixon.

He is the recipient of two Drama Desk awards.

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

Theatre includes: Macbeth (Donmar); The Time Traveller’s Wife (Apollo); Mlima’s Tale (Kiln); Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play (Royal Exchange / Young Vic); August in England (Bush); The Secret Life of Bees (Almeida); Best of Enemies (Noël Coward / Young Vic); Tartuffe (Birmingham Rep); The Time Traveller’s Wife: The Musical (Storyhouse); Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Story (Lyric); J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter / Theatre503); After Life, Master Harold…and the Boys, Hansard, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night (National); Nine Night (National / Trafalgar); Equus (Stratford East / Trafalgar); Tartuffe (RSC); Macbeth (Globe); Faustus (Headlong at Lyric / Birmingham Rep); Cinderella (Lyric); Grey (Ovalhouse); King Hedley II (Stratford East); Cougar, Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree); Winter, Why It’s Kicking off Everywhere (Young Vic); Cuttin’ It (Young Vic / Royal Court); A Streetcar Named Desire (Nuffield / Clwyd Theatre Cymru / English Touring Theatre); Rules for Living (Royal & Derngate / Rose / English Touring Theatre); Apologia (English Theatre Frankfurt).

Television/Film includes: The Marvels (Disney); Anansi Boys (upcoming on Amazon); Ear for Eye (BBC/Fruit Tree Media); Romeo & Juliet (Sky Arts/PBS/National Theatre).

Tony Gayle‘s credits include: My Neighbour Totoro (Olivier Award & Whatsonstage Award for Best Sound design, RSC @ Barbican); Pygmalion (Old Vic); Beneatha’s Place (Young Vic); School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Lyric Hammersmith); Greatest Days (UK Tour); Disney’s AIDA (Holland); Sylvia, The 47th (Old Vic); Newsies (Troubadour); Kinky Boots (New Wolsey); Running With Lions (Talawa/Lyric Hammersmith); Spring Awakening, And Breathe… (Almeida); The Wiz (Hope Mill); Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (Lyric Theatre); A Place For We (Talawa/Park); Gin Craze! (Royal & Derngate); The Living Newspaper, Shoe Lady (Royal Court); Poet in da Corner (Royal Court & UK Tour); Beautiful – The Carole King Musical (UK Tour); Lazarus (King’s Cross).

Tony was awarded the Black British Theatre Awards (BBTA) Light and Sound Recognition Award 2019 & 2021, is a Wise Children Trustee and Stage Sight Co-Director.

Wabriya King is the Associate Dramatherapist at the Bush Theatre. Wabriya’s practice is to create a space and a format to hold people safely while they navigate their experiences in relation to the theatre’s work. Wabriya has previously worked on productions at Soho Theatre, Theatre Roayl Stratford East, Hampstead Theatre, Royal Court, National Theatre and Paines Plough.

Credits for the Bush include: Paradise Now!; The P Word; House of Ife; Red Pitch; Overflow; Lava; The High Table.

XANA is a freestyle live loop musician, composer, spatial sound artist music supervisor and a haptic specialist sound designer developing accessible audio systems for live art spaces. XANA is the music science and technology lead and project mentor supporting artists and inventors at audio research label Inventing Waves.

Theatre credits: The Architect (ATC/GDIF); Beautiful Thing (Stratford East); Imposter 22, Word:Play, Living Newspaper #4 (Royal Court); Anna Karenina (Edinburgh Lyceum / Bristol Old Vic); Galatea (Wildworks, Marlborough Productions); The Trials, Marys Seacole (Donmar); Earthworks, Sundown Kiki: Reloaded, The Collaboration, Sundown Kiki, Changing Destiny, Fairview, Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic); …cake (Theatre Peckham); Who Killed My Father (Tron); as british as a watermelon (Contact); Hyde and Seek (Guildhall); Elephant, Sleepova, The P Word (Olivier Award), Strange Fruit (Bush); Burgerz (Hackney Showroom); Everyday (Deafinitely); Black Holes (The Place); Sankofa: Before the Whitewash, Hive City Legacy (Roundhouse); Glamrou: From Quran to Queen, Curious, Half-Breed (Soho); Blood Knot (Orange Tree); Noughts and Crosses (Pilot); SEX SEX MEN MEN, Samuel Takes A Break (Yard); Rumble In the Jungle (Rematch:Live).

Xana is the recipient of the 2023 Best Sound Design award from the Black British Theatre Awards (BBTA).