Tender

Eleanor Tindall

Writer

Eleanor is a writer from London. 

Theatre includes: Before I Was A Bear (Soho); Macbeth, Something Wicked (Donmar Warehouse Schools Tour); Tender (Bush); I Am Asking You To Touch Me (National Youth Theatre).

Previously, Eleanor’s play What If Orpheus Was Four Sad Women was one of five plays shortlisted for the 2024 Verity Bargate Award, and was longlisted for the 2025 Bruntwood Prize and commissioned by Soho Theatre as part of their ReDraft scheme. She has been a member of various writers’ programmes, including Soho Theatre Writers Lab, and was part of the BBC Voices cohort in 2024. She was nominated for Best Writer at the Stage Debut Awards in 2020 for her first play Before I Was A Bear.

Tender was a finalist for the Ambassador Theatre Group’s Playwriting Prize in association with Platform Presents.

Emily Aboud

Director

Emily is a Trinidadian theatre director and playwright.

She was shortlisted for RTST Peter Hall Award in 2025 and 2023 and shortlisted for the JMK Award in 2022 and 2021. She is a recipient of the Evening Standard Future Theatre Award, and wrote Insurrection: A Work in Progress for the Royal Opera House. As a Caribbean theatre maker, her work draws inspiration from the political community theatre she grew up making in Trinidad – a combination of music, movement, direct audience address and theatricality.

Theatre includes:

As Director: Nine Sixteenths (Brixton House); Disco Inferno (National Youth Theatre); Omeros (Jermyn Street); Sweet Charity (Mountview); Rock DJ and Three Other Songs That Saved the World (New Diorama); FLIP! (Regional tour / Soho); Lady Dealer (Paines Plough Roundabout / Bush); SPLINTERED (Soho Main House, also writer); BOGEYMAN (Edinburgh Fringe 2022, also writer); Pink Lemonade (Bush).

As Associate Director: The Harder They Come (Stratford East); The Story (National Theatre); Going Through (Bush); Tijean and His Brothers (Queen’s Hall, Trinidad).

Alys Whitehead

Set and Costume Designer

Alys is a Set and Costume Designer who trained at Central Saint Martins. She was a Resident Designer at the New Diorama Broadgate studios and was a 2024 JMK finalist. 

Theatre includes:

As Designer: Welcome to Pemfort (Soho); Dido and Aeneas (Longborough Festival Opera); Gullivers Reisen (Co-Costume Designer with Rosanna Vize, Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar); Revenge: After the Levoyah (The Yard / Soho); The Da Vinci Code (Salisbury Playhouse / Mercury Theatre Colchester); The Habits (Hampstead); Tender, This Might Not Be It (both Bush); Bedroom Farce (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); The Angry Brigade (LAMDA); Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea, Snowflakes (both Park); Lysistrata (Lyric Hammersmith); SAD (Omnibus); Maddie (Arcola). 

As Associate Designer: Macbeth (Pinter); The Glass Menagerie (Rose / Belgrade / Alexandra Palace / UK tour); Earthworks (Young Vic); Wordplay (Royal Court). 

David Doyle

Lighting Designer

David is a multi-award-winning lighting designer from Ireland.

Lighting work includes: Tender (Bush); Outlying Islands (Jermyn Street); Bellringers (Hampstead / Paines Plough Roundabout); Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz (Royal Court / Paines Plough Roundabout / UK tour); we were promised honey! (59E59 / Paines Plough Roundabout / UK and International tour); Life According to Saki (New York Theatre Workshop / Edinburgh Fringe); Skye: A Thriller, Baby in the Mirror, Instructions, Little Deaths (all Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe); SAP (Paines Plough Roundabout / Soho / UK tour); Nation (Paines Plough Roundabout); Boy in Da Korma (Jermyn Street / Pleasance); Fabulous Creatures, Anna Bella Eema (both Arcola); Carmen, EAST, Outlying Islands (all King’s Head); The Last Show Before We Die (The Yard / Bristol Old Vic / Paines Plough Roundabout); Douze, The Power of Wow, Confirmation (UK and Ireland tour); ADMIN (Project Arts Centre / Irish tour); Brendan Galileo For Europe (Irish tour); Richard Carpenter is Close to You, My Name is Saoirse (both International tour).

David also works as a producer and is currently the Co-Artistic Director and Executive Producer for Jermyn Street Theatre.

Ellie Isherwood

Sound Designer

Ellie is a sound designer, composer, actor-musician and synth-pop artist (BYFYN). Her “dynamic” and “quietly ground breaking” work spans musicals and straight plays alike, embracing an array of forms from site-specific theatre to immersive binaural audio experiences. 

This year, Ellie was made the Associate Artist for the New Wolsey Theatre and was selected as a finalist for the prestigious Stiles and Drewe Best New Song Prize with her song “Nice Girls Never Win” from the upcoming new musical, VAMP. 

Recent work includes performance and composition for the stage adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s The Dark and composition and sound design for Dweeb-A-Mania at Polka.  

Other theatre includes: Scenes from a Friendship (Nottingham Playhouse); Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Orange Tree); Disco Inferno (National Youth Theatre); The Sleep Show, The Intrusion, Ruby Wax: I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was (all UK tours); Cartoonopolis, The Glass Ceiling Beneath the Stars (Pleasance); The Gel (New Diorama); Tender (Bush); The Fir Tree (artsdepot); Son of a Bitch (Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe); The Odyssey (Unicorn); The Light Princess (The Albany, Deptford / ARC – Stockton Arts Centre).

Tommy Ross-Williams

Intimacy Director

Tommy (they/them) came to intimacy direction through their extensive experience in developing safer spaces in the arts and their commitment to embodied practice. They are a BECTU IC Registry Level 2 Intimacy Coordinator and former chair of the IC BECTU branch.

Theatre includes: Broken Glass (Young Vic); Brokeback Mountain, The Little Big Things (@SohoPlace); Two Gentlemen of Verona (RSC); Positive (Southwark Playhouse); Tender (Bush); The Glass Menagerie (Rose Theatre Kingston / UK tour); Just For One Day (Old Vic); As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Salty Irina (Roundabout @ Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe).  

Television includes: Love Is Blind UK; Married at First Sight UK; Honey; Knight of the Seven Kingdoms; I, Jack Wright; Sweetpea; Juice; Slow Horses; Citadel; Outrageous; Human.

Film includes: The Fantastic Four: First Steps; Black Church Bay; Ish; Love and Rage: Munroe Bergdorf. 

Sophie Cooch

Associate Intimacy Director

Sophie is an Intimacy Director and Intimacy Coordinator working across theatre, television, film, audio and performance art. She trained and certified with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators (IDC) in New York under industry pioneers Alicia Rodis and Claire Warden. As an Intimacy Coordinator, Sophie has worked on productions for HBO, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Paramount, Netflix and BBC.

Before specialising in intimacy, Sophie spent over a decade working across stage and screen as a professional actor, theatre maker and movement performer, which provided the solid foundation for her work choreographing intimate scenes.

Theatre includes: Romeo & Juliet (Stratford East / Sadler’s Wells); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Oxford Playhouse); Blandy (Edinburgh Fringe); Paper Cut (Park); The Frontline, Chaos (both LAMDA); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Jesus College, Oxford); The Lover (Keble O’Reilly Theatre); Spring Awakening (OUDS).

Screen work includes: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms S2; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S3; Cunk on Life; Geek Girl.

Jessie Anand Productions

Producer

Jessie Anand Productions makes theatre and opera that is fresh and playful. Since it was founded in 2018, the company has premiered nine new plays: Bungalow (Theatre503); Tender and This Might Not Be It (both Bush); Tiger (Omnibus); Orlando (59E59, New York / Pleasance, Edinburgh / VAULT Festival); Pennyroyal (Finborough); Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse); MAGDALENE (Arcola) and Blue Thunder (VAULT Festival). 

Other productions include the national premieres of Angus Cerini’s Griffin Award-winning play The Bleeding Tree (Southwark Playhouse) and Amy Beach’s 1932 opera Cabildo (Wilton’s Music Hall / Arcola). 

Jessie Anand Productions is thirteen times Offie-nominated and is supported by Stage One. The company returns to the Bush following the recent success of Maggots in the Studio.

Broccoli Arts

Associate Producer

Broccoli Arts is a new writing company producing work for and by lesbian, bisexual and queer people who experience misogyny. 

Broccoli productions include: Tender by Eleanor Tindall, This Might Not Be It by Sophia Chetin-Leuner (Bush); Salty Irina by Eve Leigh (Paines Plough Roundabout / Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe); Before I Was a Bear by Eleanor Tindall (Soho / Bunker). 

Broccoli was founded by Salome Wagaine and is run by Eve Allin. 

Titch Gosling

Production Manager

Titch has worked as a Production Manager and as a Stage Manager in the West End and on UK and international tours for 19 years.

Theatre includes: Public – The Musical (Leicester Curve Studio); Lifeline The Musical, Maiden Voyage, This Is My Family (all Southwark Playhouse Elephant); Mrs Armitage on Wheels (Royal Festival Hall); Beautiful Little Fool, Then, Now & Next (both Southwark Playhouse Borough); Circus 1903 (Jeddah / Dubai / Dammam / London and UK tour); How To Fight Loneliness (Park); Rob Brydon: A Night of Songs and Laughter; The 13-Storey Treehouse; Unfortunate; Black Blues Brothers Holes, Avenue Q, Mr Men; Bing Live!, Egusi Soup (all UK tour); Cyrano (Park / Edinburgh Fringe Festival); Duckpond (Royal Festival Hall); Tubular Bells (UK & EU tour); Outlier (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder (Edinburgh Fringe / UK Tour / Ambassadors); Acis & Galatea (Stone Nest); The Night of the Iguana (Noel Coward); Guys and Dolls (Royal Albert Hall); Young Frankenstein, The Miser, Kenneth Branagh Season (all Garrick); Carousel, Amour (Royal Academy of Music); One Man, Two Guvnors (UK / International tour / Haymarket Theatre); Watch This Space Festival (National Theatre); The Little Witch (The Place).

TV includes: Olivier Awards (Young Frankenstein); Olivier Awards (Kenneth Branagh Season); The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (25th anniversary performances).

Nikita Bala

Company Stage Manager on Book

Theatre includes: Godot’s To-Do List (Royal Court); Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Young Vic); The Sleep Show (Peut-Être / tour); Nowhere, There’s a Bear on my Chair, FLIP! (Fuel); Next Generation: Timon of Athens (RSC); Lady Dealer (Grace Dickson, Bush); The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse (Unicorn); Godot is a Woman (Silent Faces); Splintered (Soho); Bootycandy (Gate).

Frankie Neville

Assistant Stage Manager

Frankie is a freelance stage manager, specialising in assistant stage management and props. They trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Theatre includes:

As Assistant Stage Manager: The Étienne Sisters/dirty butterfly, The Beautiful Future is Coming (both Bristol Old Vic); Cable Street (Marylebone).

As Company Stage Manager: The Emu War: Concert Tour (National tour).