The P Word

Anthony Simpson-Pike is a director, dramaturg and writer whose work has been staged in theatres including The Gate, The Young Vic and The Royal Court. He is currently Associate Director at The Yard Theatre, was previously the resident director at Theatre Peckham and associate director at The Gate Theatre. Anthony is also a facilitator, working with young people and communities, having worked at The Gate, The Royal Court, The Young Vic and The Globe, and National Theatre in this capacity.

Recent directorial work includes Lava by Benedict Lombe (Bush Theatre); Living Newspaper (Royal Court); The Electric by Vickie Donoghue (Paines Plough/RWCMD); and The Ridiculous Darkness by Wolfram Lotz (Gate Theatre).

As a dramaturg Anthony has developed multiple seasons of work for The Gate and The Yard as Associate Director. Recent dramaturgical credits include Much Ado About Nothing (RSC); Samskara by Lanre Malalou (Yard Theatre); Hotline with Produced Moon (Tron Theatre); Dear Young Monster by Pete McHale (The Queer House); and Coup de Grace by Almudena Ramirez (Royal Court).

Elliot Griggs trained at RADA.

Theatre work includes Amélie the Musical (Criterion Theatre/Watermill Theatre/UK Tour); Fleabag (Wyndham’s Theatre/World Tour); Jitney (Old Vic/Headlong); Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks, A Fight Against, On Bear Ridge, Yen (Royal Court); The Wild Duck (Almeida); The Lover/The Collection (Harold Pinter Theatre); An Octoroon (Orange Tree/National Theatre); Missing Julie (Theatre Clwyd); Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic); Richard III (Headlong); Disco Pigs (Trafalgar Studios/Irish Rep, NY); Dry Powder (Hampstead Theatre); Pomona (Orange Tree Theatre/Royal Exchange/National Theatre); Queens of the Coal Age, The Night Watch (Royal Exchange); Missing People (Leeds Playhouse/Kani Public Arts, Japan); The Misfortune of the English, Last Easter, The Sugar Syndrome, Low Level Panic, Sheppey, buckets (Orange Tree); Hir (Bush Theatre); Lampedusa (HighTide); The Oracles (Punchdrunk); Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen (Roundabout @ Summerhall); Psychodrama (Traverse 2).

Gurkiran Kaur is a voice, accent and dialect coach from London. She received her BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London before training as an actor at The Bridge Theatre Training Company. She has an MA in Voice Studies from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is part of Freelancers Make Theatre Work’s Dawn Chorus collective. Gurkiran works at a number of drama schools and with private and corporate clients. She is part of The Voice and Speech Teaching Associations’ EduCore Leadership Team and serves as a Junior Board Member.

Coaching credits include Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Queens of Sheba (Soho Theatre); NW Trilogy (The Kiln); How to Save the Planet When You’re a Young Carer and Broke (Boundless Theatre); Best of Enemies and Chasing Hares (The Young Vic/Headlong); Red Pitch and Favour (Bush Theatre); Lotus Beauty (Hampstead Theatre/Tamasha Theatre); Henry VIII (Shakespeare’s Globe); Offside (Futures Theatre); Marvin’s Binocular’s (The Unicorn); The Climbers (Theatre By The Lake); Finding Home (Curve Theatre); and Good Karma Hospital for Tiger Aspect Productions.

Jatinder Chera took a position at the Royal National Theatre, following his graduation from the Casting Certificate, at the National Film and Television School. Prior to this, he worked as an actor, having trained at Millennium Performing Arts.

For the NT, Jatinder cast: Up Next Gala 2022 (Lyttelton Theatre, choreography Stephen Mear).

As Casting Associate, he worked on: The Father and the Assassin (Olivier Theatre, dir. Indhu Rubasingham).

As Casting Assistant, Jatinder worked on: Othello (Lyttelton Theatre, dir. Clint Dyer), Much Ado About Nothing (Lyttelton Theatre, dir. Simon Godwin), Small Island (Olivier Theatre, dir. Rufus Norris), and Trouble in Mind (Dorfman Theatre, dir. Nancy Medina).

Kala Simpson‘s stage management credits include: Female Shorts (Hoxton Hall), Beauty and the Beast (Queen’s Theatre), End of Hope (Soho Theatre), Room ( Theatre Royal Stratford East), Five Guys Named Moe (Speilgeltent Festival Square).

Maariyah Sharjil is a designer and supervisor.

She is a recent first-class graduate from BA Design for Performance at the Royal Central School of speech and Drama (2021). Before her design training, Maariyah worked at Sands Films as a costume constructor.

Her most recent productions include; Assistant Costume Supervisor for The Father and the Assassin (National Theatre), Costume Designer for The Key Workers’ Cycle (Almeida).

She has a passion for detailed research and often has an expansive reading list that inspires her work. The heart of her practice is turning the stories of minority communities and the diaspora into a visual language while also embedding historical and cultural themes into her work and designs.

Max Johns trained in theatre design at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was the recipient of a BBC Performing Arts Fellowship in 2015. Prior to this he worked for a number of years as a designer in Germany. His most recent UK productions include The Climbers (Theatre by the Lake), The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (Manchester Royal Exchange), Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia (Almeida), King John (RSC), The Panopticon (National Theatre Scotland), Overflow, Strange Fruit and Rust (Bush Theatre), Heartbreakin’ (WLB Esslingen, Germany), Buggy Baby (Yard), Yellowman (Young Vic), The Half God of Rainfall (Kiln/Birmingham Rep/Fuel), Urinetown (Central School of Speech and Drama), Wendy and Peter Pan (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), Kes and Random (Leeds Playhouse), Utility and Twelfth Night (Orange Tree), Fidelio (London Philharmonic Orchestra), Enron and Our Town (the Egg), Birthmarked, Life Raft, Medusa, The Light Burns Blue and Under a Cardboard Sea (Bristol Old Vic), and Hamlet and All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory). Upcoming productions include Sound of the Underground (Royal Court).

Niraj Chag is a London-based composer and artist whose work spans a wide range from albums, to TV & film scores, theatre and live events.

Niraj’s television and film soundtracks have reached a worldwide audience. These include One Night in Bhopal (BBC1), Bafta & Emmy winning Simon Schama’s The Power of Art (BBC Worldwide), The Age of Terror (BBC2), Andrew Marr’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (BBC2), Sex and the City (HBO), Origins of Us (BBC2), The Rise of the Continents (Discovery Channel), All in Good Time (Studio Canal), Our Girl (BBC1).

By contrast, Niraj’s album work allows him to explore and bring to life his own narrative. Albums include the critically acclaimed ‘Along The Dusty Road’, ‘The Lost Souls’ and ‘Mud Doll’.

Other work includes the score for the official Olympic Torch event on London’s South Bank (SBC). Musical Wah! Wah! Girls (Sadler’s Wells), The Olivier Award winning Rafta Rafta (National Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (RSC), Dara (National Theatre), Captive Queen (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Ramayana (Radio 4). In addition, Niraj has scored over 20 dance productions including Shobana Jeyasinghs Classic Cuts (Royal Opera House).

Rachael Nanyonjo is a movement director and choreographer.

Rachael’s training includes BA Honours in Dance Studies (Roehampton University) and MA in Choreography (Middlesex University).

Choreography & Movement Direction credits include: The White Card (Northern Stage & UK tour); Purple Snowflakes & Titty Wanks (Abbey Theatre and Royal Court); Trouble In Mind (National Theatre); Love Reign (Young Vic); Changing Destiny (Young Vic); The Death of a Black Man (Hampstead Theatre); Pigeon English (Bristol School of Acting); Cinderella (Nottingham Playhouse); Cbeebies (BBC); Spine (UK Tour); In A Word (Young Vic); Great Expectations (National Youth Theatre at Southwark Playhouse): Either (Hampstead); Two Trains Running (ETT – Royal and Derngate); American Dream (Young Vic); Does My Bomb Look Big In This (Soho Theatre, Tara Arts); Babylon Beyond Borders (Bush Theatre); Macbeth (Orange Tree); The Jumper Factory (The Young Vic, Bristol Old Vic); Misty (Trafalgar Studios); Sleeping Beauty (Theatre Royal Stratford East, nominated for the Black British Theatre Best Choreographer Award); After It Rains (National Youth Theatre); Shebeen (Nottingham Playhouse & Theatre Royal Stratford East); Bernstein’s Mass (Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre); Twilight (Gate Theatre); The Divide (Old Vic); and Cover My Tracks (Old Vic).

Directing credits include Recognition (audio play with 45North Ltd & Ellie Keel Productions); Bobsleigh (Old Vic Monologues); Amazina (Film); An Alternative Musical (National Theatre, for NT Learning as co-director); Assata – She Who Struggles (Young Vic, for Young Vic fresh direction); 2:1 (Kanzaze Dance Theatre at Rich Mix).

Choreographer screen credits include The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (ACE Entertainment); CBEEBIES: Christmas in Storyland (BBC); and Pirates (Hillbilly Films/BBC/BFI).

Waleed Akhtar is a writer and actor.

He was a Michael Grandage Company Futures bursary winner in 2021. His most recent work includes Kabul Goes Pop (Brixton House / Hightide / Colchester Mercury – UK Tour) and a new commission from Audible as part of the Emerging Playwrights scheme. He created Sholay On The Big Screen supported by the Bush and I Don’t Know What To Do at the Vault Festival 2020 (Evening Standard Pick of the Fest). His short film Lost Paradise was produced by UK Film Council, and he has contributed material for BBC Radio 4’s Sketchtopia and Newsjack and BBC3’s Famalam.

As an actor, his television credits include The Great (Hulu); Tyrant (FOX); Three Girls (BBC); Casualty (BBC); Holby City (BBC); Bucket (BBC); Dustbin Baby (BBC); Edge of Heaven (Hartswood Films); Doctors (BBC); Law and Order UK (Kudos); The Gym (BBC Studios). Waleed’s film credits include Cruella (Disney); The Wedding Guest (Revolution Films); The Roads Not Taken (Adventure Pictures); Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Kudos Film); Night Bus (El Capitan); Miss You Already (Embargo Films); Bruno (Jeva Films); The Intent 2 (Purple Geko); 90 Minutes (El Capitan); Sparks and Embers (Cinemagine); Sidney (BFI).

His audio credits include Tommies (BBC Radio 4); My Son the Doctor (BBC Radio 4); In Here (BBC Radio 4); What the Papers Say (BBC Radio 4). 

Waleed is also a resident member of the Actors for Human Rights network and seasoned comedy improviser.

Xana is a freestyle live loop musician, sound artist, vibrational sound designer, archival audio producer, audio researcher, spatial audio installation artist and theatremaker. Xana also develops accessible sound systems for spaces, is an sound arts facilitator and is a music tech lead at music research and development label Inventing Waves.

Theatre credits for the Bush: Strange Fruit.

Theatre: Everyday (Definitely Theatre, NDT), Who Killed My Father (Tron Theatre), The Trials, Marys Seacole (Donmar Warehouse), …cake (Theatre Peckham), Sundown Kiki, Changing Destiny, Fairview, Ivan and the Dogs (Young Vic), as british as a watermelon (Contact Theatre), Burgerz (Hackney Showroom).