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).

Deirdre O’Halloran is the Literary Manager at the Bush Theatre, working to identify and build relationships with new writers, commission new work and guide plays to the stage.

At the Bush she’s dramaturged plays including Olivier Award winners Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd and The P Word by Waleed Akhtar, Lava by Benedict Lombe and An Adventure by Vinay Patel.

Deirdre was previously Literary Associate at Soho Theatre, where she worked as a dramaturg on plays including Girls by Theresa Ikoko and Fury by Phoebe Eclair-Powell. She led on Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab programme and the biennial Verity Bargate Award.

As a freelancer, Deirdre has also been a reader for Out of Joint, Sonia Friedman Productions and Papatango.

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.

Theatre credits for the Bush: August in England; Paradise Now!; The P Word; Favour; Red Pitch.

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

Ian Taylor is a Technical and Production Manager with over a decade of experience in the theatre and events industry. Ian has an extensive background in stage management, production management, technical management and as managing director of eStage, a company dedicated to serving the entertainment industry’s needs.

Credits at the Bush include: The P Word; Overflow; The High Table.

Ian’s career began in stage management with Glyndebourne and The Royal Opera companies in 2004 and 2006, respectively, as an Assistant Stage Manager. Within a few years, he became a stage manager for The Royal Opera in 2010. Other companies he’s stage-managed for include ROH2, Secret Cinema, Opera Holland Park and Pimlico Opera. He was also the Senior Stage Manager for Opera Holland Park’s Summer Festival for four years.

In 2012 he started production managing and has worked for Birmingham Rep, Sheffield Theatres, Bush Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, The Royal Opera, Southwark Playhouse, Park Theatre, Philharmonia Orchestra, W11 Opera, Arcola Theatre, Troupe Productions, Papatango and Secret Cinema. In 2021/22, Ian was appointed Technical Manager of the Bush Theatre in London before returning to full-time production management under eStage.

Having founded eStage in 2014, Ian deeply understands individual creatives and the arts industry in general; Ian has over a decade of expertise in managing OKEDIA, eStage’s digital services offering, and MiniStage, its 3D printing service. Both offer creative digital services to entertainers and arts organisations, including website design, hosting and physical 3D models.

In 2016 Ian founded the Backstage Professional Development Conference launched by the team at eStage to bring together industry professionals offering knowledge, advice, and guidance based on their careers in the industry. They provided genuine first-hand experience and tips through talks, workshops, and Q & A’s.

Ian holds a bachelor’s degree in stage management and technical theatre, with honours, from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

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 Bush, Jatinder cast: Olivier Award winning The P Word, and Sleepova. Further credits include: The Nutcracker (Bristol Old Vic); Up Next Gala 2022 (Lyttelton, NT); and A Family Business (Staatstheater Mainz & UK Tour).

As Casting Associate at the National Theatre, he worked on: The Father and the Assassin (Olivier).

As Casting Assistant at the National Theatre, Jatinder worked on: Othello, Much Ado About Nothing (Lyttelton); Small Island (Olivier); and Trouble in Mind (Dorfman).

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).

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.

Waleed Akhtar is a writer and actor.

His theatre credits include AI (Young Vic); A Thousand Splendid Sons (Birmingham Rep and tour); Flight (Vox Motus/The Bridge); What Shadows (Birmingham Rep/ Park Theatre); Fracked! (Chichester Festival Theatre tour); The Kite Runner (Nottingham Playhouse and tour); Cold Calling: The Arctic Project (Birmingham Rep); Wipers (Leicester Curve); Back Down (Birmingham Rep); Velocity (Finborough); RE:HOME (The Yard); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Tooting Arts Club); Under 11’s (Soho Theatre); Love Match (Cheltenham Everyman); Make and Model: Radar Festival (Bush Theatre).

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.

As a writer 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. He was a Michael Grandage Company Futures bursary winner in 2021.

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).