Sharlene Whyte (Actor 3) in The Trick © Helen Murray
Mira’s husband, Jonah, died seven months ago, but that doesn’t mean that either of them are ready to let him go.
For most of her life Jonah has been Mira’s reason to get out of bed in the morning. So when he does his final disappearing act, Mira can’t quite believe her eyes. She knows she should be moving on. And yet, Mira finds herself caring less and less about the world outside.
The Trick is a magic show about the parts of life we don’t talk about – the realities of getting older and coming to terms with loss. Ghosts, goldfish, mediums, and sleight-of-hand collide in this unpredictable exploration of ageing and grief by Eve Leigh (Stone Face, Silent Planet). This world premiere will be directed by award-winning Roy Alexander Weise (The Mountaintop, Nine Night).
Eve is a playwright and theatremaker. She was the recipient of the 2017 Royal Court commission for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama; with her play, Spooky Action at a Distance, produced by the Royal Court, RWCMD, and Gate Theatre. She was the first artist-in-residence at the Experimental Stage of the National Theatre of Greece. Her plays Silent Planet and Stone Face were produced by the Finborough Theatre and published by Oberon Books. Stone Face was shortlisted for three Offies, including Best New Play. Other plays include The Curtain (YoungVicTaking Part), Plunder (YoungVicTaking Part), Red Sky at Night (Bush Theatre), Rapture (Soho Theatre), Enough (Birmingham REP Young Rep). Eve was dramaturg on How To Win Against History (Young Vic). Upcoming commissions include work for the Bush Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company,The Place/DanceEast, 36 МАЙМУНИ (Sofia), and DOCK11 (Berlin).
HighTide is a theatre company and charity that has an unparalleled eleven-year history of successfully launching the careers of emerging British playwrights and have worked with writers including Jack Thorne, Nick Payne, Vinay Patel, and Ella Hickson who have gone on to have great success in both stage and screen.
They have staged productions with some of the most important theatres nationally and internationally, from the Traverse in Edinburgh, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, the National Theatre in London and 59E59 in New York. HighTide discover new talent, provide creative development for playwrights and stage high quality theatre productions nationally through our annual festivals and touring.
Recent HighTide productions and co-productions include: Heroine (HighTide/ Theatr Clwyd), Kanye The First (HighTide/Paul Jellis/ Marlowe Theatre), Girls (HighTide/Talawa/Soho Theatre), Harrogate (HighTide/house/Royal Court) & In Fidelity (HighTide/ Traverse Theatre).
Jemima Robinson was awarded the Max Rayne Design Bursary at the National Theatre which she completed in March 2018. Jemima is a winner of the biennial Linbury Prize for Stage Design and has been nominated for Best Set Design OFF WEST END awards for Br’er Cotton at Theatre 503 and for Thebes Land at the Arcola Theatre.She is a former resident artist at Kenya’s Kuona Arts Trust in Nairobi and resident designer for Istanbul’s Talimhane Theatre.
Her recent UK Design credits include: Hansel and Gretel (Opera for Hidden Woods,Iford Arts), Br’er Cotton (Theatre 503, Nominated for Best Set Design for OFF WEST END Awards), The Majority (Dorfman, National Theatre), New Nigerians, Thebes Land (Nominated for Best Set Design and Winner of Best Production for OFF WEST END Awards, Maria de Buenos Aires (Arcola); Parallel Yerma (Young Vic); License to Ill, This Will End Badly, Little Malcolm and his struggle against the Eunuchs (Southwark Playhouse); Biedermann and the Arsonists, Synergies:NEBT (Sadlers Wells); Mapping Brent (Tricycle Theatre), Dyl, Sparks (Old Red Lion); Hearing Things (Albany), The Dark Room (Theatre 503), The Tempest (Watermill Theatre), I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Zorlu Centre, Istanbul). Jemima has also designed events, merchandise and foyers for the National Theatre, King’s Cross Theatre and Waldorf Hotel. She has run workshops and worked on community projects for The Young Vic, Kiln Theatre (The Tricycle), Iford Arts and the National Theatre.
Jemima currently lives and works in London. When she is not designing, she enjoys illustrating, painting and travelling… and dinosaurs.
Jennifer trained at East 15 and is a movement director and actor.
Movement direction includes: Amsterdam (ATC/Orange Tree/ Theatre Royal Plymouth), Pops (Jake Orr Productions), I Wanna Be Yours (Paines Plough/The Bush), Death of a Salesman, Queens of the Coal Age, Our Town (Royal Exchange Theatre), Parliament Square (Bush Theatre/Royal Exchange Theatre),The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (New Vic Theatre), Be My Baby, Around The World in 80 Days (Leeds Playhouse), The Trick (Loose Tongue/Bush Theatre/High Tide), Philoxenia (Bush Theatre), Mountaintop UK Tour (Desara Productions Ltd), Mayfly, Out of Water (Orange Tree), Brighton Rock (Pilot Theatre /The Lowry), I Want To Be Yours, Island Town, Sticks and Stones, How to Spot an Alien (Paines Plough Roundabout), The Mountaintop (Young Vic), Black Mountain, How to be a Kid, Out of Love (Paines Plough & Orange Tree), Death of a Salesman (Royal & Derngate), The Ugly One (The Park), Why The Whales Came (Southbank Centre), Stone Face (Finborough Theatre), Debris (Southwark Playhouse/Openworks Theatre), Macbeth (Passion in Practice/Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), Silent Planet (Finborough), Pericles (Berwaldhallen), The Future (The Yard/Company Three), Other-Please Specify, Atoms (Company Three), Takeover 2017 (Kiln Theatre).
Assistant movement director: Lungs, The Initiate, My Teacher’s a Troll (Paines Plough Roundabout 2014).
Julia trained in Design for Theatre & Television at Charles Stuart University, Wagga Wagga, Australia. As a Stage Manager her theatre credits include: Macbeth (Wildfire Productions, Cell Block Theatre, Sydney), The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (Wildfire Productions, Seymour Centre, Sydney), The Real Thing (English Touring Theatre, 2012 UK Tour), The One (Soho Theatre), Beached (Marlow Theatre & Soho Theatre), Lampedusa (Hightide Festival Theatre, Soho Theatre), Flare Path (Birdsong Productions & Original Theatre, 2016 UK Tour), This Much (Moving Dust, Soho Theatre), Harrogate (Hightide Festival Theatre, Royal Court & UK Tour), Edward II (The Marlowe Society & Cambridge Arts Theatre, Cambridge Arts Theatre), All The Things I Lied About (Paul Jellis Ltd, Soho Theatre & 2017 UK Tour), Frankie Vah ( Paul Jellis Ltd, Soho Theatre and 2018 UK tour), Paper, Scissors, Stone (Tara Finney Productions, The Vaults Festival 2018 & Live Theatre), Songlines (HighTide Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018 and 2018 UK Tour), Witches (Hertfordshire County Youth Theatre, Watford Palace). Festival credits include: WOW Festival (Hull 2017), Talawa First Festival (2017 & 2018)
Loose Tongue is a production company that finds, commissions, premieres, and showcases exceptional new writing. The company’s first production was immersive audio installation Hotel Europe, by Isley Lynn, David Ralf and Philipp Ehmann, at Green Rooms Hotel. This was followed by the premiere of Sea Fret by Tallulah Brown, at Old Red Lion Theatre, and the play’s spiritual home of Aldeburgh, at HighTide Festival 2017.
Producer David Ralf is General Manager of the Bunker Theatre, and previously Associate Producer of The Hope Theatre and Mingled Yarn Theatre. Productions include Devil With the Blue Dress (The Bunker), Sea Fret (Old Red Lion Theatre), Hotel Europe (Green Rooms Hotel), Brimstone and Treacle, The Wild Party, Steel Magnolias, (The Hope Theatre). As Production Manager: Stone Face (Finborough Theatre).
Producer Matt Maltby founded Pint-Sized. He co-created Earlsfield Stories for Tara Theatre with Jatinder Verma MBE, is currently co-producing Fabric by Abi Zakarian at Soho Theatre and is New Work Co-Ordinator at Bunker Theatre.
Odinn is an Icelandic composer and sound designer based in London. Using a mixture of traditional instruments and experimental digital processing, he creates textured and unique sounds and compositions. Recently Odinn has contributed to the immersive show Reflected (The Milo Wladek Co.), the Eastenders podcast (BBC Sounds), The Zoe Ball Book Club (ITV and Cactus TV). Previously he and Roy Alexander Weise worked together on the National Youth Theatre’s production of Jekyll & Hyde in 2017 and together with Eve Leigh on Stone Face in 2016.
Roy Alexander Weise is the 19th annual winner of the James Menzies-Kitchin Award and directed his critically-acclaimed, sell-out production of The Mountaintop by Katori Hall at the Young Vic. Theatre credits include: Nine Night (National Theatre, Trafalgar Studios), Br’er Cotton (Theatre 503), Heretic Voices (Arcola Theatre); Jekyll and Hyde (National Youth Theatre); Dead Don’t Floss (National Theatre); The Ugly One (Park Theatre, Buckland Theatre Company); The Dark (Fuel & Ovalhouse); Zero For The Young Dudes (Young & Talented in association with NT Connections); The Mountaintop (Young Vic); Primetime (Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre); and Stone Face (Finborough Theatre). Assistant Director credits include: Hangmen (Royal Court and West End); X, Escaped Alone,You For Me For You, Primetime 2015,Violence and Son,Who Cares, Liberian Girl (Royal Court); Albion,We Are Proud To Present…(Bush Theatre); and The Serpent’s Tooth (Talawa/Almeida Theatre). For Television, Roy was Trainee Director on Invisible (Red Room/Ballet Boys/Channel 4). Roy has previously worked at the Royal Court as the Trainee Director, at the Bush Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith as the BBC Theatre Fellow and at The Red Room as Associate Artist. Roy is now Associate Director at the Harts Theatre Company and Lead Acting Tutor at Young & Talented School of Stage & Screen.
Steve has over 20 years’ experience of working within a variety of areas in theatre & dance performance. Working initially in stage management, then moving in to technical stage management and then on to production management. As a freelance practitioner for over 10 years, Steve has worked as Production Manager with a number of theatre & dance companies, these include, a 12-month international tour with 1927’s The Animals & Children Took to the Streets, national tours of The Paper Birds’ Mobile, a touring site-specific caravan based show, The West Yorkshire Playhouses’ national tour of Beryl to theatres & rural venues. Steve has worked as Production Manager on a number of festivals, including Leeds Transform 19 and HighTide Festival Aldeburgh. Recently Steve took Second Hand Dance’s show, Getting Dressed on a four-week tour of Sweden and to the International Performing Arts for Youth festival in Philadelphia.
Thomas’ directing credits include Mrs Dalloway (Arcola), Callisto: a queer epic (Arcola), The Games We Played (Theatre 503), Rehearsing for Planet B (North Wall Arts Centre), Romeo and Juliet (Southwark Playhouse & International Tour) and The Pillowman (Oxford Playhouse). He is joint Artistic Director of Forward Arena, and worked as NYT Rep Bryan Forbes Assistant Director throughout 2017, during which he assisted Roy Alexander Weise and was mentored by Carrie Cracknell.
