Miss Myrtle’s Garden

Danny James King

Writer

Danny is a London based writer who got his start in theatre before moving into films. His first play Bounty was runner up at the Alfred Fagon Awards and was given a rehearsed reading at The Kiln the following year. 

Before becoming a full time writer, Danny worked in a number of different roles, and spent a lot of time in The House of Commons where he assisted various MPs and was able to meet a number of high profile figures, including Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron and The Dalai Lama. He spent 2016 in New York where he worked at Out Magazine during one of the country’s most contentious elections. There he gained experiences which informed his creative voice and changed the trajectory of his career path.

His time in New York inspired a stint of stand up comedy, and after opening for comedians such as Nish Kumar, Catherine Bohart, Larry Dean and Stephen Bailey, he decided to concentrate on his career as a writer, rather than a performer.

Taio Lawson

Director

Director Taio Lawson is Bush Theatre’s incoming Artistic Director and the Genesis Fellow / Associate Director at the Young Vic. He was previously Associate Director of Kiln Theatre and has held Resident Director roles at Sheffield Theatres, the Almeida, and on the West End run of Hamilton. Selected Director credits include: an unfinished man (The Yard Theatre), NW Stories (Kiln Theatre), HOME Digital (Young Vic Theatre), Macbeth (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Hang (Sheffield Theatres), White Devil (East 15 Acting School), Home – Installation (Young Vic Theatre). In 2026, Taio will direct Seagulls, a sharp contemporary Black British retelling of Chekhov’s The Seagull, for Kiln Theatre, which he has co-written with Dipo Baruwa-Etti.

Taio is also a trustee for PiPA (Parents and Carers in the Performing Arts), the organisation committed to amplifying the voices of everyone with caring responsibilities in the performing arts, to change mindsets and working practices alike.

Khadija Raza

Designer

Khadija Raza is a set and costume designer, who recently graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, working in theatre, opera and site-specific performances. Her assistant design credits include: Annemarie Woods on L’heure Espagnole and Gianni Schicci (Opera Nationale de Lorraine) and James Cotteril for the British Youth Opera on English Eccentrics and Owen Wingrave (Peacock Theatre). Currently, Khadija is assistant sesigner on The Unknown Island (Gate Theatre) and a finalist for the Linbury Prize.

Jatinder Chera

Casting Director

For the Bush: Miss Myrtle’s Garden, Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew, The Real Ones, A Playlist for the Revolution, Sleepova, The P Word.

Other theatre includes: Marriage Material (Lyric Hammersmith); Scenes from a Repatriation, G (Royal Court); The Comeuppance (Almeida); The Flea, Samuel Takes a Break, Multiple Casualty Incident (The Yard); Sweat (Royal Exchange).

Awards include: Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Sleepova and The P Word.

Ellen Rey De Castro

Costume Supervisor

Ellen Rey de Castro is a British Peruvian costume supervisor and designer.

Credits include: The Cardinal (Southwark Playhouse); The Sleeping Beauty (Royal Opera House); My Father’s Fable (Bush Theatre);The Jungle Book (Theatre by the Lake); Sonder(s) by Centre 59 (Roundhouse) and Scenes from a Repatriation (Royal Court).

Joshua Gadsby

Lighting Designer

Joshua Gadsby is a Lighting Designer and creative collaborator working across theatre, dance and live art. He regularly co-designs set, costume, and lighting with designer Naomi Kuyck-Cohen.

Lighting Designs include: New Beginning (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles (CFT); Who Killed My Father (Tron & UK Tour); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Theatre by the Lake); Alice in Wonderland (Mercury, Colchester); Gulliver’s Travels (lighting co-design, Unicorn); Robin Hood: Legend Of The Forgotten Forest (Bristol Old Vic); Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (Leicester Curve and ETT Tour); in a word (Young Vic); A Kettle of Fish (Yard); Tyler Sisters, Alligators (Hampstead); Still Ill (New Diorama/Kandinksy); As We Like It, Dragging Words, In Good Company (The Place); RISE: Macro vs. Micro (Old Vic New Voices).

Co-Designs include: The Winston Machine (New Diorama); There Is A Light That Never Goes Out: Scenes From The Luddite Rebellion (Royal Exchange); Trainers (Gate); Dinomania and Trap Street (also Schaubühne, Berlin) both for Kandinsky theatre at the New Diorama.

Dan Balfour

Sound Designer & Composer

Dan Balfour is an Olivier Award-nominated sound designer.

Credits include: Dear England (National Theatre/West End); More Life (Royal Court); The Cherry Orchard (Donmar Warehouse/St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York); Vanya (West End/Lucille Lortel, New York); A Christmas Carol (Northern Stage); Wuthering Heights (Royal & Derngate); The Dance of Death (Theatre Royal Bath/UK tour); Private Peaceful (Nottingham Playhouse/UK tour); Pavilion (Theatr Clwyd); hang (Sheffield Crucible); Idyll, One of Them Ones, Make Good: The Post Office Scandal (Pentabus); Effigies of Wickedness (Gate Theatre); Counting Sheep (Belarus Free Theatre); Voices of the Earth (Complicité); VINOVAT,-Ä, How to Break Out of a Detention Centre, Illegalised (BÉZNĂ); The Misfortune of the English, The Sugar Syndrome (The Orange Tree); Tempest (Islington Pleasance); The Hatchling (Trigger Productions); Two Character Play, Wilderness (Hampstead Theatre); HOME (Young Vic); Operation Mincemeat (Splitlip); The Double Act, Great Apes (Arcola); Dear Annie, I Hate You (Riverside Studios).

Eliot Allison

Additional Composition

Daniel Steward

Production Manager

Daniel is a graduate from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with a degree in Technical and Production Management. 

He has worked as a freelance production manager across numerous London producing houses including Theatre Royal Stratford East (Now, I See), Hampstead Theatre (Nineteen Gardens, The Habits) and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (The Turn of The Screw, Bedroom Farce) as well as working with Punchdrunk Enrichment (Lost Lending Library) and National Youth Music Theatre (Into the Woods, Our House). Daniel is also the current resident production manager for Punchdrunk Enrichment.

Catriona McHugh

Company Stage Manager

Catriona McHugh is a Stage Manager in theatre.

Recent Theatre credits include: Miss Myrtle’s Garden (Company Stage Manager, Bush Theatre); Cymbeline (Stage Manager, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Globe); Girl in the Machine (Stage Manager, Young Vic); The Bounds (Deputy Stage Manager, Royal Court); For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy (ASM Book Cover, Garrick Theatre); HIR (Company Stage Manager, Park Theatre); Blue Mist (Stage Manager, Royal Court); Oklahoma! (ASM Book Cover, Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre); Who Killed My Father (Stage Manager, Young Vic) and much more.

Laura Whittle

Assistant Stage Manager

Laura Whittle is a freelance stage manager.

As Company Stage Manager: Fly More Than You Fall (Southwark Playhouse); Wish You Weren’t Here (Sheffield Playhouse/Soho Theatre/ Tour).

As Venue Manager: Pleasance Grand/ Beyond (Edinburgh Festival Fringe); VAULT Festival (The Vaults); Underbelly La Clique (Leicester Square); Underbelly Lafayette (Edinburgh Festival Fringe).

As Stage Manager: Five Shorts (Young Vic); The Shivers (New Diorama Theatre/Schools tours); The Light Princess (The Albany Deptford, Arc Stockton, tour); Captain Amazing (Southwark Playhouse); Pride London (Leicester Square Stage); Tapped (Theatre 503/Tour); Bangers (Soho Theatre/Tour); Headcase (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch/Trinity Theatre); Snow (Tour); Various productions with Moth Physical Theatre

As Deputy Stage Manager: Haringey Feast (Alexandra Palace).

As Assistant Stage Manager: Platinum Pageant (The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee); Gin For Breakfast (Tristan Bates Theatre). 

Yarit Dor

Movement & Intimacy Director

Yarit is co-director of Moving Body Arts company and is a movement director, certified intimacy director/coordinator and fight director.

Theatre credits include: The Years (West End and Almeida); Fiddler on the Roof (Regent’s Park); Why Am I So Single (Garrick Theatre); Look Back In Anger, Roots, Daddy (Almeida); Othello, Henry V, Hamlet, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); A Strange Loop (Barbican Theatre); Hamilton (Victoria Palace); Hadestown (West End); Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre); Death of A Salesman (West End and Young Vic); The Band’s Visit, Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse); The Homecoming, The Second Woman, Changing Destiny (Young Vic); Black Superhero, This Is Not Who I Am (The Royal Court); Old Bridge, Strange Fruit (Bush Theatre); A View From The Bridge (Headlong).

Dance credits include: Peaky Blinders, Rooms, Weather Is Sweet, Goat (Rambert Dance); The Burnt City (Punchdrunk).

Film/TV credits include: Wicked, Supacell, Rivals, Atlanta, Rings of Power, Mood.

Olivia Poglio-Nwabali

Literary Manager & Lead Dramaturge

Olivia is a dramaturg, researcher and arts producer based in London. Before joining the Bush as their Literary Manager & Lead Dramaturge, she worked extensively with the Young Vic — acting as the theatre’s Associate Dramaturg between 2022 and 2024 — as well as with the Southbank Centre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Barbican Centre, among other institutions. Olivia’s work as a dramaturg is varied; collaborating on projects exploring diverse topics from palliative care to generative AI, and she is equally interested in devising experimental new work and reimagining canonical classics. Olivia researched and co-edited the book Decolonising the Theatre Space: A Conversation, published by the Bloomsbury imprint Methuen Drama in 2024, and also develops work for the screen.

Dr Nathasia M. Muwanigwa

Dementia Consultant

Coral Wylie

Botanical Consultant

Coral Wylie (they/them) is a writer, performer and environmental dramaturg. Their work finds its voice in the natural world (most often bugs), playing in the overlaps of science and art. Their debut play, Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew, was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award in 2023; before premiering at the Bush in February 2025.
Coral was a founding member of the Bush Theatre’s Young Company, and alumnus of the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers’ Group and Soho Theatre Writers Lab. Other writing credits include Flying Children’s Day (Small Truth Theatre) and Keep Off The Grass (Bush Theatre – Bush Green).

Wabriya King

Production Dramatherapist

Wabriya is a qualified Dramatherapist (Roehampton University), Actress (The Oxford School of Drama), creative facilitator and Reiki practitioner. Wabriya combines her experience to support creatives alongside the rehearsal and performance period. 

Wabriya is the Associate Dramatherapist for the Bush Theatre and has supported all productions since 2021.

Theatre credits: Born With Teeth (Wyndham’s Theatre); Intimate Apparel;  Love and Other Acts of Violence; The Trials; Clyde’s (Donmar Warehouse); Alterations; Blues for an Alabama Sky; (National Theatre); Elektra; Barcelona (Duke of York’s Theatre); Slave Play (Noël Coward Theatre); Shifters (Duke of York’s Theatre/Bush Theatre); A Strange Loop (Barbican Centre); Otherland; Roots; Look Back in Anger; Portia Coughlan; King Lear; Alma Mater; Romeo & Juliet; Secret Life of Bees (The Almeida); Romeo & Juliet (Jamie Lloyd); Red Pitch (Soho Place/ Bush Theatre); For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy (West End, Royal Court, New Diorama Theatre); School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Lyric Hammersmith); Wicked; Cabaret; Hamilton; Moulin Rouge; MJ The Musical (West End); Just For One Day (Old Vic Theatre); Now, I See, Beautiful Thing, Tambo & Bones (Stratford East); Falkland Sound, The Empress, Julius Caesar (RSC); Cowbois (Royal Court/RSC); Samskara; Samuel Takes a Break; The Flea (The Yard); Bootycandy (Gate Theatre); Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Complicité); Blue (ENO); Further than the Furthest Thing (Young Vic); Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World (The Other Palace/ UK tour); Becoming Nancy (Birmingham Rep); Revealed (Belgrade Theatre); SHED: Exploded View (Manchester Royal Exchange); Matthew Bourne’s Romeo & Juliet (New Adventures); Family Tree (Actors Touring Company). 

Film credits: The Changing Room (Anima Goli Productions), Empire of Light (Searchlight Pictures); Chevalier (Element Pictures).

Centre Line Fabrications

Set Builder

Kevin James

Production Electrician

Jay Williamson

Production Carpenter