Directing
Enron
By Lucy Prebble
Mountview, Mack Theatre 2022
Third Year graduating company
Movement Director: Sara Green
Set and Costume Designer: Alison Taylor
Lighting Designer: Adam King
Sound Designer: Michael Livermore
The Seagull
By Anton Chekov in version by Simon Stephens
Drama Centre, London 2022
Performed in the Platform Theatre, Kings Cross
Third Year Graduating company
Set and Costume design: Peter Butler
Lighting design: Fifi Thorsteinsson
Sound design: Federica Lippi
Movement: Matthew Wenham
Costume supervisor: Jida Akil
Photography credit: Michael John White
Cheer Up Slug
By Tamsin Daisy Rees.
Live Theatre 7th -23rd October 2021
Designer: Anna Orton
Fight/ Intimacy direction: Rachel Brown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown
Lighting Design: Drummond Orr
Sound Design: David Flynn
“Not that I’m saying I know more about you than you do, I’m not saying, that’s not what I’m saying, like, at all! Just that I do know you better than maybe you know yourself.”
Will and Bean have been friends forever. But they’re not kids anymore and the adult world is a scary place. In a tent in County Durham, a Duke of Edinburgh Award trip becomes more complicated than either of them planned.
A new play about boundaries and behaviour.
4 * The Guardian “The tone goes from comic to troubling, taking in bold strokes of muddy theatricality on the way”
Look, No Hands
Written and Performed by Lila Clements
Produced by Watersmeet Productions in association with The Actor’s Centre, Pleasance and Pitlochry Festival Theatre
When Vee embarks on her cycling commute, she has no idea she’ll never make it home. Appearing in a Nightingale Court to face the driver - suffering from amnesia, armed only with her hospital notes, a surprise appearance on 24 Hours in A&E and a bag of ripped clothes - she tries to piece together what happened to her that day.
But what she can’t work out, is why something so awful… can make her feel so fantastic.
And if that was dying. What is this? What is this magic?
An uplifting story of hope and survival, this new one person play explores the female cycling experience and the phenomenon known as Post Traumatic Growth.
A Younger Theatre - 4* Four Stars
“Clever and engaging…A genuinely exciting piece of theatre”
The Scotsman - 4* Four Stars
Locker Room Talk
By Gary McNair. Produced by Live Theatre, 2019
The locker room. A space for men. A space for harmless “banter”. It’s all just a bit of fun really, nothing meant by it.
In the wake of the #metoo and #TimesUp movements - and with a world leader who ‘banters’ that he can “grab them by the pussy” - Locker Room Talk is an urgent response to everyday misogyny.
In 2017, Gary McNair interviewed hundreds of men across the UK and asked them to talk about women. He has distilled these conversations into a verbatim play in which the men’s words are given to an all-female cast to perform.
Stupid
Written and Performed by Sian Armstrong
Produced by Mortal Fools, 2018
Tour: Northern Stage; Alphabetti Theatre; Washington Arts Centre and Prudhoe High School
Stupid's world has been turned upside-down.
She's muddling through the chaos - one lesson at a time - but she's stuck and everything is feeling more and more confused. She's working on a theory, a theory to fix it...relatively speaking.
Stupid is a quick-witted, mood-lifting, “not-just-me-then” tale of one woman's journey to figure it all out. Attempting to express the unexpressed, trying to own up to things she doesn't know, and questioning whether being an adult will ever really make sense.
“Kept a packed Alphabetti Theatre enthralled as she took the audience on a rollercoaster ride of humour, awkwardness and deep sadness that is real life….every adult on every seat could relate. ” NARC Magazine
Melva
By Danielle Burn
Produced by Mortal Fools 2017
Front Street Pop-Up Theatre, Prudhoe
Melva is for children aged 7-11, their teachers and families. It's a boisterous, mischievous and funny story of one girl’s adventure to find out what she’s really capable of.
Do you have worrits? You know - that uncontrollable churning in the pit of your tummy like you have 341 worms squirming about? Melva Mapletree has them too, and right now they won’t let her leave the house. But then, one night, something happens which changes her world forever.
“Fantastic production in a unique setting. Bringing affordable theatre to the local area is a great idea”
“A well-written story with an important and emotional message, not only for children, but for adults!”
Audience feedback
Get Yourself Together
By Josh Coates
Dramaturgy: James Varney
Designer: Jenny Swindells
In Association with Manchester Royal Exchange 2016
Tour: Royal Exchange Theatre; Northern Stage; Paines Plough Roundabout; Hull Truck Studio; CPT
One Christmas, Josh was diagnosed with depression and then hit by a car. The following year he was on Jobseeker’s whilst attempting to balance his sanity and gift-buying. This is a show about being ill and being fit for work. This is a show about the DWP and being from Bolton. This is a show that explores the thin line between mental health as a clinical and a political issue.
Part stand-up, part spoken-word and part-teenager in his room pretending he’s in a punk band.
“So many shows are noted for their supposed “call to arms”; Get Yourself Together does this without ever demanding from, or pressuring, the audience…Anna Ryder’s meticulous direction compliments the whole idea behind taking control” Exuent Magazine
Rendezvous
Live Theatre 2015
An evening of short plays performed in Live Theatre’s Main House, co-directed with Clive Judd, in memory of poet, novelist and playwright Julia Darling. From 2000 to 2002, Julia was writer-in-residence at Newcastle’s Live Theatre. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of her death, Live commissioned five women writers (Laura Lindow, Amy Golding, Nina Berry, Deborah Bruce, Holly Reed Macrae) to write short plays inspired by her work.
“Anna Ryder directs with a deft, light touch'“ British Theatre Guide
“It was the perfect balance, a great dedication to the talented Julia Darling.” Northern Echo