The Incident Room Cast & Creative Team Announced

20 June 2019

Today we announce the cast and creative team for our next in house production.

The Incident Room is written by Olivia Hirst and our Artistic Director David Byrne and will be directed by Beth Flintoff and David Byrne.

We're delighted to be reunited with many of the creative team who brought you our award-winning production of Secret Life of Humans. Returning are Composer and Sound Designer Yaiza Varona, Digital Designer Zakk Hein and Costume Designer Ronnie Dorsey. The set will be designed by Patrick Connellan with Lighting from Greg Cebula.

The Incident Room will be performed by: Katy Brittain, Colin R Campbell, Peter Clements, Ben Eagle, Charlotte Melia, Jamie Samuel and Tanya Vital.

The Incident Room opens at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. You can get tickets here. We have two preview performances at NDT before we head up to Edinburgh. You can get tickets for the London previews here.

CREATIVE TEAM:

Writers - Olivia Hirst & David Byrne
Directors - Beth Flintoff & David Byrne
Set Design - Patrick Connellan
Digital Design - Zakk Hein
Lighting Design - Greg Cebula
Composer & Sound Design - Yaiza Varona
Costume Design - Ronnie Dorsey

CAST:

Katy Brittain
Colin R Campbell
Peter Clements
Ben Eagle
Charlotte Melia
Jamie Samuel
Tanya Vital

Full biographies below.

The Incident Room is a co-production with The Pleasance and Greenwich Theatre, and is supported by Arts Council England.

Beth Flintoff - Co-Director

Beth is a freelance playwright and director living in Hampshire. As Director, recent credits include Hardboiled (New Diorama/The Watermill Theatre with Rhum and Clay), Jekyll and Hyde with Rhum and Clay, Othello, and Doctor Faustus (The Watermill). Recent work as a writer includes: The Rebellious Women of Wimbledon for Attic (Off West Award Nominee for Most Promising New Playwright 2018), Polstead for Eastern Angles, The Glove Thief for Tonic (published by Nick Hern Books), The True History of Susanna Shakespeare (Papatango Prize Longlist). She is an Associate Artist at Reading Between the Lines, for whom she has written the Conquerors Trilogy about Reading Abbey (Henry I, Matilda the Empress, and Henry II), Oscar Wilde on Trial, and Genomes. She is currently under commission to Paines Plough, Reading Between the Lines, and the Change Festival at Warwick Arts Centre.

Olivia Hirst - Co-Writer

Artistic Director of Lost Watch Theatre Company.

Works performed at New Diorama, Soho Theatre, Royal Court, Greenwich Theatre, Cast Doncaster & Tjarnarbíó Theatre Reykjavik, Iceland.

Member of Royal Court Writers 2014, Soho Writers 2014, BBC Writers Room Script Room 4.

BA Contermpoary Theatre at East 15, 2013.

David Byrne - Co-Director & Co-Writer

Artistic and Executive Director of London’s New Diorama Theatre, David Byrne is a playwright and theatre director, whose first play won the Writers’ Guild and List Magazine Awards for Drama in 2014.

His latest productions, SECRET LIFE OF HUMANS and a new, radical adaptation of George Orwell’s DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON both played to sold out audiences at the Edinburgh Festival and in London, receiving four and five star reviews in the national press, and both transferring Off-Broadway. SECRET LIFE OF HUMANS has been published by Nick Hern Books.

David is also a comedy writer, developing both solo projects and joint scripts with writing partner, Richard Hurt. THE PARTY was optioned by BBC comedy, after winning their nationwide Laughing Stock contest and David has had several original pitches commissioned including RUTHLESS, a comedy set in the Royal Opera House and STITCHES, a series set on Saville Row. His most recent script BEING JULIAN, about Wiki-Leaks founder Julian Assange living in the Ecuadorian Embassey was performed at the Arcola Theatre and later optioned for television by Objective Productions, with Channel 4.

David is the recipient of several Peter Brook Awards, the Off-West End Award for Best Artistic Director, the Enfant Terribles Prize, and is one of The Stage’s 100 most influential people working in theatre.

Patrick Connellan - Set Design

Theatre credits include: Educating Rita (National Tour 2019); Beauty and the Beast (Co-Designer) (Theatre by the Lake Keswick); We’ll Live and Die in These Towns (Coventry Belgrade); Read All About It – City Final and Retold (Co-Designer) (Belgrade Theatre site-specific production in Coventry Evening Telegraph building); Whisky Galore (Oldham Coliseum and national tour including Belgrade Theatre); A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Hull Truck Theatre); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Perm, Russia); The Red Lion (Olivier Award nominated) (Live Theatre, Newcastle and Trafalgar Studios, London), Iris (Live Theatre, Newcastle); The Father (Oldham Coliseum and Harrogate Theatre); The Gaul (Hull Truck Theatre); The Baraem Play (Costume Design)(Al Jazeera Media, Qatar); The Hook (Theatre Royal, Northampton and Liverpool Everyman); The Ladykillers (New Vic/Hull/Stephen Joseph); Roll Over Beethoven, Three Minute Heroes, One Night in November, The Rink, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Dice House, This Lime Tree Bower (as Director and Designer, also Edinburgh Festival), Silas Marner, She Stoops To Conquer, Leader of the Pack, Neville’s Island, The Wedding (Coventry Belgrade); The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice and Into The Woods (nominated for TMA Best Musical Award) (Derby Theatre/Playhouse); 20th Century Boy (New Wolsey); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Price, Ghosts, All My Sons, The Seafarer, Meet the Mukherjees, Popcorn (also Director), Broken Glass, Twelfth Night, Little Malcolm, The Weir and The Hypochondriac (Octagon, Bolton); Edward III (RSC/West End); A Passionate Woman, Misery (West End); The Slight Witch (National Theatre/Birmingham Rep); Where Have I Been All My Life, Abigail’s Party (also Director) Copenhagen and Alphabetical Order (New Vic, Stoke) and for Hampstead Theatre: Amongst Friends, Life After Scandal (also Plymouth), Taking Care of Baby (also Birmingham Rep), The Maths Tutor, Osama the Hero/A Single Act, My Best Friend (also Birmingham Rep), Nathan the Wise andWhen the Night Begins. Credits for Birmingham Rep include: Cider with Rosie (also Holland Park Theatre) The Grapes of Wrath, The Pied Piper, Pygmalion, Julius Caesar and Saint Joan.

Patrick has previously won the Linbury Prize for Stage Design and a Prague Quadriennale Gold Medal. Patrick was the Course Leader for Theatre Design at Nottingham Trent University and is now a visiting lecturer in Theatre Design at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff.

Zakk Hein - Digital Design

Zakk is a multidisciplinary designer working in video and projection for live performance.

Theatre Includes: The Writer (Almeida); Secret Life of Humans (New Diorama/59E59 Off-Broadway); Occupational Hazards (Hampstead Theatre); The Effect, Looking Through Glass, The Mountaintop (The Other Room); A Good Clean Heart (Wales Millennium Centre/tour).

Opera Includes: Ariodante (Royal College of Music); Pelléas et Mélisande; The Tales of Hoffmann(English Touring Opera).

As Associate, Theatre Includes: The Starry Messenger (Wyndham’s Theatre); The Lehman Trilogy (National Theatre/NY/West End), The Great Wave, Ugly Lies the Bone (National Theatre); The Band (Berlin/West End/Tour); Local Hero (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); Alys, Always, My Name Is Lucy Barton (Bridge Theatre); Shipwreck (Almeida); Pelle Erobreren (Østre Gasværk Teater); Girls & Boys(Royal Court/New York); Frozen; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (West End); Desire Under The Elms (Sheffield Theatre).

As Associate, Installation Includes: Please Feed The Lions (London Design Festival); The Order of Time: Es Devlin (Bold Tendencies); MASK (Photo London); Room 2022 (Art Basel, Miami); The Singing Tree (V&A).

Zakk is an Associate at Luke Halls Studio. Nominated for ‘Best Video Designer’ (Offies 2018) and for ‘Creative Innovation in Video & Projection’ (Theatre and Technology Awards 2018) for his work on NDT’s ‘Secret Life of Humans’.

Greg Cebula - Lighting Design

Since graduating in 2010 with a degree in Lighting Design from Rose Bruford College Greg has worked as a freelance lighting designer and technician on a wide range of projects ranging from event and concert lighting to his specialism of theatrical productions. As well as working closely with Idle Motion he has worked as a lighting designer for Novae Theatre, Rhum and Clay and Deafineatly Theatre. He is Technical Manager of the New Diorama Theatre and also works at the Young Vic and the Bridge Theatre. He has a sensitive and mature understanding of the integral role that lighting can play in a piece of theatre and this is reflected in his bold, stylistic designs.

Yaiza Varona - Composer & Sound Design

Yaiza is a composer, sound designer, musicologist, and Logic X and 9 Master Pro based in London.

She divides her time between writing music for the media (TV, film, theatre, libraries, member of PRS) and some personal projects, among them experimental, immersive sound works.

In the past, she has been published by West One, MIBE, CouldB, Synctracks, Felt Music, Nova Nota or Bedtracks among others, having her TV work most recently being broadcast in TV shows such as HBO´s Emmy nominated Vice, America´s Next Top Model and several shows in Discovery Channel, ITV, BBC2, Sky Living, Channel 4, Channel 5 and more. She has also written for theatre, radio, film and advertising as well as demoed for several sample libraries. She is also a featured editor in SCOREcast Online among other audio professional platforms writing specialised articles on Musicology and Logic X.

Ronnie Dorsey - Costume Designer

Ronnie has been involved in all things costume, wigs and make-up in Theatre, Film and TV for over forty years. Her achievements and projects are of exceptional note, and highlights include 17 projects for the Sir Peter Hall Company as Costume Supervisor for John Gunter. London West End credits include Betrayal (Duchess), Blithe Spirit (Savoy). Off West End Award nomination for Best Costume Down and Out in Paris and London (New Diorama). Off-Broadway credits include Secret Life of Humans (59E59), screwmachine/eyecandy (59E59), which also won a Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Katy Brittain

Theatre includes: Doctor in Macbeth, Apothecary in Romeo and Julietand Hostess of The Garter in Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC). Anni in The Dark Room (Theatre 503), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Apollo), Electra (Old Vic), Handbagged (Vaudeville & UK Tour), Mrs Rogers in Then There Were None (Gielgud), Kattrin in Mother Courage & Her Children(Contact Manchester), Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC, International tour and Sheffield Crucible), Lucia in The Banished Cavalierand Helena in The Rover (Salisbury Playhouse), Sybil in Private Lives, Rhoda in Rookery Nook, Belinda Brooke in Noises Offand Violette in A Little Hotel on the Side (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), Evelyn Munn in The Children’s Hour (Royal National Theatre), Hermia in Fairie Queen (Queen Elizabeth Hall), Ophelia in Hamlet (Sheffield Crucible), Wendy in Peter Pan (Sheffield Crucible), Bloody Poetry, Playing with Fire & First Warning (King’s Head) Cecile de Volange in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (RSC/Gero Prods Tour).

TV includes: Parent Trap, Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders, The Bill, Between the Linesand Frankenstein.

Film: Counsellor in Indian Summer.

Colin R Campbell

Theatre includes: The Mirror Crack’d (Salisbury Playhouse and touring), Gilgamesh (The Listening Hare @ The White Bear), Skellig, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Twelfth Night (Birmingham Stage Co.), The Cherry Orchard (Southwark Playhouse), Gluey and The Lion (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Break Away (The Finborough), Having a Ball (Birmingham Rep/Temple Productions tour). Othello (York Theatre Royal), Richard III, The Merry Wives, The Passion, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra and Poetry or Bust (Northern Broadsides). Gilgamesh – He Who Saw Everything, The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus (The National Theatre). Anna Karenina (Plymouth Theatre Royal). ‘Tis Pity she’s a Whore (Derby Playhouse), The View from The Bridge (Sheffield Crucible). When we are Married (Savoy Theatre). Three Cheers for Mrs Butler (Polka Theatre). Omma (The Young Vic). Adam and Eve (The Gate), Bremen Coffee (The Grove), Keeper’s Bitter, Don’t let Babies Grow Up To be Cowboys (Pentabus). Out of the Ashes (Leeds Laughing Stock). The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Pawnbroker Hocks the Moon, Dancing in the Dark (Metro Theatre).

TV includes: Unforgotten (ITV), Broken (BBC), Coronation Street (ITV) and Jericho (ITV).

Film includes: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros). This is Christmas (Stick and Carrot Productions).

Peter Clements

Peter trained at Drama Centre London, and is an associate artist at Hackney Showroom. He performs as self-styled 'grande dame of the theatre' and 'cantankerous old bag' Frau Welt.

Recent theatre includes The Woman From Mars (Miniaturists, Arcola) Nosocomial (Camden People's Theatre), Frau Welt (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Festival), Words and Music (Round Chapel) Frau Welt (Hackney Showroom - Best Actor nomination Off-West End Awards), Frau Welt: Masterclass (Hackney Showroom), Fatzer: Downfall of an Egoist (Northwall), The 39 Steps (Vienna), Love Me Do (Watford Palace Theatre), Then Silence (New Diorama), Remembrance of Things Past (92Y, New York City), A Dashing Fellow (New Diorama), Afraid of the Dark (Charing Cross Theatre), All Saints (King's Head), Deathwatch (Roundhouse), Black Shirts (National Theatre Studio), The Criminals (Platform Theatre), Looking for Vi (Riverside Studios).

Television includes Frau Welt in upcoming Batman prequel Pennyworth (Warner Bros/Epix), Chaim Engel in Escape from Sobibor (PBS America).

Film includes Ballet of the Nations (Impermanence).

Ben Eagle

Ben trained at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama graduating with the Lilian Baylis Award for Excellence.

Theatre: Hamlet (USA tour), Alan Ayckbourn’s Neighbourhood Watch (Gordon Craig), V For Victory (Stockwell Playhouse), Measure For Measure (USA Tour), the “Dame” in Dick Whittingtonand Sleeping Beauty (Tewkesbury Roses), Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor (Theatre N16), Robin Hood (Tewkesbury Roses), Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre N16), This Was The World and I Was King (Arts Theatre West End), Robin Hood (Chipping Norton), The M Word (Leicester Square Theatre), The Eighth Wonder of the World (Brunel Tunnel Shaft), Animal Farm, 1984 (National Media Museum & tour), Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Waiting For Godot, A Christmas Carol.

Film: Alice The Wild, The First Film.

Ben is also a regular voiceover artist and singer.

Charlotte Melia

Theatre Includes: Heather (Bush Theatre/Summerhall), Genesis (Soho Theatre/The Lowry), The Window (Bristol Old Vic), I and the Village (Theatre 503), Never So Good, Afterlife (National Theatre), High Street Odyssey (Inspector Sands), The Wasp (Bristol Old Vic/New Wolsey), Helen (Tobacco Factory/Oran Mor), The Common (China Plate/Beaford Arts), Wired (Kings Head), A Moon For The Misbegotten (The Old Vic), Cartography (New Wolsey), Much Ado About Nothing (Ripley Castle), The Miniaturists (Arcola Theatre), Hamlet (ETT/New Ambassadors).

TV and Radio includes: Delayed Departures, Heather (Radio 4), The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries (ITV), Doctors (BBC1), The Art of Awkward Conversation (Notebook Films).

Jamie Samuel

Jamie trained at the Arts Ed School of Acting.

Theatre: Operation Black Antler (Southbank Centre/Blast Theory), Left My Desk (New Diorama/Lost Watch), Amédée (Birmingham Rep), Plastic Figurines (Off West End Award Nomination: Best Actor - Box of Tricks/New Diorama), Chamaco (HOME), Jumpers for Goalposts (Off West End Award Winner: Best Actor - Bush Theatre/Paines Plough), Cosmic & The Kitchen Sink (Hull Truck), 66 Books (Bush Theatre), Pushing Up Poppies (Theatre 503), 2nd May 1997 (Royal Exchange Theatre/Bush Theatre), The English Game (Headlong).

Television: The Promise (HBO/Channel 4), A Touch of Frost (ITV), The Bill (ITV), Doctors (BBC).

Film/Short Film: Golden Boy (London Short Film Festival), Territory (50 West), Own Worst Enemy (Grosvenor Television).

Tanya Vital

Hailing from Bradford; Tanya trained at RADA and The National Youth Theatre.

Credits include: Pennyworth (EPIX), Red Sparrow (20th Century Fox), Up ‘n’ Under (New Wolsey Theatre & Tour), Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew (Red Ladder Theatre), When Both Sides Surrender (53two), Twelfth Night (Rose Theatre), Casualty, Doctors (BBC), Brief Encounters, Emmerdale, The Trials of Jimmy Rose (ITV), Happy Valley (Red Productions).

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