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Creative Team

Van Badham - Writer / Performer

Born in Australia, Van Badham completed a BCA (Hons) in Creative Writing/Performance with a BA in English Literature at the University of Wollongong in 2001, undertaking additional studies in the UK at the University of Sheffield. In 2003 she relocated permanently to London, spending 2003-5 as the writer-in-residence at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). She has had plays and works for musical theatre staged at the last five Edinburgh Festivals, in London and on the UK touring circuit, throughout Australia, in America, in Iceland and in Germany. In 2003 she was one of 11 international playwrights selected for the Royal Court Theatre / BBC World Service WebsWeWeave radio project and her scripts for radio have since been broadcast by the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. In 2005 she won the Queensland Premier’s Award for Black Hands / Dead Section and in 2006 became the first Australian to win the UK’s NSDF International Playscript Competition with that same play. Waitin' 4 Da G, her first collaboration with Jonny Berliner, was performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004 and toured to the Glastonbury Festival in 2005. She is currently under commission from the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia to write Swamplands, a comedy about the CIA leak scandal.

 

Van has just received a development mentorship from the Australian Writers Guild for her first feature film script, We Come Home, and her 2006 play, The Gabriels, is the first Australian play ever selected for the Summer Play Festival in New York, appearing onstage there this July.

Jonny Berliner - Writer / Performer / Musical Director

Originally from London, Jonny Berliner completed a BA in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds in 2001. A musician from a young age, while in Leeds he formed the Jonny Berliner Band and began gigging with his own repertoire of folk, jazz, blues, country and rock and roll songs. In the years 2001-2002, the Jonny Berliner Band racked up more than 300 gigs and the band did a season of shows at the Edinburgh Festival. His work with string sections and orchestras inspired him to transition into musical theatre, and his first composed musical, Corpus (about Dr Gunter Von Hagen's Bodyworlds exhibition, with book by Fintan O'Higgins) appeared to controversy and acclaim in Edinburgh in 2003. In 2004, Jonny wrote and composed Dude, Where's My Teddy Bear?, a show for children that sold out its Edinburgh season, subsequent transfer to the Ambassadors' New Wimbledon Theatre and return season in Edinburgh, 2004. Also in 2004, Jonny commenced an artistic partnership with writer Van Badham, collaborating on cult children’s hip-hop musical Waitin' 4 Da G, which went to Glastonbury in 2005.

 

Jonny's debut album Friend for All Seasons was released in 2006 and has been featured on BBC 2, LBC with Richard Parks and BBC Radio Leeds. His most recent work for musical theatre is Cricklewood Broadway, commissioned by and staged at the Tricycle earlier this year. His new musical cabaret, Ice Cream Man and the Jelly Incident, will premiere at the Glastonbury Festival of Music and the Arts in June this year.

Susannah Pack - Director

Susannah Pack graduated from the University of Birmingham. She has been selected for numerous programmes, including the National Theatre Studio Director’s Programme and the TIF Producer’s Course. As a director, her work includes: Best Friends (New End Theatre, Fringe First Nomination at Edinburgh Festival); Intimacy (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh; Bath Theatre Royal; Bull Theatre, Barnet); Gathering of Birds (C Venues, Edinburgh); My Night With Reg (MAC, Birmingham; C Venues, Edinburgh) and numerous rehearsed readings, including Consider This (Soho Theatre) and Return, Little Mercury, Return (Barons Court Theatre). As assistant director, her work includes: Underneath The Lintel (Duchess Theatre, West End); The Odd Couple (Assembly Hall, Edinburgh); Taking Charlie; Oleanna; Resolution (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh & National Tours). She is Artistic Director of the award-winning company Wisepart Productions, for which she has directed and produced several shows that have toured nationally and internationally. Susannah has also worked as a producer, general manager and tour booker for a number of companies, including Scamp Theatre, Jongleurs Comedy and Theatre Tours International.

Yoav Segal - Video Artist

Yoav Segal is an award winning filmmaker. Most recently for The Battle of Cable Street a short film mix of live action, rotoscoped animation and frame by frame animation and the winner of the UK Jewish Short Film Fund. This film tells the story of the Battle of Cable Street through the eyes of a child. It was co funded by the Pears Foundation and Executive produced by Jonny Persey and APT Films (Deepwater 2006). Yoav Segal graduated from the University of the West of England (U.W.E.) with a degree in Illustration and animation where his film Becca brought him to the attention of ITV. He was subsequently commissioned as the drama and title sequence director for a 10 part documentary series called Love in the Afternoon, which received the highest network viewing figures. Bookcover, a promo he edited, won the Oxford Cuppers Film Festival, the National Student TV awards and won him the best editor award at the Royal Television Society Student Awards for Wales and the West of England. He followed this by editing Remember my Father which won a Pangea award at the ICA in London. In the summer of 2005, SOS Childrens Villages asked Yoav to travel to South Africa where he produced, shot and directed a film about the effects of AIDs and HIV on the townships of Capetown. Yoav has just completed a film based on Tunnel Vision, a play acted and devised by The Jewish and Muslim Theatre Group of the Tricycle theatre. It deals with the questions of race and prejudice. This film for the One to One Children’s Fund will be used to educate children and young adults on multi-culturalism. Yoav is a creative artist in many mediums. A gigging and session saxophonist, a trained production designer (under Terry Ackland Snow – Batman, Rocky Horror, Aliens) Set and Costume designer for Edinburgh Fringe show Corpus the Musical, based on the body worlds exhibition.

Ben M Rogers - Production Designer

Designer, producer and former actor, Ben has been fortunate to have an international career spanning dance, opera, drama, musical theatre and live events. His recent designs include the set, lighting and video for Noise Ensemble (UK and International tours), OperaBabes - The Renaissance Tour (UK), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Heaven and Too2Much, London) and Red Hot Baroque (UK, Moscow and Bermuda). Ben has previously designed set and lighting for numerous musicals, including an arena touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar for Scandinavia and international festival productions of West Side Story, Evita, Chicago, Grease and Fame in Cyprus and Lebanon. As designer in residence for Phurious Productions in Glasgow he designed studio touring productions of The Girls Room, Of Mice and Men, Little Red Riding Hood, The Diary of Anne Frank and the world premiere stage adaptation of Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains. Ben’s lighting design credits include: Las Vegas Fantasy (on tour in Taiwan), Jack and the Beanstalk (His Majesty’s, Aberdeen), The Rat Pack (Liverpool Summer Pops), Fine Bone China (Clore Studio, Royal Opera House), Courtenay – an explosive new musical (UK premiere) and Vision of Lear (Royal Opera House). Specialising in the use of CAD and virtual computer modelling systems for virtual lighting and scenic design, Ben has developed his own style of interactive scenography fusing lighting, video and kinetic staging systems. www.benmrogers.com

Wisepart Productions - Producer

WISEPART PRODUCTIONS is a well-respected theatre company with a reputation for high quality output. Founded in 1999, the company already has a loyal following among critics and theatre-goers alike, winning glowing accolades for each production so far. Wisepart specialises in premiering new writing and work from abroad in the UK, plus reworking modern classics. This award-winning young company has produced and co-produced numerous productions in the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh; Bath Theatre Royal and the Birmingham Rep amongst other theatres, and has toured productions in the UK and abroad. Recent shows include the sell-out runs of Fringe First nominated new Israeli play Best Friends by Anat Gov in Edinburgh and at the New End Theatre, the world premiere of Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi, adapted by Guy Masterson, the world premieres of Dahling You Were Marvellous! by Steven Berkoff and A Desire to Kill On The Tip Of The Tongue by Xavier Durringer, adapted by Mark Ravenhill; the Fringe First-winning BBA and Proud in association with BBAwaaz and Jarman Garden at the Riverside Studios in association with Flaming Theatre.

  

Adriano Gazza - Special Effects
Suzie Foster - Stage Manager
Photography - Richard Nolan-Neylan
Dramaturg - Peter Matheson
Logo - Emma Scott-Child & Tom Neish
Guitars - Claire Berliner

Video Cast

Danny Whitten:  Dan Blaskey
Callie:  Samantha Lyden
Snake:  Adam Brace
Voiceover:  Jimmy Andrews
Rainbow Life Girls:

• Lynsey Tash
• Jordanna Tin
• Sally Proctor
• Tina Giannopoulous

Very Special Thanks

Andre Vincent, Singing Coach Susan Gazzola, Samantha Phillips, Geraldine Timmins, Kath Greville, Paul Lucas, Stefan Butler, Suzie Rawlings, Yoni Jacobs, Lachlan Williams, Nicola Josephs, Becca Fortey, Fiona Johnson, John Nolan-Neylan, Scott Wakeham, Sebastian Roach, Tom Davies, Vivienne Walshe, everyone at Llanvanor, everyone at Scamp Theatre, Teddy Nygh and the Tricycle Theatre