NSDF’s Selection team are the people who will actually come and see your show. They have all been to NSDF and all want to help you bring your show to the festival. When they come for a selection they will see the show and then spend time with you and your company after the show, discussing what they think of the show, talking about what you want to know about your show and talking about anything else that you might feel useful. They want to be able to give you help, advice and support.
Steven Atkinson
Steven Atkinson is Artistic Director of HighTide Festival Theatre, based in Suffolk and London. Since 2007 HighTide has established itself as one of the UK's leading producers of new writing, premiering their productions in the annual HighTide Festival at their theatre, The Cut in Halesworth. Productions have transferred regionally and nationally with the National Theatre, Old Vic Theatre, Bush Theatre, to the Edinburgh Festival, the West End, and internationally to Australia. HighTide's 2009 promenade productionStovepipe was named by the Sunday Times as one of the ten best theatre productions of the decade. Last year Steven won a Fringe First Award for his productionLidless, he has also been awarded two SOLT producing awards forLidless and Stovepipe, and an Esquire Brilliant Brits 2009 Award. He read Film and Theatre at Reading University and interned at Hampstead Theatre following his graduation in 2005. He became Literary Manager of Hull Truck Theatre in 2006 and then Artistic Director of HighTide Festival Theatre in 2007. www.hightide.org.uk
steven@nsdf.org.uk
Justin Audibert
Justin Audibert is a freelance theatre director and Education Associate Practitioner for the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a director, his own productions include: Mojo (RSC, Hampstead); Future Regrets (RSC, Live Theatre Newcastle); Company along the Mile (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Arcola/The Lowry); Kings Cross Voices (ArtsEd, London); Armley: the Musical (Interplay/I Love West Leeds Festival) and Born Abroad (West Yorkshire Playhouse). From January 2009 to August 2011 he was Assistant Director on the Long Ensemble at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he has assissted Lucy Bailey (Julius Caesar), Gregory Doran (Twelfth Night and Morte D'Athur), and David Farr and Filter on Silence. Justin trained on the Arts Council Birkbeck MFA in Theatre Directing and was Director in Training at the West Yorkshire Playhouse between July 2007 to June 2008. During his time at WYP he worked with a variety of directors including Rachel Kavanaugh (Peter Pan), Ian Brown (Fast Labour) and Paul Hunter and Told By An Idiot (Casanova). He has worked extensively at Drama Schools including Drama Centre and WAC and is a visiting tutor at ArtsEd, where he has directed Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night. Justin has also taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Sheffield, Huddersfield Universiy and Birkbeck College.
justin@nsdf.org.uk
Richard Beecham
Richard directs at theatres across the UK. Highlights include the regional premiere of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love and a contemporary reworking of Moliere's The Miser by Ranjit Bolt. Richard is also Artistic Director of Threshold Theatre which launched in 2009 with a rare revival of Githa Sowerby's Geordie classic, Rutherford & Son, co-produced with Northern Stage. Threshold is committed to discovering overlooked, neglected and marginalised voices from the past and present, Britain and abroad. Projects currently being developed include the stage adaptation of a famous Palestinian novella and a new version of a modern French classic by acclaimed playwright Amy Rosenthal. Richard is an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England and a Fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme.
richardb@nsdf.org.uk
Lucy Briers
After completing a degree in sculpture and theatre at Lancaster University, Lucy trained for 3 years at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Since graduating in 1991 she has worked extensively in theatre including Catch(Royal Court), The Voysey Inheritance (National Theatre) Musik (Oxford Stage Company and DumbFounded Theatre Co) Cloud Nine (Sheffield Crucible- TMA Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress 2004) Electra (The Gate, London) Teeth ‘n’ Smiles, Don Juan, As You Like It (Sheffield Crucible)Henry IV Parts I & II ( English Touring Theatre and Old Vic). Television includes Mary Bennett in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice, Midsomer Murders, Einstein and Eddington, Rough Crossings, Silent Witness, Red Dwarf and Poroit: The Hollow.
In 2007 Lucy performed the one woman show Some Kind of Bliss at the Trafalgar Studios in London, written for her by Samuel Adamson. She was nominated for a What's On Stage Award for Best Solo Performer 2008. She has since taken the play to the Brits off Broadway Festival in New York. Recent theatre includes Bedroom Farce (Rose Theatre), Private Fears in Public Places, Just Between Ourselves (Northampton), Ivanov (Donmar in the West End).
Lucy is currently co-writing a sitcom called Women Aloud.
lucy@nsdf.org.uk
Jonathan Broadbent
Theatre credits include: Ghost Stories (West End), Chekhov in Hell (Drum Theatre, Plymouth), Three Sisters (Filter/Lyric Hammersmith); Grand Guignol (Drum Theatre, Plymouth); She Stoops to Conquer (Birmingham Rep, Touring Consortium); Twelfth Night (Filter Theatre/Tricycle/RSC); Amadeus (Wilton's Music Hall); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Verbier Festival, Stafford Shakespeare Festival and West End); The Dumb Waiter, The Turn of the Screw, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, Master Harold and the Boys (all Bristol Old Vic); The Secret Garden (Tobacco Factory); Master Harold and the Boys (Southwark Playhouse); Strange Orchestra (Orange Tree); The Mill on the Floss (Nottingham Playhouse/Exeter); The Magic Toyshop (Shared Experience); The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (RSC Stratford and Sadler's Wells); The Sonnets of Willie Hughes (The Other Place and The Pleasance, London); Peter Pan (RNT). Television credits: Five Years, (comedy pilot); Cold War (BBC); Alice in Wonderland (Hallmark/C4) and Gimme Gimme Gimme (BBC). Film credits: As You Like It and The Magic Flute both directed by Kenneth Branagh. Jonathan's radio play, The Late Mr. Shakespeare, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last year.
jonathan@nsdf.org.uk
Lucy Ellinson
Lucy Ellinson is an actor and theatre maker specialising in devised, experimental performance; with a strong interest in political/international work. She is an associate artist with Third Angel and Forest Fringe; and long term collaborator with writer/director Chris Goode, Metis Arts, Unlimited Theatre and Slung Low. Lucy was nominated for the ‘Best Solo Performance Award’ as part of The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence in 2009 and has toured extensively throughout the UK and internationally, presenting work at venues including The Barbican (BITE), and National Theatres in London (Square2 & NT Studio), France (TNS) and Sarajevo (Future:MESS).
Forthcoming work includes playing Julian Assange in 'TENET' for Greyscale at The Gate; presenting a new piece of work at the Courtyard Theatre for the World Shakespeare Festival (RSC/Pilot) and performing in celebrated New York writer Will Eno's 'Oh the Humanity (and other good intentions)' directed by Erica Whyman for Northern Stage. It is her first year working as a selector for the festival and she's delighted to be here.
lucye@nsdf.org.uk
Femi Elufowoju jr
Femi Elufowoju, jr was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is currently Associate Artist at the Almeida Theatre, London. He is Founder and ex Artistic Director (1997-2010) of Tiata Fahodzi - Britain's foremost national touring African theatre company. His penultimate production for the company (Iya-Ile) received a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate theatre (Soho Theatre) and the 2010 Laurence Olivier Awards. After training as an actor at Bretton Hall, Femi enjoyed lengthy seasons at the National Theatre, Royal Court and Oxford Stage Company as well as recording numerous Radio Plays for the BBC. In 1996 he received a Regional Theatre Young Directors' award and spent a year at the Theatre Royal Stratford East as Assistant Director under Philip Hedley. In 2002 Femi was appointed Trainee Associate Director at the Royal Court, London, and in the same year invited to segment direct The Commonwealth Parade at Buckingham Palace on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 2003 he was appointed Associate Director at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds and Associate Director at New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich in 2008. In-between these two appointments Femi directed Richard Bean's The Big Men; a platform performance in the Olivier Theatre in response to the global economic and financial crisis under focus of the G8 process. Femi also freelances for the BBC, producing and directing Stages of Independence and Burned to Nothing for the World Service and BBC Radio 4 respectively early this year. Femi is currently shooting Borgen, a political thriller set in Europe for Danish television.
femi@nsdf.org.uk
Tamara Harvey
Tamara is a graduate of the University of Bristol and trained at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, USA. Her directing work includes: Dancing at Lughnasa(Birmingham Rep); Resilience by Steve Waters; The Contingency Plan (Bush Theatre); Alan Ayckbourn'sBedroom Farce (West Yorkshire Playhouse) andPlague Over England in the West End. She has recently completed directing the plays that form an integral part of Anonymous, the new film from director Roland Emmerich, and her production of Tell Me on a Sunday is currently on a national tour. Tamara is a co-founder of The Factory's Hamlet and a Trustee of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation. She was recently appointed Associate Director of the Bush Theatre in London.
tamara@nsdf.org.uk
Lucy Hind
Lucy trained at Rhodes University, South Africa, and has been a member of the award winning Slung Low for 6 years. With Slung Low Lucy has made work for the following organizations: The Almedia, The Barbican, The Lowry, Liverpool Everyman, The Gate, Grassington Festival and imove. Lucy works as a Movement Director and Performer. Recent Credits include Movement Director on: The Trial (Watford Palace Theatre); Beauty & the Beast (Chipping Norton Theatre); The Count of Monte Cristo (West Yorkshire Playhouse); A Selkie Tale (Opera North); And a Nightingale sang (New Vic Theatre); Year of the Rat (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Be My Baby (New Vic Theatre); and Bus (West Yorkshire Playhouse). In 2011 Lucy will travel to South Africa with David Toole to create an Unlimited Commission for the Cultural Olympiad with Remix Dance Project, that will tour internationally throughout 2012.
lucyh@nsdf.org.uk
Alan Lane
Alan Lane is the Artistic Director of Slung Low. Slung Low have made theatre installations and site specifics with and for the Barbican Centre, Almeida Theatre, Liverpool Everyman, The Lowry and many others. He recently directed Mapping the City - a show that was performed throughout the city of Hull in May 2011, written by James Phillips, Jenny Worton and Matthew David Scott, and produced by imove the cultural Olympiad in Yorkshire. www.slunglow.org
alan@nsdf.org.uk
David Newman
Training: University of Warwick and the National Theatre Studio Director‘s Programme. In 2000 David was awarded an Arts Council Bursary to work as Trainee Director at Nottingham Playhouse under Giles Croft. He was Resident Director at Sheffield Theatres working alongside Michael Grandage on the 2003/04 season and assisting Nikolai Foster on A Chorus Line, Anna Mackmin on The Crucible, Michael Grandage on A Midsummer Nights Dream and Timothy Sheader on Piaf. As Director: Girl in the Goldfish Bowl (Sheffield Theatres), The Jazz Conductor (Sheffield Theatres),Kitty‘s Story (Nottingham Playhouse, Roundabout),When the Wind Blows (Southwark Playhouse), Bitter Fruit of Palestine (Caird Company at Barons Court), I Am a Camera (Caird Company), Angels in America(Warwick Arts Centre), The Country Wife (Rose Bruford College), selected for the 50th Sunday Times National Student Drama Festival at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, The American Clock (Rose Bruford), Twelfth Night (Rose Bruford), Company (Welsh College of Music and Drama), two platform performances of The Haunted House and Casina by Plautus at the National Theatre (Olivier), The 39 Steps (Moscow and Tokyo). In 2006 David worked for a month as Associate Director at the National Theatre Studio where he developed new plays by William Gaminara, Diane Samuels and Joe Fisher. He was also invited to lead a Director‘s Week on Restoration Comedy.
david@nsdf.org.uk
James Phillips
James is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His is currently casting his first feature film, and has just completed a commission for Hampstead Theatre, a new play for the commercial theatre and a play for Slung Low. James has written and directed The Rubenstein Kiss (Hampstead Theatre), which won the John Whiting Award and TMA Award for Best Play, and The Little Fir Tree, a play commissioned by the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. As a director his credits include Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune (Sound Theatre, Leicester Square),Macbeth at the Crucible, Sheffield, which he also adapted for four actors, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (Pleasance London), a production for which he won an award from NESTA, the national endowment for the Arts. He directedTrettondagsafton at Teatre Hogskolan in Stockholm and as an Assistant Director has worked at the Almeida and at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. He was associate director for the Caird Company’s seasons of new work Playing Soldiers and New Writing Fortnight. He has just written the book for a new musical for the West End. James studied at Oxford University.
jamesp@nsdf.org.uk
Mark Rosenblatt
Mark is Artistic Director of Dumbfounded Theatre, which rediscovers European classics and commissioning bold new work. As a director he has worked extensively for Oxford Stage Company (now Headlong), touring extensively round Britain, whilst in London his work has been seen at the National Theatre, the Young Vic, the Tricycle, the Arcola, Southwark Playhouse, BAC and for English National Opera. In 1999, he won the prestigious JMK Young Director's Award for The Dybbuk. He has also directed drama for BBC Radio 3. Last year he directed Henry VIII at Shakespeare's Globe and has recently directed Moonlight and Magnolias at the Watermill.
mark@nsdf.org.uk
Steph Street
Steph is a writer and actress. She read English at Cambridge and then trained on a scholarship at LAMDA. Her first play Sisters, a verbatim play about British Muslim women, re-opened the Sheffield Crucible Studio in 2010. She is currently developing a play about people with Disorders of Sexual Development for Tara Arts, a play about gangs with Ruth Carney at the Lyric Hammersmith, and a verbatim play about epilepsy at the NT Studio with Bruce Guthrie. As an actress she has worked extensively in theatre and TV. Her theatre work includes critically acclaimed work for Out of Joint, The Bush and the Royal Court, and her TV work has involved guest lead and regular parts in numerous series for the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. Steph worked for six years for the LSW Prison Project, leading interactive Shakespeare workshops in prisons around the country and is currently a trustee of Shakespeare North
steph@nsdf.org.uk
Chris Thorpe
Chris Thorpe is a writer and performer from Manchester. He was a founder member of Unlimited Theatre and still works with the company nationally and internationally. He is also an associate artist of Sheffield-based Third Angel and collaborates with artists such as Chris Goode, Slung Low and Soup Collective. Chris' plays, includingStatic and Safety, have been performed worldwide. He also writes screenplays and radio. His new radio drama Rio Story will be broadcast on Radio 4 in 2011. He has also translated work for artists such as Ugljesa Sajtinac and Belarus Free Theatre for theatres in the UK and US. He also works as a solo performer. He is currently compiling an anthology of solo work, Eating Wasps and developing The Oh Fuck Moment, a show for Edinburgh with poet Hannah Walker, as well as new work for the BBC, Unlimited and Third Angel.
chris@nsdf.org.uk
Gabby Vautier
Gabby Vautier is a freelance theatre producer currently working for the Barbican Theatre and GSMD as part of ArtWorks London and is also a producer on the TheatreFit International Producers Network. She recently produced Punchdrunks production The Crash of the Elysium for this years Manchester International Festival in collaboration with the BBC and she continues as Creative Producer for the Playground Studio. Prior to becoming freelance Gabby worked at the Young Vic Theatre for many years - beginning in Project Management and Audience Development, moving into Producing and Management of the Genesis Directors Programme and finally as Creative Associate.
gabby@nsdf.org.uk