Charlotte Hobbs is a Bristol-based actor and writer. She will start MA Acting at East 15 Acting School in October 2020.
“I am currently writing a lot of my own work and I have a real interest in comedy, femininity and the complexity of relationships.
I am most inspired by female writers, especially those from working class backgrounds. I also admire shows that focus on the writing and keep everything else simple, I really enjoy seeing how they cleverly interweave so much history and subtext within small pieces of dialogue.”
Claire Parry is an interdisciplinary theatre-maker/writer/performer/director/musician.
She trained in physical theatre at Jacques Lecoq. She has a particular penchant for clowning; accordingly she has two solo clown shows, Intolerable Side Effects and Boorish Trumpson, which will be going to Prague Fringe in October and Edinburgh Fringe 2021.
Claire is also working on an ensemble physical theatre piece called Cache Cache with Lecoq-trained company HOKA, which has a residency in Normandy in November and will be showing at Theatre 13 in Paris in March 2021. She also regularly directs for the outdoor multi-rolling, multi-instrumental Shakespeare company, Three Inch Fools.
Claire says: “I am (unsurprisingly) a huge fan of multidisciplinary work that has a strong physical element. When I write my hit clowning musical (which is a very real plan) you will probably notice I am also quite inspired by Stephen Sondheim.”
Dale Edwards is an early-career director. He has previously worked as an assistant director at The Royal Exchange and Bolton Octagon. He was shortlisted for the JMK Award 2022 with the play Hang by debbie tucker green. Current work includes an ACE DYCP project and a commission for Dukes Lancaster Blast Festival.
Emma is a Trinidadian and Jamaican Actor and Playwright from East London.
For stage, Emma has been a participant at Royal Court, Soho Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith and Oval House writers programmes. Plays include Funeral Flowers which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018 and won the Scotsman’s Fringe First Award and the Filipa Bragança award for best female solo performance.
As an actor, she took part in CRASH, the ArtsLab summer residency in 2012, and was subsequently cast in our production of Catriona Kerridge’s Fast Track in 2014. Emma returned to The North Wall as a writing mentor for the 2022 Catalyst residency.
Spotlight
Acting Rep: Wendy Scozzaro at Felix de Wolfe
Writing Rep: Kat Buckle & Stephanie Thwaites at Curtis Brown
Hannah is a writer from Oxford, currently living in Bristol.
Her work focuses on the issues present in the lives of herself and those around her, exploring these in a dramatic, insightful and thought-provoking way. She has written two full length plays: In My Country, developed at Catalyst 2022 exploring female South Asian friendships, and THE FUTURE IS BEIGE, a dystopian play set in a “post-race” world. She has also written a short audio play, Chances, about the process of getting diagnosed with cancer.
She is currently studying an MA in Drama Writing at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which finishes in July 2023.
Jenny trained as an actor at LAMDA. In 2022 she was part of Broken Silence Theatre’s writing programme Hive, and The Living Theatre Whitwell commissioned her to adapt Jane Austen’s novel Emma for their main house summer show.
Previously she has been part of a writing group run by Margaret Perry, and worked writing, directing and facilitating with youth theatres. Catalyst was her first residency.
Karim Khan is a playwright and screenwriter from Oxford.
He took part in Catalyst 2019 as one of six writers in residence. Subsequently, The North Wall co-commissioned and produced his award-winning play Brown Boys Swim, which completed a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, before transferring to Soho Theatre. In 2023, he was invited to be in the Soho Six, and was co-commissioned to write a play for Soho Theatre and Tara Theatre. Karim also returned to the Catalyst residency in 2023, this time as a mentor.
His previous stage credits include Corrosive (Pegasus Theatre, 2019), Beyond Shame (Derby Theatre, 2018) and Orange Juice (Tristan Bates, 2019). Karim’s first TV credit was on Channel 5/PBS show All Creatures Great and Small, for which received a New Voice Award for Best Debut. He has a number of original TV projects in development.
Karim graduated from the NFTS Screenwriting programme in 2019 and is an alumnus of both the Soho Writers’ Lab and Royal Court Writers’ Group.
Olivia Munk is a theatre director originally from Queens, NYC.
She is Artistic Director of Part of the Main Productions, a theatre company whose work is political, provocative and accessible. Recent productions include The Tinker and Bloody Mary: Live! at VAULT Festival 2023.
Forthcoming work includes Associate Director on Ride, a new musical, at Leicester Curve and Southwark Playhouse, and a work-in-progress of her playwriting debut, Acorn, at Omnibus Theatre’s Engine Room. Olivia is a co-curator and producer of The Miniaturists, London’s longest-running short play night.
Roann Hassani McCloskey is an Algerian-British storyteller. Her work includes her 2019 award-winning sell-out, one-woman show, My Father the Tantric Masseur – an autobiographical exploration of sexuality, sexual trauma and familial relationships. Her second show (Popcorn group award longisted), Who Murdered My Cat? shines a light on memory, its inconsistencies and its power in forming our identities.
Roann has co-written ReMythed (4 stars – The Guardian) that won ‘Show of the Week’ at Vault Festival 23. She is currently writing a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama TV series Lights, Camera, Couscous in which her Algerian mother, who informs so much of her creative work, has the starring role.
Roann’s writing finds the heart and humour that runs through tragedy, and centres around her curiosity and passion for bringing stories usually left at the margins to the centre where they belong.
Sam Parker is a playwright born in Torbay and now based in Plymouth.
Sam has a background in community theatre and facilitation in a range of settings, most recently working as a writer-in-the-room on Quizzy Rascals: an evening with the Barbican Legends and Ernesettlers, both of which were staged at Theatre Royal Plymouth.
Sam is the co-director of Down Stage Write CIC and the Pathways Producer for Doorstep Arts CIC. He has also worked as a script reader for Papatango, The Bruntwood Prize and the RSC new work department. Sam has just finished a second phase of R+D on his new play White Belt, a seed commission with Theatre Royal Plymouth.
Simon Marshall is a playwright, writing facilitator and participation producer from Derbyshire, living in Sheffield.
He is an Associate Artist of Derby Theatre, including co-writing 2023 Stage Award-winning VR audio-play Odyssey with Plus One, a creative group for care-experienced young people. His work often explores the rural queer experience and sense of place.
Previous writing includes Bonfire (‘honest, brave and acutely-written’, Lyn Gardner) and the audio-play kilburn (not london) (profiled at London Podcast Festival 2021). He has recently written Main Character Energy for 1623 Theatre at Theatre Deli, Sheffield, and The Fossil Kids with Sheffield Theatres’ Young Company (June 2023).
Suzy is a writer who loves comedy-drama. When she’s not writing, she’s a Development Producer in the TV drama world. She took part in The North Wall’s ArtsLab Comedy Troll residency in 2017.
