The Unknown Island

Lizzie Powell is a lighting designer in theatre.

As a Lighting Designer her credits include: The Country Girls (Chichester Festival); The Mountaintop (Young Vic); Out of This World (Dance Touring Partnership); Frankenstein/Hedda Gabler (Northern Stage); Glasgow Girls (National Theatre of Scotland/UK Tour); Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (Duke of Yorks Theatre, NTS Tour); Human Animals, Violence and Son (Royal Court); Endgame, The Choir, Fever Dream: Southside, The Libertine, Far Away/Seagulls, Krapp’s Last Tape/Footfalls (Citizens); The Brink (Orange Tree); Fruit Trilogy (West Yorkshire Playhouse): Romeo and Juliet (Sheffield Crucible); The Mighty Walzer, Anna Karenina (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Secret Theatre (Lyric, Hammersmith/Tour); Adam, In A Time O’ Strife, My Shrinking Life, The Enquirer, An Appointment with the Wickerman, Knives in Hens, Girl X, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Venus as a Boy (National Theatre of Scotland); Idomeneus (Gate Theatre). 

Khadija Raza is a set and costume designer who has recently graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, working in theatre, opera and site-specific performances. 

Previously, she has assisted designers such as Annemarie Woods on L’heure Espagnole and Gianni Schicchi (Opera Nationale de Lorraine), James Cotteril for the British Youth Opera on English Eccentrics and Owen Wingrave (Peacock Theatre), and worked with Geraldine Pilgrim on her immersive, promenade piece, Well (Sanofi Factory, Dagenham). Recently, Khadija was associate designer to Diego Pitarch on The Empress by Tanika Gupta (Embassy Theatre).

Josh mainly works in the medium of sound, but also includes other new media practices as well as arts facilitation ideas into his projects.

He has designed and performed sound in many spaces in London including the National Theatre, Jermyn Street Theatre and Yard Theatre as well as creating and performing sound in festivals across Europe under a variety of names. 

Kiera Coward-Deyell is a musician and community worker keen to explore collaborative approaches to sound design. Her recent projects have included building a sound system with young people, facilitating free dj workshops for women and non-binary people and creating a sound archive of Scottish waterfalls. She djs & produces music under various aliases.

Jenny Skivens is a freelance Stage Manager. Recently Jenny began working with City Academy, stage managing various performances and showcases throughout the year.

Her credits include: King Lear, An Octoroon (Orange Tree Theatre), Julius Caesar, Othello (Guildford Shakespeare Company), Cinderella, Merchant of Venice, Antony & Cleopatra, Tales From King James, Doctor Faustus, Rapunzel, Romeo & Juliet (Creation Theatre Company), Roald Dahl’s City of the Unexpected, Praxis Makes Perfect, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (National Theatre Wales), SummerSalt Festival (Melbourne Recital Centre), Open East Festival, L’Orfeo (Barbican), Alice in Wonderland, Shelf Life (Volcano Theatre Company), Suicide Note From Palestine (Freedom Theatre), Sense & Sensibility (Rosemary Branch Theatre), World Enough & Time (Fluff Productions), Jack in the Beanstalk (Polka Dot Pantomimes).

Hannah Ringham is a co-founder and performer of the UK award winning performance collective SHUNT.  Her recent theatre credits include Islands (Bush Theatre), The Architects (Shunt), The Present (Unicorn Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre), Cadavre Exquis (2012), Contain Violence – Site Specific (Lyric Hammersmith), Ooogly Boogly (2008), Tropicana (Shunt). She has performed and toured internationally with many other companies including Tim Crouch, Kassys (a collaborative performance with Kassys, The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and Nicole Beutler), Caroline Horton, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.

Ellen is Artistic Director at the Gate Theatre. Previous credits at the Gate include – Dear Elizabeth (2019), Effigies of Wickedness (2018), The Unknown Island (2017) and Idomeneus (2014). Other credits include Our Town (Regents Open Air) and The Wolves (Stratford East); Othello (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe); the Lyric’s annual pantomime – Aladdin (2016) and Cinderella (2015); The Rolling Stone (Orange Tree Theatre and Manchester Royal Exchange); The Remains of Maisie Duggan (Abbey Theatre, Dublin); The Glass Menagerie (Headlong); Anna Karenina (Manchester Royal Exchange); Henry the Fifth (Unicorn Theatre); Glitterland (Secret Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith) and Ivan and the Dogs (Actors Touring Company/Soho Theatre) – nominated for an Olivier Award. Ellen was formerly part of the Secret Theatre Company at the Lyric Hammersmith. She trained as an assistant to Katie Mitchell and Marianne Elliott. She was awarded an International Artists’ Development Award (ACE/British Council) in 2012.

José Saramago is a writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998. His plays include The Night, What shall I do with this book? and The Second Life of Francis of Assisi. Other writing includes Possible Poems, Probably Joy, From this World and the Other, The Traveller's Baggage, The Year of 1993, Risen from the Ground, Quasi Object, Baltazar and Blimunda, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, The Stone Raft, The History of the Siege of Lisbon, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, In Nomine Dei, Blindness and All the Names. He has also translated works by authors including Colette, Pär Lagerkvist, Jean Cassou, Maupassant, André Bonnard, Tolstoi, Baudelaire, Étienne Balibar, Nikos Poulantzas, Henri Focillon, Jacques Roumain, Hegel and Raymond Bayer.

Writer/director Tyrell Williams was on the BAFTA Elevate scheme 2018 and was previously a Broadcast Hotshot. He co-created, co-wrote and directed the viral web series #HoodDocumentary which had over 3million views on Youtube. Following its online acclaim, #HoodDocumentary eventually went on to be commissioned as a web series for BBC Three which Tyrell directed and co-wrote. He has shadowed television and film directors, including on series “Drifters” and “White Gold” and has assisted Ola Ince and Ellen McDougall respectively. Tyrell has original television scripts in development and has written and directed various short plays. He won the Young Harts Writing Festival ‘Audience Favourite’ award, as well as being longlisted for The Alfred Fagon Award, for his play RED PITCH, which debuted at The Ovalhouse theatre in June 2019.