Lights Up: Recent Episodes
Fifth Word Theatre
Lights Up is a living history project that aims to shine a light on inspirational women who have led the way in the theatre industry in the East Midlands and inspire the next generation of young women growing up in the region. This series of podcasts features 9 episodes interviewing pioneering women in theatre. You can subscribe to listen to all episodes or watch the filmed interviews on our website.
Lights Up is a project conceived and delivered by Fifth Word in partnership with Derby Libraries, in association with Derby Theatre and supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Productions as Artistic Director include: Red Velvet (Evening Standard Award and Critics’ Circle Award, also at St Ann’s Warehouse, NYC and Kenneth Branagh Season, West End), A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes, Multitudes, The House That Will Not Stand, Handbagged (Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, also West End transfer and UK tour), Paper Dolls, The Invisible Hand, Holy Sh!t, and White Teeth.
Jenny Sealey has been Artistic director of Graeae Theatre Company since 1998. Graeae leads the way in pioneering, trail-blazing theatre both in the UK and internationally, placing D/deaf and disabled actors centre stage and challenging preconceptions.
Directing credits for Graeae include: This Is Not For You, Reasons to be Cheerful, Two, The Fall of the House of Usher, Peeling, Bent, Blasted, Romeo and Juliet (Japan and Bangladesh) and The House of Bernarda Alba
Jenny co-directed the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings and also won the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award.
Alex is a freelance Lighting Designer based in Derbyshire with over twenty five years professional experience designing for regional and national producing houses and UK theatre companies including Nottingham Playhouse, New Vic Theatre, Red Earth Theatre Company and York Theatre.
Recent theatre designs include: Oh No, George! Can’t Sit Still Theatre; Cinderella & Skellig Nottingham Playhouse; Around the World in 80 Days UK & USA Tour Kenny Wax Productions & the New Vic; LAVA Fifth Word Theatre Company and her twelfth Pantomime, Jack & The Beanstalk for Harrogate Theatre.
Ava Hunt is a practitioner in theatre for young people and is as a researcher and Senior Lecturer at University of Derby.
With a long career in acting in TV, film and the corporate world, she also works as a director and producer. Ava was Artistic Programmer for Hull Truck and Associate Director for CAST, was co-founder of Tangere Arts with David Johnston, and now runs her own production company focussing mainly on theatre with and for refugees. She has worked internationally: Palestine, Sri Lanka, Russia, Czech Republic, Romania, Australia, India, New Zealand, USA, Sweden, Norway, and Austria.
Amanda Whittington’s work is widely performed by theatre companies across the UK. Be My Baby has been a popular GCSE and ‘A’ Level choice for 20 years. She had three titles in Nick Hern Book’s Top Ten Most Performed Plays of 2018: Ladies Day, Be My Baby and The Thrill of Love. She also works extensively in radio drama, with 16 titles for BBC Radio 4. D for Dexter won Best Series/Serial in the 2016 BBC Audio Drama awards and ran for seven years.
Amanda began her writing career as a freelance journalist for titles including The Face, New Statesman and Nottingham Evening Post. She was awarded a PhD by Publication at the University of Huddersfield, her thesis Bad Girls and Blonde Bombshells: Lived Feminisms in Popular Theatre exploring the diffuse and sometimes contradictory feminisms in her work. She is currently an Associate Artist at Nottingham Playhouse and member of Northern Broadsides Arts Squad.
Sonali Bhattacharyya is a playwright whose commissions include Megaball (National Theatre Learning), 2066 (Almeida Theatre), The Invisible Boy (Kiln Theatre) and the South Bank Show award nominated White Open Spaces (Pentabus Theatre). Sonali was one of three playwrights selected for the inaugural Old Vic 12, and was 2018 Channel 4 writer in residence at the Orange Tree Theatre, where she wrote Chasing Hares, winner of the Sonia Friedman Production Award. Sonali is currently under commission to Fifth Word and Kiln Theatre.
Sarah is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Derby Theatre where she has championed a new way of working through creating the Learning Theatre which combines artistic excellence with the development of emergent talent. Previously Sarah was Artistic Director of The Point, Eastleigh and Associate Director at Dundee Rep. Sarah trained at Bretton Hall and worked first extensively as an actor for a variety of companies before pursuing her directing career.
Sarah’s Derby Theatre productions include: Hansel & Gretel, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Peter Pan, The Gingerbread Man, Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, Jack, Look Back in Anger, Jinny, Brassed Off, Cinderella; Solace of the Road, A Christmas Carol, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Kes, The Odyssey and Pinocchio.
Emteaz is a playwright and performance poet.
She is currently writing on Ackley Bridge and is under commission by the Royal Court Theatre for a play about the child sexual exploitation scandals in the North and Midlands, titled TRACE.
She recently contributed to Nottingham Playhouse’s STILL LIFE digital theatre project and the Royal Court’s ‘Living Newspaper’: Edition 2; her powerfully moving piece STRAWBERRIES, garnered a special mention in reviews.
Her adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s CRONGTON KNIGHTS, produced by Pilot Theatre, toured UK in 2020 and her monologue SOCIAL DISTANCING was one of Kali Theatre’s online season of ‘Kali Shorts’.
She was listed on the BBC New Talent Hotlist in 2017. In 2016 she wrote monologue ETCHING, for BBC Writersroom scheme ‘The Break’ which was broadcast on BBC3 Online and she also contributed to Snapchat content for ACKLEY BRIDGE, online. BLOOD for Tamasha Theatre Company, toured nationally in March 2015; OUTSIDERS her play for Pilot Theatre was commissioned as part of an EC Culture project, Boomerang; the production went on national tour.
In 2014, she was commissioned by Clean Break under their Writers On Attachment scheme. Emteaz’s acclaimed first play, SWEET CIDER, was produced by Tamasha Theatre Company at the Arcola Theatre in 2008 and was published in 2013 in the anthology ‘Plays for Today by Women’ by Aurora Metro Books.
As a performance poet she has performed nationally and internationally and has toured with Transglobal Underground, Fundamental, Hustlers HC and as a backing poet with the Benjamin Zephaniah band. Emteaz works extensively as a workshop practitioner in both statutory and community settings, specialising in pupil referral units.
Esther is Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre company based in York, UK. She leads the vision for the organisation and has directed its acclaimed productions: Brighton Rock (2018), Noughts and Crosses (2019)and Traitor (2017 - co-conceived and co-directed with Cecilie Lundsholt).
Before joining Pilot, Esther directed work for UK theatre companies including Soho Theatre, London, Cast in Doncaster, Tamasha Theatre, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, Derby LIVE, Nottingham Playhouse, Bolton Octagon, Theatre Writing Partnership and New Perspectives. Esther has worked as Associate Director Cast in Doncaster, Artistic Associate for Soho Theatre in London and as Artistic Associate for Derby LIVE, Assistant Dramaturg for the Royal Shakespeare Company and was the founding Artistic Director of Theatre Writing Partnership - a new writing development company based in Nottingham. Esther is a renowned dramaturg, having worked on numerous award winning plays.
The Lights Up podcast and website will launch with all nine episodes, together with video and transcripts, on Friday May 28. Please come back then for the full programme.