Hot Off the Pan

Twitter: @tessabirchley

Tessa is a playwright and student from Essex. They write plays that encounter identity and selfhood, engaging in community discourses through the lenses of lived experiences. They have written previously on Deafhood, medical trauma, and traversing relationships after sexual assault, and typically blend together spoken English with British Sign Language as an extension of their experience of deafness on stage. Their work has been performed through companies such as Burnt Orange Theatre, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s Outer Limits, and Salt Circle Productions. They worked with the National Theatre of the Deaf during their residency, which resulted in a multilingual movement piece on generational Deaf familial relationships, and plan to continue working academically and practically within Deaf theatre.

Instagram: @rianna_simons

Twitter: @riannasimons

Website: rianna-simons-writes.squarespace.com

Rianna is a playwright and budding stand-up comedian who often writes comedy that focuses on issues of race and difference. She has hopes of a future career in writing for theatre, television, and radio. She has written one full-length play, WHITE GIRLS GANG, which was longlisted for the Mustapha Matura Award 2021 and had a reading staged before an invited audience at New Diorama Theatre Broadgate in April 2022. An extract of her play was made into a short film by Scratching Collective in late 2020 and shown at TEDxRCSSD’s RestART in 2021. Rianna was also a shortlisted writer for the WOLAB x Paines Plough First Commissions theatre scheme in 2020, and was recently part of the Almeida Theatre’s Anthem Writer’s Group where she wrote her second play, FOLKLIFE.

Instagram: @david.o.i

David is a writer from Iceland studying at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. He’s a member of the Northern Script committee aimed at young writers from the Nordic countries taking their first steps in writing for the screen. David has worked with organizations to create and facilitate writing workshops for younger students focusing on unhealthy masculinity and in one instance, creating a choose your own adventure video game. His interest lie in informative performance styles, such as lecture performance. After graduating, don’t be surprised to see a play by him about some obscure subject only he finds interesting.

Instagram: @nathanmann5

Twitter: @NathanMann5

Website: linktr.ee/nathangeorge99

Nathan is a gay, autistic writer who particularly loves writing LGBTQ+ and mental health stories. He has also written articles for outlets such as Wired4Music and Across Rainbows on these subjects. He has been writing since the age of 15. His career highlight so far was writing and putting on a scratch performance of Someone Like You: a Jukebox Musical based on the music of Adele, at college in 2019. Since then he has expanded his repertoire, writing and performing immersive theatre and stand-up comedy, co-writing a song for a children’s musical theatre show in lockdown, and doing a writing residency with the Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust. There, he wrote a play based on a true story of how the organisation was saved by its members’ protests. Nathan is excited and eager to carry on the next stage of his journey, where he wants to experiment with more genres and meet people to collaborate with on shows.

Twitter: @SarahWoodm

Sarah is a writer and director with an interest in storytelling performance, collaborative work, and character-driven stories. She has written a variety of performance texts, including a short play exploring themes of home, friendship and grief, a short audio folk-horror story, and a silly retelling of the Twelve Labours of Heracles. Her work centres humour, silliness, and the quieter conflicts in life. She has recently co-written A Disturbance in Mirrors, a play inspired by the life and work of Sylvia Plath, which was devised in collaboration with RCSSD’s BA (Hons) Acting (CDT) 2022 and BA (Hons) Theatre Practice 2022. She has also assisted directors at York Theatre Royal and the Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, as well as directing youth theatre shows. Sarah is an experienced facilitator, having delivered youth theatres sessions and writing workshops, with particular experience in working with teenagers and young adults who are disabled, neurodivergent or have additional needs.

Instagram: @joshlewismt

Twitter: @JoshLewisMT

Website: joshlewiswriting.com

Josh is a playwright, composer, musical director and pianist. His writing interrogates accepted societal norms such as free will and our relationship to the environment. During lockdown he created an online interactive play called Switchboard, which explored how we connect with each other. During his residency at NHS Imperial, he created a play called Living History that centred the nurses’ experiences of the pandemic. He is passionate about supporting the development of creativity in children and is working on a new show he plans to tour in primary schools. He is a member of Book, Music and Lyrics writing workshop as a composer where he is co-writing an adaptation of Rooftoppers, an extract of which was shared at the Crazy Coqs. As musical director, he worked on a new musical called Christie Done It performed at the Cockpit Theatre. He also MDs for youth theatre, working on multiple productions including Matilda and Peter Pan, and regularly plays keyboard in show bands.

Instagram: @Kieran.daly__

Kieran is a stand-up comedian, poet and writer from Liverpool. His interests include childhood trauma and its affects on later life; he often creates work that ask questions about the psychology of a damaged society in convoluted and comedic scenarios. Some examples include a comedian on his debut night at Wembley arena who attempts to combat his grief for his ex-comedy partner whilst attempting to assert himself as a solo act, or a trans woman who, during a spring clean, finds the first piece of woman’s clothing that she wore -  her wife’s silk blouse who has since passed away. Kieran has worked extensively with children, producing work that challenges students to recreate well-known stories by changing the motives of characters. He wants to further pursue his interests in the field of trauma and grief, producing works that speak to avant-garde stories with a true-to-life moral purpose.

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-whiteside-ward-3b6992183

Having started at Central on a different course, Owen joined Writing for Performance in his second year. He is a creator who seeks to push himself and those around him to create work of the highest quality. Over the last five years, his skills have developed as a writer, producer, and project manager. He has interests in the creative parts of the entertainment industry but also the business side. Owen seeks to push himself in areas that he has not been familiar with and embraces the failures that come with that. Whilst at Central he has worked on West End shows such as 9 to 5, with the Olivier-nominated company Les Enfants Terribles, co-wrote a Shakespeare-style tragedy, and created original short films. Through these projects, his work as a writer, critical thinker, and project manager has developed immensely. He is looking forward to further developing his passion for both entertainment and business as he one day aims to own a large-scale media company.

Instagram: @elzaberga

Twitter: @misselzaberga

Elza is a Latvian-born, London-based writer and comedian. She attended Latvian Youth Theatre and Riga Improv Theatre before relocating to London and starting her studies at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Since then, Elza has written several short plays, including Dom, a play about the class divide in a shared student housing during the Covid pandemic. The play was inspired by her residency at The Museum of The Home in the fall of 2021, where Elza worked as an Assistant Producer. When Elza is not writing for theatre, she writes for pub basements and other non-traditional stages – she started doing stand-up comedy in 2019. She is particularly interested in combining comedy with music, and her piece 25 Years and… explores how karaoke and comedy can intersect with each other, creating multiple meanings.

Instagram: @graciedougan_

Twitter: @graciedougan

Grace is a theatre maker who likes all things loud and silly. She has recently completed the Young Writers Programme at the Royal Court. She prefers to work as a collaborator, rather than lone-writer-sat-in-a-bedroom-and-or-coffee-shop. This comes from a love for devising and new writing, and she is an advocate of fringe and off-West End theatre. Following her residency at the BRIT School last year, Grace is excited to  pursue more community-orientated projects. Grace’s first full-length play, GUNK, which originally showcased as a short piece for a playwriting unit at RCSSD in 2020, has since been developed into a full show and was programmed for VAULT Festival, 2022. GUNK will be making its debut as a work in progress at the Etcetera Theatre in July.

Maya is a comedic writer who often specialises in stand-up comedy or absurdist plays, though she has also written dramatically throughout her time at Central. Maya has performed stand-up comedy throughout London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Maya has travelled to Florida, New York and Nevada for her research and residency, where she taught theatre to students who are transitioning from online schooling as a result of the pandemic, to in-person learning. Along with fellow classmates, she has also put on an immersive theatre experience for the members of Body and Soul Charity in London. Maya plans to continue to do stand-up comedy throughout London and has plans to pursue higher education qualifications.

Instagram: @gracehadleigh

Twitter: @Gracie105x

Grace specialises in the theatre of the absurd, with thematic interests including the exploration of the human condition and human existence, why humanitarian crises continue to happen, and how society continues to deal with them. Using dark humour alongside heightened, absurd and gory scenes, Grace enjoys pushing theatrical boundaries and conventions. She has furthered her practice by working as a writer in residence at the National Theatre. Using all the resources available to her including speaking to dramaturges, scouring through the archive (which included past productions, props, costumes as well as early drafted scripts) Grace wrote an absurdist play based off her time in residence. Throughout her degree, Grace has produced a portfolio of work which has been performed to her peers as well as the general public at scratch nights, pubs and open mic nights. These experiences have allowed her to greatly improve and hone her craft and upon leaving Central, she has garnered interest from theatre production companies with hopes of extending her short plays into full length pieces with the potential for debut at London’s innovate fringe theatre scene.

Instagram: @Simone_priorx

Simone’s writing interests include realism and verbatim, both of which she has experimented with during her degree. In her hometown of Sunderland, she was a writer in residence at an arts centre in which she focused on how the community used the arts to help the families of those suffering from dementia. During times of isolation, Simone created a digital, five-minute spoken word performance about mental health in adolescence. As a working class artist from the north east, a lot of her inspiration comes from this particular culture, though she also enjoys researching and learning about other communities and their struggles. In an attempt to represent her take on growing up in the north, she created a short verbatim play about the drinking culture there and how this particular cycle can entrap someone attempting to break free, but without the means to do so.

Instagram: @yasmine___7

Twitter: @yasmined77

Website: yasminedankwah.journoportfolio.com

Yasmine is a Ghanaian-British, neurodivergent. spoken-word performer and writer. Her work often explores how moments and movements of resistance can be used to platform elements of joy, particularly within communities that are considered marginalised and often uses lyricism and music to do so. At the moment she is particularly interested in UK garage. She is currently part of the Soho Writer’s Lab 2021/22, a member of the Purple Moon Drama Digital Youth Board, the National Youth Theatre and is also a Roundhouse Slam Poetry Finalist. This year, the pitch for her play Garage Girls (Mensah’s Motors) was shortlisted in the top 25 for the DYSPLA_Storymaker’s residency.

Instagram: @ivan.vlat

Ivan Vlatkovic is an Austrian-Croatian playwright and performer. They have had several of their plays performed at the Salzburg State Theatre, and co-wrote the documentary play Invisible Game set to premiere in October 2022 in Berlin, as well as a modern adaptation of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. During their time at Central, Ivan had a writer’s residency at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Ivan is interested in exploring themes of gender, and ethnic and cultural identity in modern and historical contexts. They write in English, German as well as Croatian.

Instagram: @etoilesinde

Twitter: @etoilesinde

Website: www.estrellaalonso.com

Estrella is an actor and writer born in Madrid. In 2016 she moved to London to train at Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company. There she started devising her own work which led her to the Writing for Performance BA. She likes to explore the devices and norms of theatre through metatheatrical text, autobiography and clown. She also likes to challenge the limits of language and theatricality through translation. She also has experience in adaptation, having co-written A Disturbance In Mirrors, a collaborative devised piece based on The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath as part of the CDT showcase. Throughout her time at Central, Estrella has worked as an actor at the Cervantes Theatre, in the feature film El Comensal, and TV show That Dirty Black Bag.