WiLd! by Evan Placey

Dom loves writing music, playing music, recording music and listening to music. As a boy he was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, singing everyday for five years and sometimes making records and being on the TV. Later he went on to play lots of jazz and was a finalist in The Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Musician of the Year. Then Dom went to university to learn more about music and since then has been lucky enough to be able to pay the bills just by doing something musical. He has written music for lots of different people -from Atomic Kitten to Opera North and the BBC to a feature film starring John Rhys-Davies. His music has been played on national television and radio and in theatres throughout Europe. Dom is Director/Producer for the record label Jellymould Jazz and also plays the triangle.

Evan is a Canadian-British playwright who grew up in Toronto and now lives in London, England. He recently won the Writers’ Guild Award – Best Play for Young Audiences for his play Girls Like That (Synergy Theatre/Unicorn Theatre; first produced Birmingham Rep/Theatre Royal Plymouth/West Yorkshire Playhouse.) A new play for NYT’s West End Season will premiere in October this year, and his play Scarberia will be produced in Toronto in 2016. His other plays include: Pronoun (National Theatre Connections); Mother of Him (Courtyard Theatre, London; winner of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing (UK), RBC National Playwriting Competition (Canada) and the Samuel French Canadian Play Contest (USA).); Banana Boys (Hampstead Theatre); How Was It For You? (Unicorn Theatre); Scan Artists (BRIT school/ Yard Theatre); Little Criminals (York /Plymouth/Polka) and Holloway Jones (Synergy Theatre Project, schools tour & Unicorn Theatre; winner of the Brian Way Award 2012 for Best Play for Young People.) For radio: Mother of Him (BBC Radio 3 “The Wire”/Little Brother Productions).

Evan has been on attachment at the National Theatre Studio, Birmingham Rep, the Unicorn Theatre, and is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He was part of the Kudos/Bush Writers’ Initiative, Channel 4’s 4Screenwriting, and was a finalist for the Red Planet Prize. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton. He also teaches playwriting to young people for various theatres, as well as in prisons.

Joanne trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. She then worked with Kokuma dance company in Birmingham which enabled her to work with some of the best African and Caribbean tutors, Koffi Koko, Peter Badejo, H pattern and Patsy Ricketts to name a few. She has 18 years performance experience working for a variety of companies including Ace Dance and Music (contemporary/African fusion), Foot in hand (disabled and able bodied dancers) and tutti frutti (children’s theatre). Joanne went on to become movement director with Red Earth Theatre based in Derby for 5 productions and then returned to tutti frutti as a choreographer for their autumn show Silly Billy and has been with the company ever since.

Joanne has been a rehearsal director since 2004 working with companies such as State of Emergency and Rosie Kay with who she was rehearsal director for four seasons between 2005 and 2010. She was rehearsal director for Tavaziva dance during the critically acclaimed 2004 production ‘Bophelo’ in which the company toured to Zimbabwe as part of the Harare International Arts Festival. She returned to Tavaziva as rehearsal director for ‘Tavaziva Ten’ in autumn 2014.

Kate has designed shows for The New Vic, Birmingham Rep, MAC, Pentabus, Birmingham Symphony Hall, BAC, Polka Theatre and Northampton Royal and Derngate with whom she has designed several large multi-sensory interactive installation plays for young audiences.

Kate designed Michael Morpurgo’s ‘I believe in Unicorns’ for ‘Wizard Presents’. The show premiered at Edinburgh Festival and following a national tour enjoyed great success in the West End 2014/15.

Kate has recently worked with Tutti Frutti designing the ‘SnowChild’ and currently enjoying designing their current show ‘Wild’ . Kate’s other work this year includes designing Michael Rosen ‘Happy Harry’s café - Birdnest Theatre Company for Polka Theatre and Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Why the Whales came’ for Wizard Presents. Kate is also looking forward to designing Mike Kenny’s ‘Magical Moon’ for Tutti Frutti for Autumn 2016.

Kate has also worked as a Design lecturer for The Royal College of Art, Central School of Speech and Drama and held prop and assistant design roles for The National theatre, BBC, RSC and Almeida. She trained at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design - MA Scenography and a first class BA Hons in Theatre Design.

Kate lives in St Albans with her partner Jon and two children.

Artistic Director

I have held the position of Artistic Director at tutti frutti since 2005 and have directed all but one production in partnership with York Theatre Royal, touring nationally and internationally and co-producing the Little Feet Festival of Children’s Theatre and the First Words writers’ development programme

Before working with tutti frutti I was Artistic Director of Red Ladder Theatre Company, and previous to this; Merseyside Young People’s Theatre Company in Liverpool. Over the years as a freelance director work has included; Everyman Theatre Liverpool, Crucible Theatre Sheffield, Hope Street Ltd, Oxford Stage Company, Unity Theatre Liverpool, European Stage Company, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and Contact Theatre Manchester. I currently live in Leeds with my partner Mark and two sons Louie and Eliot.

Molly Lopresti is a percussionist from Devon. Currently studying in her last year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she has performed and worked with artists such as Julian Lloyd Webber, ensemble Bash and Joanna MacGregor. In 2012 she reached the

televised percussion final of the BBC Young Musician of The Year. Molly had a marimba concerto written for her by percussionist Damien Harron (2012) and was percussion soloist for the premier of Steve Marsh’s ‘Gothic Suite’ in Italy (2013). In the same year Molly was a speaker / performer at TEDx conference at Warwick Arts Centre

Molly spends a great deal of time playing in a female percussion duo called Malleticious. They have performed at festivals such as Port Elliot Music Festival and Festival No 6 as well as being the support act for the band British Sea Power.

Rhys graduated from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RSAMD) on the BA Acting course.