Two talented young North East theatre-makers are moving on to further their careers.
In early June, Cumbrian-born but Newcastle-resident playwright Nina Berry headed south to develop her career in screenwriting, although she will be back a little later when her next full-length play, Heat of Stars, is produced by Newcastle’s Live Theatre.
Her work in the region includes Paper Walls (Alphabetti), Words with Love (Live), touring gig theatre piece FANS for the Six Twenty and The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes (Live) which was the BTG’s Best New NE Play of 2016 and was revived the following year.
In 2015 she was one of the BTG’s three Best NE Newcomers.
She was longlisted for the Kudos North Writers Award in January 2018 and in April that year she was selected to take part in Oxford's The North Wall’s Catalyst Programme which saw an extract of her play WINGS performed as part of their 2018 Alchemy Festival.
This year, she was screenwriter for the short film Salt which starred Tara Fitzgerald, James Wilby and Olivia Vinall.
Also moving on is director Anna Ryder, who is joining the RSC as assistant director on King John and The Whip.
Most recently, she has been Creative Associate at Live Theatre where she directed Nina Berry’s Words with Love and Laura Lindow’s Currently under Construction as part of the theatre’s tribute to Julia Darling, Rendezvous. She was assistant director on the Paynes Plough / Live Theatre production of Broken Biscuits and on Live’s production of Wet House.
Other shows on which she was assistant director are New Writing North's rural touring show Man on the Moon, Northern Stage’s Christmas show Tallest Tales from the Furthest Forest and Sunderland Music in the Minster’s community opera Miracle! An Opera of Two Halves.
She has directed a number of Live Theatre’s Ten Minutes to… plays as well as two one-woman shows, A Living by Caroline Liversidge and Stupid by Sian Armstrong.
The latter was produced by Mortal Fools, a theatre, drama and creative learning company of which she is a member.