Play With Fire
  • About
  • Productions
    • Some Voices
    • Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
    • The Effect
    • Things We Want
    • Contractions / North of Providence
    • Herding Cats
    • Sans Merci
    • Orphans
  • Rehearsal Studios Rental
  • Acting Classes
  • Practical Aesthetics Online
  • Contact

Herding Cats
by Lucinda Coxon

Directed by Lawrence Evans
Produced by Play With Fire Productions

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This May, Play With Fire Productions present the acclaimed ‘Herding Cats’; a blackly comic, brutal, yet truthful play that manages to find the dark humour in the loneliness of life.

​Laying bare the corrosive effects of feeling that we hide behind hard, bright, spikey smiles, Lucinda Coxon makes us wince in recognition and laugh in horror, as her characters worm their way into your brain.

To book follow the link below:
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/hopemilltheatre

The Cast

Daniel Bradford as Michael
Kayleigh Hawkins as Justine
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and John Gully as Saddo
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The Team

Director: Lawrence Evans

Producers: Hannah Ellis Ryan, Amy Du Quesne and James Oates 

Stage Manager: Sarah Greenwood

Designer: Elizabeth Wright

Sound Design: Dan Pyke

Lighting Design: Adam Eastwick 
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Production Assistant: Sean Chriscole 

Assistant Stage Manager: Roisin McCusker

Poster Design: Chris Ball

Photography: Lucy Ridges

Video Filmed and Edited by: Stuart Gresham 


Enormous thank you to Shay Rowan for the below production slots. 

E-Program

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Lawrence Evans
​Director

Lawrence works as a director, movement director, and actor. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for his work at the National Theatre with Tony Harrison. He has worked with the poet and playwright on all his site-specific theatre pieces since 1988. He  received a Best Actor Award from the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post Northwest Arts Awards and his co-written play Lives Worth Living is published by Heinemann. His recent directing credits include A Midsummer Nights Dream with Mendelssohn’s incidental Music for the Irish Chamber Orchestra & Storyteller’s Theatre Co., and The Soldiers Tale for the Orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Other directing work includes Pied Piper Theatre Co. Theatre Centre, Polka Theatre, Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company, London Bubble Theatre Co., CDS New York Agents Showcase, as well as several fringe companies. His work as a Movement Director includes the National Theatre, NT Studio, Northern Broadsides, Hampstead Theatre, Tamasha Theatre Co., and Bristol Old Vic. His work as an actor includes small, middle, and large scale touring nationally and internationally, many of the regional Repertory Theatres throughout the UK as well as the National Theatre, NT studio, Cheek by Jowl, the Young Vic, and Northern Broadsides. He was an Associate Artist of Theatre Centre 1994 – 2007 and an Associate Director in 2001/2. He also directs and teaches in several UK Drama schools.

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Sarah Greenwood
Stage Manager

Herding Cats is Sarah's third production working with ‘Play With Fire’ after previously working as stage manager on their previous successful productions of Orphans and Sans Merci. Since Sans Merci, Sarah has been working with the company as their technical manager and is excited for what the future holds for the company.
 Hailing from up north, Sarah has a real passion for being part of the production of theatre in Manchester and is passionate about what the future holds for Northern theatre and arts production. Sarah previously worked as Stage Manager on both YANK! and Hair at Hope Mill and has developed a real love for the building and the work it is producing. 

Sarah studied Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway University and studied for her MA in Stage & Event Management at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. 

Her other stage management experience includes: DSM on Snow White at Gracie Fields Theatre, DSM Lotty's War UK tour, SM on Live Lunches at the Royal Court London, ASM on Plaques and Tangles at the Royal Court London, ASM on The Angry Brigade at The Bush London, DSM Growth at the Gate London. 
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@SarahGee92


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Dan Pyke
Sound Design 

danpykemusic@gmail.com


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Adam Eastwood
Lighting Design 

Adam Eastwood is a freelance lighting designer & theatre technician. Credits include Animal Farm - ALRA, Close the Coal House Door - Oldham Coliseum (sound design), When Both Sides Surrender - 53TWO and All The Young Dudes - The Lowry Studio. Adam trained at The Oldham College and went on the work at The Oldham Colesium and The Lowry Theatre.


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Sean Chriscole
Production Manager

​Sean is an Actor/Singer, Associate Producer at Devilish Accord Productions & Casting Director for Golden Oak Pictures. Sean was an Assistant Stage Manager on our production of Sans Merci last year and is thrilled to be working alongside us again. Some of Sean’s recent credits include; Collision Course (Co-Producer/Actor), appearing in Vanquis Bank adverts, touring with BBC The Voice UK 2015 runners-up Classical Reflection as support act in 2016, and short film My Name is Phoebe. Sean will be touring Collision Course late 2017, a play he previously co-produced & performed in, and will also be producing Devilish Accord Productions debut play: Get Me Out Of Here by David Chriscole mid 2018. Sean trained at the University of Central Lancashire and is represented by Actors’ Lab Management.
 
Twitter - @SeanChriscole
Spotlight - https://www.spotlight.com/9296-0169-6733


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Hannah Ellis Ryan
Producer

Hannah is a prominent Manchester-based actor and producer, who relocated from Australia five years ago. She is currently working on the North West tour of Gypsy Queen, co-founded Manchester ADP with Diana Atkins, is the Managing Director of Play With Fire Productions, alongside freelance producing projects, including Manchester institution - JB Shorts. ​

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Amy Du Quesne
Associate Producer

Amy Du Quesne is an Actor and Producer. She recently became Associate Artist of the ever growing Manchester based Theatre Company, Play With Fire Productions and is excited to work with them as Assistant Producer on their current production, “Herding Cats” written by Lucinda Cox.
Amy has worked and trained in stage and screen performance, studying a BA Honours Degree in Acting at Aberystwyth University and going on to study at David Johnson's Drama and at Act4Tv. 
Some of her recent stage credits include, “Tea With Miss Horniman” by Ragged Theatre Productions and “Last Orders” by Manchester ADP. Some of her recent screen credits include, Salford City Council’s “Local Offer” video by Shane Green Video and shooting for Zurich on their “Zurich Footage Library” by Chroma Films.


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James Oates
Associate Producer

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Elizabeth Wright
Designer 

Liz is excited to be working with Play With Fire Productions at Hope Mill Theatre for the first time.
Previously, she has worked extensively at Theatre by the Lake, Cumbria, where some of her favourite designs have included Wallflowering, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, The Birthday Party, Silence, The Glass Menagerie, Vincent in Brixton, The Shape of Things, Suddenly Last Summer, The Lady of the Lake, The Vertical Hour and Elektra.
Liz’s other designs include Master of the Macabre (The Vaults, Waterloo), 13, The Blue Room and David Copperfield (HOME, Manchester for Manchester School of Theatre), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Octagon Theatre, Bolton and Hull Truck Theatre), Queen of the North and Peter Pan (Octagon Theatre, Bolton) and When The Waters Recede, a site-specific set design on Derwent Island, Keswick.
Liz studied theatre at the University of Leeds and trained in theatre design at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She has a PhD in the history of British theatre design from Wimbledon College of Art.
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Instagram: elizabethwright.design
Web: https://elizabethwrightdesign.squarespace.com


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Roisin McCusker
Assistant Stage Manager

Roisin graduated from The University of central Lancashire with a First Class Hons in BA Acting; since then she has performed in many productions across the North West and a three week residency at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 


She played the lead the feature film The Collaborators and is currently filming a new short with Jack the Lad films, she is now producing shorts with RecLight Media. She is excited to be back at the Hope Mill Theatre with Play With Fire after being the Assistant Stage Manager for Swaggering Crows 'A Kidnapping' in January. ​


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  • About
  • Productions
    • Some Voices
    • Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
    • The Effect
    • Things We Want
    • Contractions / North of Providence
    • Herding Cats
    • Sans Merci
    • Orphans
  • Rehearsal Studios Rental
  • Acting Classes
  • Practical Aesthetics Online
  • Contact