Estelle Savasta - Going Through

Cast

Cast

Nadia Nadarajah

Nadia trained at International Visual Theatre (Paris). Her theatre credits include: A Christmas Carol (Bristol Old Vic); Hamlet & As You Like It (Shakespeares Globe); The Unheard World (Arlington Artist Centre, Newbury); Our Town (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Untouchable (RADA Festival); The House of Bernarda Alba (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Can I Start Again Please (UK Tour); Notre Dame (National Theatre); Grounded (Deafinitely Theatre at Park Theatre); A Midsummer Nights Dream (Shakespeares Globe); Windibops (UK Tour); Tyrannosaurus Drip (Stratford Circus); Loves Labours Lost (Shakespeares Globe); Tanikas Journey and Invisible (Deafinitely Theatre); Girls And Dolls (Southwark Playhouse); Deafhood (Bristol Old Vic) and I Believe In Unicorns and Were Going On A Bear Hunt (Little Angel Theatre).

Other credits include: Scrooge (D-Live!); Midnight Movie (R&D); Sonnet 18 (Short Film); Dorothy Miles (Television); Diana and the Gods from Galatea (R&D); Extraordinary Wall of Silence (R&D); Silent Shakespeare (Workshop, Old Vic); Sonnet 30 (Short Film); Margaret Ashman Gallery (Still Photography); The Hub (Television); BSL Zone Showcase (Internet); Snapshot Dicing with Sex (Documentary); All Day (Short Film) and Wicked series 2 & 3 (Television).

Charmaine Wombwell

Charmaine studied Drama at the University of Hull before fronting and also writing for original music projects for several years. In 2013 she began her training in Physical Theatre & Devising at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA), and soon after created her one-woman dark clown show, Scarlet Shambles: It Used to be Me , for the Edinburgh Fringe 2015, and Tellit, Shambala and Barcelona Solo festivals culminating with Stratford Circus International Womens Day Festival (2016). Charmaine then returned to LISPA (now in Berlin) to study Integral Movement and Performance Practice, to deepen her understanding of storytelling and artistic creation. Other performance credits include Grounded (Park Theatre/Deafinitely Theatre); Champion of the World (BSLBT BSLZone/Film4); Karagula (Soho Theatre); The Listening Room (Old Red Lion); Not I (BSL performance for Touretteshero/Battersea Arts Centre and tour: Southbank Centre, Albany Deptford, The Lowry (Salford), DADA Fest (Liverpool)); Fram and Dunt (Push Festival, HOME Manchester). Voice over credits: Aimee in Magic Hands (Cbeebies). Directing credits include Raymond Antrobus A Language We Both Know How To Sound Out (Roundhouse). Charmaine is very excited to be starting work on Going Through at Bush Theatre, especially as it is where she did her work experience as a teenager many years ago...

Creative Team

Estelle Savasta Playwright

Estelle is a French writer and director, and founder of the theatre company Hippolyte a mal au cur . Her first production as a director for the company was Le Grand Cahier (The Notebook) by Agota Kristof, presented in a bilingual staging (French and Sign Language) in 2005. She wrote and directed the companys second production, Seule dans ma peau dne (Alone in my Donkey Skin) which was nominated for a Moliere Award in 2008.

After working with the International Visual Theatre in Paris, integrating French and Sign Language, she wrote and directed Traverse (Going Through) in 2011. The play was translated into English and Spanish and has received multiple productions in France, Canada and will be soon produced in Mexico.

Kirsten Hazel Smith Translator

Kirsten Hazel Smith grew up in France to Scottish parents, and trained as an actor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. As well as Going Through , Kirsten has translated Estelle Savastas Lettres Jamais Ecrites for the Cross Channel Theatre Group, and What World Do I Live In? Dialogues Without Borders for Boundless Theatre and Thtre de la Cit, Toulouse.

Kirsten is a bilingual reader for the Cross Channel Theatre Group which promotes French new writing in the UK.

Omar Elerian Director

Omar is an award winning Italian/Palestinian theatre director, deviser and performer, who trained at Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. He joined the Bush in 2012 alongside Madani Younis and since then has been the resident Associate Director. He is in charge of the Bushs talent development, leading on the Associate Artists and Project 2036 schemes. He is also involved in the development and delivery of the Bushs artistic program and lead the programming of the RADAR festival between 2012 and 2015. His directing credits for the Bush include gig theatre sensation Misty by Arinz Kene, the Edinburgh Fringe First winning NASSIM by Nassim Soleimanpour, One Cold Dark Night by Nancy Harris and Islands by Caroline Horton. As Associate Director, he has worked alongside Madani Younis on the Bushs productions of Leave Taking , The Royale , Perseverance Drive and Chalet Lines . Other credits include acclaimed site-specific production The Mill City of Dreams , Olivier Award nominated Youre Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy (Edinburgh Festival and on Tour), Testa di Rame (Italy), Les Ptites Grandes Choses (France) and LEnvers du Dcor (France).

Louise Stern Associate Director

California born, London based artist and writer Louise Stern uses various forms of language to explore communication and isolation. Attending the California School for the Deaf, Fremont, Stern grew up in an exclusively deaf community (fourth generation deaf on her fathers side, and third generation on her mothers side) and saw in literature and visual language a way to investigate and liberate. Graduating from Gallaudet University, Washington DC in 2000 as the only student studying art history before moving to London to read an MA at Sothebys three years later, Stern went on to work as an assistant to filmmaker and photographer Sam Taylor-Johnson. As an artist Sterns works have been exhibited in Geneva, Madrid, Barcelona, Istanbul, Paris, and London among other places. In 2018, she was awarded an art residency by the University of Manchester.

As a writer she was the founder and publisher of Maurice 2002-2009, a contemporary art magazine for children. Her work at Maurice led to her collection of short stories, Chattering, published by Granta in 2011 (long-listed for the Frank OConnor Short Story Award); and novel Ismael and His Sisters, published by the same in 2015 (long-listed for the Warwick Prize). Her creative writing has been commissioned by publications including Granta Magazine, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, the Royal Academy Magazine, and Radio 4.