Jessica L. Hagan - Queens of Sheba

CAST

Jacoba Jacoba Williams

Koko Kokoma Kwaku

Rachel Rachel Clarke

Veronica Veronica Beatrice Lewis

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer Jessica L. Hagan

Adapted by Ryan Calais Cameron

Director Jessica Kaliisa

Movement Director Yassmin V. Foster

Production Manager Shavani Cameron

Directing Assistant Jessica Mensah

CAST BIOGRAPHIES

Jacoba Williams | Jacoba

Laurence Olivier Bursary recipient.

Training: Italia Conti; National Youth Theatre.

Theatre: DMC (Tristan Bates Theatre); Addict (Cockpit Theatre); Queens of Sheba (Camden Peoples Theatre); The Libertine (Oval House); Angry Brigade (Sheridan Studio); If Chloe Can (Lyric Theatre).

Short Film: Highlife (Salome Wagaine); The Vest (Lesley Manning); Cleos Choice (Duaine Roberts).

Kokoma Kwaku | Koko

Training: Wrought Artisan.

Theatre: Queens of Sheba (Camden Peoples Theatre). Queens of Sheba is Kokos professional debut; she is thrilled to be reprising her role with the Untapped Award-winning show.

Rachel Clarke | Rachel

Rachel is an actress, performer and emerging playwright.

Training: Identity Drama School; Epic Stages (National Youth Theatre); TYPT (Talawa Theatre Company).

Theatre: Hatch (Talawa Theatre Company); Best Friends (Ovalhouse); Queens of Sheba (Camden Peoples Theatre); Still Barred (Initiative.dkf); Switch (Tricycle Theatre); dirty butterfly (The Bread and Roses Theatre).

Film: Knock Down Ginger (Rooted Productions).

Veronica Beatrice Lewis | Veronica

Training: Rose Bruford College of Speech & Drama; Identity Drama School; Middleweek Newton Film Academy.

Theatre: Rhapsody (Nouveau Rich); Expensive Shit (Soho Theatre); Theatre Madness Festival (Faith Drama Productions); Precious (Royal Court Theatre); Dreams & Nightmares: The Life & Death Of Martin Luther King (TNT Theatre); Still Barred (Initiative.dkf); Concrete Jungle (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Dry Nation (Theatre Utopia); The Memory Of Water and Interuppted (The Courtyard); Naked Series: Your Husband, My Boyfriend (Snowpix Media); Enter (Talawa Theatre Company); Skeen! (Ovalhouse Theatre, 33% Festival); The Colour Of Home (Dream Arts).

Radio: The Archers (BBC Radio).

Film/TV: Spin Drama UK (Snow Pix Media); Tainted Canvas (British Urban Film Festival, Channel 4).

CREATIVE TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

Jessica L. Hagan | Writer

Jessica L. Hagan is a playwright of Ghanaian origin born and raised in Marylebone, London. Originally a spoken word artist, Jessica uses poetry and performance to tackle real-life issues in a powerful, provocative way. Her work predominantly focuses on conversations surrounding the black womans experience, identity and belonging as a British-Ghanaian, and her journey to finding faith. Earlier this year, Jessica was awarded funding through the British Council and Art Council Englands Artists International Development Fund to travel to Ghana and develop new work. She is now based in both London and Accra and continues to write and develop poetic pieces in both cities. Queens of Sheba is her first stage play.

Ryan Calais Cameron | Adaptor for Stage

Ryan is an alumnus of the Royal Court Writers Programme 2017 and the Soho Young Company 2016/17. Ryan is also the recipient of the 2018 OffWestEnd Adopt a Playwright Award for his play Rhapsody that ran at the Arcola Theatre in early 2018.

Works include: Timbuktu (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Terra Nova (Arcola Theatre); Void (Royal Court Theatre).

Jessica Kaliisa | Director

Jessica Kaliisa is an actress, director and First Class Honours Journalism graduate. During her time at university, Jessica focused her dissertation on investigating how the West systematically others Africa and its descendants and the effect this has had on society today, including misogynoir. Jessicas intention was to create art from the truth of her work and honour the stories of the black women whose voices wanted to be heard. Believing there was a place on the stage for this story and a need for it to be told, Jessica presented her work to Nouveau Rich and Queens of Sheba was conceived.

Acting credits include: Call the Midwife (BBC); Cutting It (Royal Court Theatre); Murder in Successville (BBC); Doctors (BBC).

Yassmin V. Foster | Movement Director

Yassmin V Foster is a movement director and scholar based in London. She works across classical theatre, dance theatre and film. She is a graduate of anthropology and media, and holds MA Choreomundus International Master in dance knowledge, practice and heritage. Her research, which she has presented across the UK and in the US, investigates movement with the contexts of play, ritual and dance.

Yassmin has been awarded funding through Arts Council England and British Council Artists International Development Fund 2018, and will travel to Canada to continue her research. She also begins a PhD programme at Goldsmiths University, autumn 2018.

Works include: With A Little Bit Of Luck (Paines Plough); All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Middle Child Theatre Company); Box Clever (Nabokov); Last Night (Benin City).

Shavani Cameron | Production Manager

Shavani is a professional actress and producer. Queens of Sheba was the first production Shavani managed. Since then she has gone on to manage Timbuktu (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Rhapsody (Arcola Theatre) and Nouveau Nights (CLF Art Caf).

Jessica Mensah | Directors Assistant

Jessica is currently a third-year student studying Theatre and Performance at the University of Surrey, Guildford School of Acting. She is coming to the end of her year-long placement at Kiln Theatre, formerly known as the Tricycle. During her placement year she has worked extensively throughout the creative learning department at the Kiln. This has ranged from assisting in administration, managing and producing the projects for young people, to also being an assistant practitioner for school projects and assistant director for the youth theatre production of Blanket . Jessica was a young producer this year at Battersea Arts Centre and produced the event Off The Track alongside other young producers to end the 2018 Homegrown festival. She is also taking part in the Intro to Directing course at the Young Vic. Jessica will graduate from university in the summer of 2019. Her current career aspiration is to manage creative projects, and to become a director and producer.

Nouveau Rich is an award-winning creative movement, headed by a team of professional performing artists and producers. Our objective is to discover, nurture and produce unique stories from all walks of life, with a keen scope on work that is both educational and entertaining.

Birthed out of a collective frustration with the industrys lack of diversity, Nouveau Rich have set to create new writing that is thought-provoking, challenging and culturally inclusive. Queens of Sheba is our first full-length production, created as part of Camden Peoples Theatres ten-week residency Starting Blocks. Since our first production we have been able to create projects with, and for the likes of the Bush Theatre, Rich Mix, Ovalhouse Theatre, the Barbican, Alphabetti Theatre, Arcola Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, CLF Art Caf Theatre and most recently the Theatre Royal Stratford East. We have also been very active in running our outreach service entitled WideAwake alongside every production. WideAwake was created to establish a stronger relationship with both local and regional communities to develop a safe place were people could openly speak about how the themes from our productions had affected them.