Who's Who
Menagerie creates new work through the efforts, creativity and ingenuity of a host of fantastic writers, actors, directors, designers, technicians, stage managers, interns and volunteers.
We have a core team who work with the company on a day-to-day basis. We also have Associate Artists who collaborate with us on a regular basis. Finally, we have a dedicated Board of Trustees who oversee our operations, cheer us on and provide an immense amount of support. It is thanks to all of these people that we continue to develop new work and the writers that craft it.
Core Team
-
Paul Bourne
Artistic Director
Freelance Director, Co-Artistic Director of Menagerie and The Hotbed Festival, Paul has directed and produced over sixty professional productions in ten different countries. His work has ranged from productions on the fringe through to major international touring. Highlights include Guignol (Tennessee Williams) in New York and The UK, The world touring production of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged (out of Washington DC), and the European premieres Oleanna and The Secret Garden. Previously Artistic Director at the Frankfurt Playhouse and Center Stage New York, his focus is on creating and developing new work for the stage, offering appropriate productions that entertain, challenge and inspire. Paul also runs the corporate training for Menagerie and has delivered training and support for companies at all levels including Liverpool F.C and the BBC.
-
Patrick Morris
Artistic Director
Patrick is co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Menagerie. He has directed Albatross, The Great Austerity Debate, Four For Jericho, Correspondence, Let Newton Be!, The Retreating World and Between This Breath and You. As an actor, Menagerie credits include bloominauschwitz, Bliss, Out of Your Knowledge, Re:Design, Frobisher’s Gold, Hard Sell and The Cull. Other acting credits include NIE, Foursight Theatre, New York’s Public Theatre. He runs the Young Writers’ Workshop and directs community/public art projects, currently The Trials of Democracy: Who Gives a XXXX?. He also runs The Ideas Stage, currently collaborating with Oxford University. Previous collaborations: The Good Death Project and The Great Austerity Debate with Cambridge University, Not Quite Right with THIS Institute, and Human Rights! Bloody Human Rights! with QMUL.
-
Sarah Saxby
Freelance Projects and Marketing Associate
Sarah has been working with Menagerie in this role since January 2024. She has been working on a variety of projects, most notably Hidden Voices and Hotbed festival. Sarah is also an actor, writer, and theatre maker in her own right. In 2022, Sarah co-founded East Anglian based theatre company, Sticks Theatre. As part of her work with Sticks Theatre, Sarah was part of Landmark Theatres’ Key Seeds programme for early career artists. Sarah has also worked with multiple organisaitons across the region in varying roles, including Peterborough Presents, Lamphouse Theatre, Landmark Theatres, and Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Her most recent work as both writer and performer, Fourteen in ‘14, was at The Bread & Roses as part of Lambeth Fringe 2024, recieving 4 star reviews. Sarah is also part of our 2025 Young Writers’ Workshop cohort.
Associate Artists
Writers
-
Plays include Love, No Country, The Many Lives of Clara M. Saturn Return, Luna, Three Glorious Days
The Many Lives of Clara M was developed with director Nir Paldi of Theatre Ad Infinitum. It placed in the top 10% for the BBC Writers Competition 2020.
Love No Country was performed in 2021 with Menagerie Theatre Company as part of the Hotbed Festival at the Cambridge Junction directed by Patrick Morris.
-
Playwright, Radio/tv/screenwriter
Craig is a dramatist with thirty years of experience writing primarily for the stage but also for screen and radio. Often he collaborates with academics and experts to bring their work and ideas to a wider public.
He has written audio dramas for the Darwin Correspondence Project and the multi-award-winning The Sound of Anger for the Centre for the History of the Emotions. Craig worked with Menagerie on Somniloquy (Hotbed Festival, Soho Theatre) and more.
-
Richard Fredman is an award winning writer (New Writing South - Best New Play 2015) and is also Artistic Director and writer in residence for BABOLIN (Outstanding Theatre - Total Theatre 2015). Richard has extensive knowledge of writing and devised theatre, and is a Head of Drama at Hills Road Sixth Form College.
Richard’s writing includes Bloominauschwitz, performed at Hotbed 2013 and Four For Jericho performed Hotbed 2009, both were also performed internationally.
-
Fraser Grace is a Cambridge-based writer and dramatist. His first play was joint-winner of the Verity Bargate award, and his best known stageplay, Breakfast with Mugabe, was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, winning the John Whiting best play award when it transferred to the West End.
It was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and on the World Service prior to revivals in both the UK and the USA, where it was nominated for best play in the Off-Broadway Theater awards 2014.
-
Danusia Iwaszko is a Playwright, Theatre Company Director and Actor who lives in the market town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Born in London of a Polish father and an Irish mother, Danusia lived for much of her life in Camden Town and moved to Suffolk in 2000. Her real love is writing for the stage.
Danusia is an Artistic Associate at The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds where she is working in the commumity with Age UK, the YMCA and at the Refuge leading drama and writing workshops.
-
Martha is an award winning writer, actor and producer. Her work has been performed across the UK and internationally. She won the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022. She is currently working on commissions with New Wolsey Theatre, Menagerie Theatre Company and the Almeida Theatre and was selected for the prestigious 4Screenwriting and BBC Voices programmes in 2024. This year, she has been nominated as a writer for The Stage Debut Awards for her play Bindweed.
-
Playwright, tv/radio/screenwriter
Janice Okoh is an award winning playwright. Her first play ‘Egusi Soup’ was produced in 2012 by Menagerie Theatre/Soho Theatre and went on a national tour in 2014 with Menagerie/Theatre Royal Bury St Edmonds as producers. It won a Channel 4 Playwriting Award in 2017.
Her second play “Three Birds” won the Bruntwood Playwriting Prize in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate and Alfred Fagon awards in that same year. It was produced in 2013.
For television, Janice has most recently written on Sanditon for ITV/PBS. She also writes extensively for radio.
-
Playwright & radio/screenwriter
Steve is a playwright who works for stage, radio and screen. He is also very involved in the new playwriting scene and have written about the pedagogy of playwriting, the nature of plays and been a participant in shaping arts policy in this area; he has been described as ‘one of the UK’s most accomplished political playwrights’.
Having written The Contingency Plan, a diptych of plays in 2009 about climate change he has been at the forefront of artistic practice and reflection on climate change and was a co-convenor of the Writing and Science Project at UEA.
Actors & Performers
-
Kate Malyon was born and grew up near Margate in Kent, England. She is a Television, Film and Theatre Actress. She is also a Voice Actor known for Animation, Commercials and Games. She is best known for Diddy TV (2018), Doctors (2012), Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (2018).
-
Hannah’s autobiographical work offers a unique blend of influences from theatre, performance art, stand up, spoken word and musicals. It crosses into solo shows, performed essays, podcasts, television and radio.
It is hyperspecific, playful and idiosyncratic. Accessibly radical, it remarks on the unremarkable. It is nonchalantly queer, because she is. There’s a bit of song and dance. Your mother would love it.
-
Born in Switzerland, Stephanie studied at the University of Basel before training at The International Theate School Jaques Lecoq in Paris where she also attended the LEM (Laboratorie Etude de Movement). In 1994 Stephanie moved to England and co-founded Hoipolloi Theatre with Shon Dale-Jones.
-
Actor & Director
Caroline has worked as a professional actor for more than 20 years in theatres across the world. Caroline has worked extensively in the corporate and public sectors with Menagerie Theatre Training and privately, coaching teams and individuals to develop confidence in communications and presentation skills.
Alongside her theatre work she established Snapshot Theatre, a theatre in education company which helps students, through interacting with the drama, to explore and discover how behaviour can change outcomes in potentially challenging situations.
-
Bess starred in Bliss, an original play writen by Fraser Grace. Bliss was performed as part of Hotbed 2019 and at Finborough Theatre in 2022.
Other Artists
-
Jessie is an independent theatre and opera producer based between London and Oxford, with mixed Indian and English/Scottish/Manx heritage. She has a love for bringing creative people and ideas together, and haven't stopped since I started producing at school.
As a producer, Jessie has worked with acclaimed organisations including Wayward Productions, Belarus Free Theatre, Kandinsky and the Bush Theatre. Before this, Jessie spent time in arts PR at The Corner Shop PR and fundraising at the National Theatre.
-
Artistic Director & Creative Producer
Rachel is a UK based theatre director and creative producer. She trained at Ecole Jacques LeCoq in Paris and has worked across Britain and mainland Europe as an actor, director, workshop leader, creative consultant, project manager and producer.
She is now based in Bristol and is the artistic director of PECo theatre who make imaginative, theatrically driven experiences, connecting people and place with the power of the imagination.
-
Chris studied Fine Art in Hull and when he first got there he built a boat from driftwood to try to escape. The boat failed but Chris ended up making a whole series of vehicles in a similar vein.
Over the years, Chris has retold and refined these stories as both artist and teacher. The result is a performance that translates the experience of creating and testing a theory. This in turn enables an audience to share and participate in a journey of discovery.
Chris’ latest show Toy Stories, created with Menagerie, is touring now.
-
Michaela Polakova is a Czech-born composer, producer, singer - songwriter and pianist based in England (for 18 years). She was trained at Prague Conservatoire, University of East London and King’s College London. Her theatre work includes music & sound design for Albatross and Bliss produced by Menagerie (Hotbed Festival and Finborough Theatre) and The Night Before The Funeral produced by Švanda Theatre in Prague. Short film composition includes Lurker (for ARRI Trinity/ Directors UK one shot challenge.) As a singer - songwriter, composer and producer, Michaela has credits on various albums released by Sony Music and Warner Music. In her music you can find influences of classical music, electronic music and alternative pop.
Board of Trustees
-
Kay Blayney
Board Member
Kay is an innovative and well-organised teacher and educational consultant, experienced in initiating and leading new approaches and collaborating on multidisciplinary projects. She is currently leading on educational leadership and school improvement work.
Kay has always had an avid interest in new writing and performance, participating in Menagerie’s Hotbed new writing festivals as the proud winner of the One-page play competition in 2009 with The Visitors Book and runner-up in 2009 with Circuits of Remembrance. She has been a nominee and short-listed for the 2006 and 2009 Escalator non-fiction writing award and was also involved in the Menagerie & BBC Radio project Echoes from the East, with her play Gownland.
-
James Barlow
Chair of Board
James qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Grant Thornton working mainly in the audit division in both the UK and Australia. More recently he has worked for small fast growing companies with particular focus on raising funds and cash management along with developing and implementing the necessary controls and systems as the companies have grown.
-
Rebecca Myers
Board Member
Rebecca comes from a medicinal chemistry research background. In recent years, she has contributed to pioneering developments in organic chemistry and helped secure over £10M of research council funding. In 2018, she joined the Cambridge Judge Business School as part of a substantial career shift. Bringing to her new role, as Head of Entrepreneurial Learning Programmes, a strong understanding of the needs of the scientists and researchers in the University environment. Outside of her career, Rebecca teaches yoga and has been deeply involved in the theatre world much of her life.
OUR SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS
Funding also provided by: The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust