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Orange Tree Theatre presents

Outside

Part of Inside / Outside

Audio described for VocalEyes on

Friday 16 April 2021

By Ruth James and Miranda Yates

Part of Inside / OutsideFeaturing 3 new plays:

Two Billion BeatsWritten by Sonali BhattacharyyaCastAsha Zainab Hasan

Bettina Ashna Rabheru

ProdigalWritten by Kalungi Ssebandeke CastKasujja Fiston Barek

Rita Robinah Kironde

The KissWritten by Zoe CooperCastLou Temi Wilkey

The Inside/Outside series of plays was curated by Guy Jones, Orange Tree Literary Associate 

Director Georgia GreenDesigner Camilla ClarkeLighting Designer Rajiv PattaniSound Designer & Composer Max PappenheimMovement Director Christina Fulcher Dialect Coach Stevie RickardCasting Sarah Murray  

Company Stage Manager Jenny Skivens  Stage Manager Caoimhe Regan 

Production Manager Stuart Burgess 

Deputy Production Manager Lisa HoodCostume Supervisor Hayley McCluskeyProduction Electrician Chris McDonnellProduction Sound Ollie Dudman 

Filmed by The Umbrella Rooms 

Theatre environment for the OT’s re-opening

performances

designed by Simon Daw and Mark DoubledayAudio Description VocalEyesCaptioning StageText With thanks to Sofia Stephanou 

With thanks to the Hayburn Trust.

With thanks to DCMS and Arts Council England for

support through the Culture Recovery Fund.

An Introduction

As I write, the Orange Tree has been closed for a year.

It’s time to switch the lights back on. Inside/Outside will

be the first time we have told stories here since March

2020.

It feels important that we reopen with new plays – by

writers who have been an important part of the Orange

Tree’s story over the last few years, and to new writers

who we are excited to introduce to audiences. I’ve been

thinking back to how these playwrights came into our

lives. Together, they tell a story about how the Orange

Tree has made its name as a home for new plays.

Deborah Bruce’s The Distance was the first new play in

Paul Miller’s inaugural season at the Orange Tree in

2014. I remember Paul sending it to me with that sense

of glee – finding an excellent new play can be like

finding treasure. I read it in a Costa Coffee in Finchley,

and marveled at how Deborah used the play to ask

difficult questions about motherhood, with such humour.

I replied to Paul immediately – we had to see if we could

do it. We did, and it was an immediate success.

We met Zoe Cooper in the Attenborough Room at the

theatre, where so many of our ideas start out, drinking

tea from ugly cups. The team had fallen in love with

Jess and Joe Forever in one of our script meetings,

and we couldn’t wait to talk about it. Her plays tell stories

of queer people with warmth and inclusivity, with actors

turning out to the audience and welcoming them into

their worlds. In both Jess and Joe Forever and Out of Water she is concerned by the world we are passing on

to the next generation. The impact of the virus on young

people is immeasurable, and so I’m glad that in The

Kiss, and in Sonali Bhattacharyya’s Two Billion Beats,

we create the space to think about the world we want

them to grow up in, and the role grown-ups might play in

shaping that.

Both Sonali and Joe White are graduates of the OT’s

Writers Collective programme. The Collective has been

a key part of the theatre’s offer to the playwriting

community: we meet in the rehearsal room amidst

unwashed-up mugs from the day’s rehearsal and spark

collaborations and conversations as we explore new

ideas for the theatre.

Sonali went on to be the OT’s Writer on Attachment

through the Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme in 2018, and

it was a treat to work with her during that year. As the

world becomes a harder place to live, Sonali’s work

combines political energy with optimism for the human

spirit, and that is just what we need now.

After his time on the Collective, we produced Joe

White’s play Mayfly, and the production remains a

favourite amongst our audiences. The characters in

Joe’s plays aren’t used to being given the microphone –

lost souls in search of connection, often erased from the

national story because of accidents of class or

geography.

Kalungi Ssebandeke and Joel Tan are writers new to the

OT. Kalungi came into our lives when he was cast in our

production of Blood Knot in 2019. It was clear to

everyone that here was a fantastic actor, and one day

between a matinee and an evening show we sat down

for a chat and he pushed a fascinating play about the

boxer Bill Richmond across the table (or at least into my

inbox).

I first heard about Joel when his epic and shapeshifting

play Love in the Time of the Ancients was nominated

for an award run by the tireless champions of new work

Papatango Theatre Company. Joel had been putting

down roots in the London playwriting scene having

arrived here from Singapore. He came in for a meeting

at the Orange Tree shortly before the world shut down,

and optimistic conversations about what we might be

able to do evaporated. So it feels right that with Kalungi

and Joel we can pick up where we left off, championing

the work of new talent.

***

The threshold between the inside and the outside has

felt particularly impermeable over this last year, as we

have been asked to stay in our homes. We have also

been particularly attuned to the way the shifting weather

outside our windows has affected our ability to ride this

storm: “Now the sun is here, I am all-powerful”, said one

of the directors to me during a script meeting a few

weeks ago, with her face bathed in sunlight.

As we Zoomed one another during the winter lockdown

at the end of 2020, ‘in’ and ‘out’ felt like an appropriate

axis by which to examine the world we inhabit now,

anticipating a time when our freedoms might return.

The Inside/Outside plays also remind us that we can’t

take those freedoms for granted, and that the victims of

this year are many.

Homelessness is on the rise,

loneliness is deadly,

the monster of racism lurks in everyday interactions, and

is far from being weeded out,

the pandemic has put families and relationships under

enormous strain

and many of the inequalities we live with are written into

the systems in which we are asked to participate.

But the plays also offer hope. Two strangers learn that

they can help one another move forwards in Joe White’s

Ursa Major, and in Zoe Cooper’s The Kiss Lou is

changed by the time she has lived through, but still

committed to how she might pave the way for a new

generation. Like Meg in Joel Tan’s play, we are looking

forward to when the daffodils come, and we can once

again tell one another stories, breathe the same air,

embrace.

Guy Jones, OT Literary AssociateMarch 2021

About The Writers

Sonali BhattacharyyaTwo Billion Beats

Sonali Bhattacharyya was 2018 Channel 4 writer in

residence at the Orange Tree, where she wrote Chasing

Hares, winner of the Sonia Friedman Production Award.

Her credits include Megaball (National Theatre Learning

for ‘Let’s Play’), Slummers (Bunker

Theatre), 2066 (Almeida Theatre), The Invisible

Boy (Kiln Theatre) and White Open Spaces (Pentabus

Theatre - South Bank Show award-nominated). She was

one of three playwrights selected for the inaugural Old

Vic 12, and is currently under commission to Fifth Word

and Kiln Theatre, writer in residence at National Theatre

Studio and recently shortlisted for the Woman’s

Playwriting Award for her play Deepa the Saint.

Zoe CooperThe KissZoe Cooper’s Out of Water had its world première at the

Orange Tree in 2019 and was a finalist in the 2020

Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She was also shortlisted

for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising

Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards 2019, and

nominated for the Best New Production of a Play Award

in the Broadwayworld UK Awards. Her playwrighting

credits include Jess and Joe Forever (Orange Tree

Theatre/Traverse Theatre/UK tour – Off West End

Award for Most Promising Playwright Award 2017,

longlisted for the Evening Standard Most Promising

Playwright Award) and Nativities and Utopia (Live

Theatre).

Kalungi SsebandekeProdigalKalungi Ssebandeke was selected for the BBC

Writersroom London Voices, and Soho Theatre’s Writers

Lab. He was also selected for the Lyric Hammersmith

Ten Week Writers Programme and has written for the

Young Vic, Bush Theatre and Talawa, his credits

include Assata Taught Me (Gate Theatre). As an actor,

his credits include Blood Knot (Orange Tree Theatre).

About The Cast

Fiston BarekKasujja in Prodigal

Fiston Barek trained at ALRA.

Orange Tree: Amsterdam (co-production with ATC), The

Rolling Stone (also Royal Exchange Theatre)

Other theatre includes: King Lear (The Old Vic); Routes

and Truth and Reconciliation (Royal Court); Little Baby

Jesus (Oval House); and Love the Sinner (National

Theatre).

TV includes Silent Witness, Holby City, and Doctors.

Film includes TAU, After Love, and Don’t Look Back.

Zainab HasanAsha in Two Billion BeatsZainab trained at the National Youth Theatre.

 Theatre includes Living Newspaper (Royal Court); The

Welkin (National Theatre); [BLANK] (Donmar

Warehouse); Timon of Athens, Tartuffe, Tamburlaine

(RSC); Hijabi Monologues (Bush Theatre); The

Tempest, Henry IV (also St Ann’s Warehouse, New

York), Shakespeare Trilogy (Donmar Warehouse); Boy

(Almeida); Catalina (Untold Theatre/ Ovalhouse); Tory

Boyz, Romeo and Juliet, The Prince of Denmark

(National Youth Theatre/Ambassadors); Chimera

(Wildworks); On the Dole (Lyric Theatre); Othello

(Brockley Jack Theatre); Romeo and Juliet, D, The

Boyfriend (Ovalhouse); and Totally Over You (Kiln).

Robinah KirondeRita in ProdigalRobinah trained at Drama Centre and the National

Youth Theatre.

Theatre includes Julius Caesar (Sheffield Crucible); and

Attempts on Her Life (In Tandem Theatre Company).

TV includes Anthony, Carnival Row, and The Widow. 

Film includes Invisible.

Ashna RabheruBettina in Two Billion BeatsAshna trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and

Drama.

Theatre includes Living Newspaper (Royal Court); Santi

& Naz (The Vaults/The Thelmas); [BLANK] (Donmar

Warehouse); Top Girls (National Theatre); Trojan Horse

(LUNG/Leeds Playhouse).

TV includes All the Small Things, Pickle Jar, Sex

Education, Year of the Rabbit, Bounty, Indian Summers,

and Is This Thing On?

Radio includes Electric Decade: The Good Soldier,

Bottled, Deacon: Moonlight on Water, Splott, Dangerous

Visions: Perimeter, and Where This Service Will

Continue.

Temi WilkeyLou in The Kiss

Temi trained at the National Youth Theatre.

Theatre includes Land Without Dreams (Gate

Theatre/FixFoxy); Jubilee (Royal Exchange

Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith); Act & Terminal 3 (The

Print Room); Cymbeline, Hamlet (RSC); The Comedy of

Errors (National Theatre); How to Hold Your Breath

(Royal Court); The World’s Wide (National Youth

Theatre). 

TV includes Years and Years and Manhunt.

About The Creative Team

Georgia GreenDirectorGeorgia Green directs. Her previous credits include The

Mikvah Project (Orange Tree Theatre/BBC Radio 4) for

which she was nominated for Best Director at The Stage

Debut Awards. Also: Blue Stockings and You Got

Older (LAMDA).

Camilla ClarkeDesignerCamilla was the winner of the Linbury Prize for Stage

Design in 2015. Other Awards include the Lord Williams

Prize for Design and The Prince of Wales Design

Scholarship.

Designs include: La bohème (ENO: Drive & Live), The

Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (Co-Designed with

Chloe Lamford for The New Zealand Festival Theatre);

There Are No Beginnings (Leeds Playhouse); A

Midsummer Night’s Dream (National Youth Theatre);

Europe, You Got Older (LAMDA); Inside Bitch, Bad

Roads, B and Human Animals (Royal Court); A Small

Place (Gate Theatre); Beginners (Unicorn Theatre);

Elephant (Birmingham Rep); Out of Water (Orange Tree

Theatre); The Tide Whisperer (National Theatre Wales);

Highway One (August 012 & Wales Millennium Centre);

Frogman (Curious Directive, Traverse Theatre); Paul

Bunyan, The Day After, Trial by Jury (English National

Opera). Other designs include: No Place for a Woman

(Theatre 503); Yuri (Chapter, Cardiff)

Upcoming: La traviata (Nevill Holt Opera); Mr Burns and

Gone Too Far (Guildhall); Yolk and Aliens (Co-Created

with Jane Horrocks, Molly Vivian and Francesca Levi

(for Brighton Festival).

Camilla trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and

Drama, graduating with a first class BA Hons degree in

Theatre Design.

Rajiv PattaniLighting Designer Rajiv graduated from LAMDA in 2014 with qualifications

in Stage Management and Technical Theatre. Recent

design work includes Santi & Nas, Omelette, Heroine,

Tiger Mum (Vaults Festival 2020); Hunger (Arcola

Studio 2); Dirty Crusty (Yard Theatre); Dismantle This

Room (Jerwood Downstairs - Royal Court Theatre);

Wolfie (Theatre503); '10' (Vaults Festival 2019); Babylon

Beyond Borders (Bush Theatre); Bullet Hole (Park

Theatre Park90); Leave Taking (Bush Theatre); Roman

Candle (Theatre503, Manchester 53Two, Ivy Studio

Greenside - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018); Dismantle

This Room Project 2036 (Bush Studio).

More information can be found on Rajiv’s website

www.rajivpattani.co.uk

Max PappenheimComposer & Sound Designer Theatre includes The Night of the Iguana (West

End); Assembly, The Way of the World (Donmar); The

Children (Royal Court/Broadway); Macbeth (Chichester

Festival  

Theatre); Dry Powder, Sex with

Strangers, Labyrinth (Hampstead); Ophelias Zimmer

(Schaubühne, Berlin/Royal Court); Crooked

Dances (Royal Shakespeare Company); One

Night in Miami (Nottingham Playhouse); Hogarth’s

Progress (Rose Theatre Kingston); Waiting for

Godot (Sheffield Crucible); The Ridiculous

Darkness (Gate Theatre); Amsterdam, Humble Boy,

Blue/Heart, The Distance (Orange Tree Theatre); The

Gaul (Hull Truck); Cookies (Theatre Royal

Haymarket); Jane Wenham (Out of Joint); 

My Eyes Went Dark (Traverse/59E59); A Kettle of

Fish (Yard Theatre); CommonWealth (Almeida); Creve

Coeur (Print Room); Cuzco, Wink (Theatre503); Secret

Life of Humans, Switzerland, Spamalot, The Glass

Menagerie (English Theatre of Frankfurt); The Cardinal,

Kiki's Delivery Service (Southwark Playhouse); Mrs

Lowry and Son (Trafalgar Studios); Martine, Black

Jesus, Somersaults (Finborough); My Cousin Rachel,

The Habit of Art, Monogamy, Teddy, Toast, Fabric,

Invincible (National Tours).

Online includes Barnes’ People, The Haunting of Alice

Bowles (Original Theatre); 15 Heroines (Digital

Theatre). 

Opera includes Miranda (Opéra Comique,

Paris); Scraww (Trebah

Gardens); Vixen (Vaults/International Tour); Carmen:

Remastered (ROH/Barbican).

Radio includes Home Front (BBC Radio 4). Associate

Artist of The Faction and Silent Opera.

Christina FulcherMovement DirectorChristina Fulcher holds a BA in Communication and

Dance from the University of California Santa Barbara

and then obtained teaching credentials at San Diego

State University, and MFA Movement Directing and

Teaching at Royal Central School of Speech and

Drama. She currently teaches dance and actor

movement at Leeds Conservatoire, LAMDA, Mountview,

University for the Creative Arts, and The BRIT School.

She is an inclusive movement director, choreographer,

and intimacy director/coordinator who makes work

across theatre, opera, dance, musical theatre and new

writing. She works as a freelance movement teaching

artist with Disney Theatrical Group and International

Schools Theatre Association. Credits as Movement

Director include: Blue Stockings (LAMDA); When We

Died (Theatrical Film/VAULT Festival), Stages, Don’t

Talk to Strangers (VAULT Festival); Into the Woods,

Company, Charlie Peace (RCCSD); Cunning Little Vixen

(Royal Academy Opera); The Rape of Lucretia (Trinity

Laban Conservatoire). Assistant Movement

Director/Choreographer credits: Bonnie & Clyde (UWL:

London College of Music); Olivier Award Winning Emilia

(West End); Our House is Your Home (Royal Opera

House: Open Up Festival); Beyond The Deepening

Shadow (Tower of London); Wasted (Southwark

Playhouse). She is the Co-Founder of Inclusion

Collective. https://linktr.ee/fulchermovement |

@FulcherMovement

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