pursued by a bear productions
PBAB writers
From Left to right, Oladipo Agboluaje, Rukhsana Ahmad, Fraser Grace, Said Sayrafrezadeh and Samantha Ellis
Oladipo Agboluaje (For One Night Only) is PBAB's Associate Playwright and one of Britain’s foremost young writers. He is currently under commission to The National Theatre. His first play Early Morning premiered in 2003 at Oval House to rave reviews - ‘An exciting, vital new voice’ Time Out. Oladipo then went on to adapt Mother Courage for Nottingham Playhouse which toured nationally as part of the Eclipse programme and in 2005 was invited to become Writer in Residence at The Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich for whom he wrote British-ish. Other plays include The Estate for Tiata Fahodzi, Captain Britain (New Wolsey and Talawa), God is a DJ and Knock Against My Heart (Theatre Centre) , The Hounding of David Oluwale (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Eclipse Theatre) and a BBC radio adaptation of The Trials of Brother Jero. In 2008 Oladipo was the Pearson Writer in Residence at Soho Theatre for whom he wrote The Christ of Coldharbour Lane and where his most recent play for Tiata Fahodzi - Iya - Ile (The First Wife) ran for six weeks, winning the Alfred Fagon Writer's Award and a nomination for the Olivier Awards in the Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre category. Current projects are Say Goodbye Twice (Radio 4) and The Garbage King (adapted from Elizabeth Laird's novel) for The Unicorn Theatre.
Rukhsana Ahmad (Letting Go) was the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Kali Theatre which she ran for eight years and for whom she wrote Song for a Sanctuary, (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith & National Tour), Black Shalwar (Oval House & National tour) and River on Fire (Lyric Theatre & National Tour). In 2001 River on Fire was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award “Ripe with tensions and once it is fired up, it crackles with them, a drama that stays with you.” Time Out. Rukhsana has been widely commissioned by companies as diverse as Tara Arts, Monstrous Regiment, Alarmist Theatre, LIFT, Worcester Arts, Birmingham Rep and Derby Playhouse as well as writing and adapting numerous plays for Radio 4 and The World Service. Her most recent play for the Vayu Naidu Company Mistaken...Annie Besant in India toured thoughout India and the UK.
Craig Baxter (The Ministry of Pleasure, The White Canary, Monogamy and The Animals) is a former zoologist with an MA in Playwriting. Other stage plays include: St James and the Tattoo Man, Taking Liberties, Cold Moon Rising and The Man Who Could Walk through Walls in addition to a trilogy of Community Plays for Barking and Dagenham. Radio 4: The Thrill of the Chaste. Television: Wanted, Who Cared For Billie-Jo. Craig was PBAB’s 2004 Writer-in Residence.
Thomas Crowe (Yorgin Oxo - The Man) Other plays include – Bilston Service Station by Night (Royal Court), The Laugh (London New Play Festival), The Corridor (Paines Plough Wild Lunch) and Photos of Religion (Theatre 503).
Samantha Ellis (The Day that Sticky Glue Fell from the Sky) Plays include Cling To Me Like Ivy (Birmingham Repertory Theatre and on tour to theatres including the Lowry, the Drum and North Wall), Patching Havoc (Theatre 503), A Sudden Visitation of Calamity (Menagerie Theatre at the Junction), Startle Response (Young Vic workshop), Sugar and Snow (Hampstead Theatre and BBC Radio 4), Martin's Wedding (with Blind Summit, at BAC), Use Me As Your Cardigan (Jackson's Lane) and Feel the Plastic (Camden People's Theatre). She wrote a play in a week for children for Pursued By A Bear in 2006. She was a founder member of playwrights' collective the Miniaturists for whom she has written Cat in a Sieve (Southwark Playhouse), Scattering (Arcola) and Unfinished (Liverpool Everyman). She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2008, and has worked as a journalist and editor for The Guardian, Observer, TLS, Prospect, Jewish Quarterly and the BBC. Her play The Thousand And Second Night will be performed at LAMDA in summer 2010, and she has just finished an attachment at the Hampstead Theatre.
Troy Andrew Fairclough (You Don't Kiss) This was Troy’s first play and won him the Newnham Writing Out Award. “Bristles with energy’ Time Out. He was one of only three writers selected to take part in BBC’ Radio’s ‘Sound Writing’.
Rosy Fordham (For The Best) Most recent play - Sleeping Beauty f2008 Xmas show for The Unicorn Theatre. Previous plays include Crush (Red Ladder) and Water Wings (Theatre Centre).
Fraser Grace (Kalashnikov:In the Woods by the Lake) Writing for Theatre includes: Perpetua (Birmingham REP/Soho Theatre, joint winner of the Verity Bargate Award); Gifts of War and Frobisher’s Gold (Menagerie Theatre Company, touring); Who Killed Mr Drum? (with Sylvester Stein, Treatment Theatre/Riverside Studios); Breakfast with Mugabe (Royal Shakespeare Company, joint winner of the John Whiting Award 2006); The Lifesavers (Theatre 503/Mercury Theatre Colchester, shortlisted for TMA Best Play 2009); King David: Man of Blood (Mercury Theatre, Colchester, 2010). Writing for Radio includes: Bubble (with Andrea Porter, R4); Breakfast with Mugabe, (Silver Sony Award, R3 and the World Service); Wrestling Angels - 3 stories for radio (R4).Fraser teaches playwriting at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and is the newly appointed co-ordinator of the MPhil Playwriting Studies course at the University of Birmingham. He is currently writing an opera with the composer Andrew Lovett. Called Don’t Breathe A Word, it was recently showcased at the Linbury Studio, Covent Garden, and continues to be developed with the Royal Opera House. His plays are published by Oberon books.
Hong Khaou (Pieces of Me) is a writer of Chinese/Vietnamese origin who has worked with Mulal and Soho Theatre Companies.
David Lane (The Secret of Old Bog Farm) works as a dramaturg and playwright, having trained at Exeter University, Goldsmiths College and Ecole Philippe Gaulier. He was Head Reader for the Gate Theatre and then the Literary Assistant at Soho Theatre and Writers’ Centre until 2004. As a dramaturg he has worked with the Exeter Northcott, Bristol Old Vic and Theatre West, and at Theatre Royal Bath where he facilitates the Ustinov Writers’ Forum. He also teaches playwriting and dramaturgy at Goldsmiths College, City University and Exeter where he is Visiting Dramaturg. He has had work for young people commissioned by Immediate Theatre (Bloodlines, 2007) and Half Moon Young People’s Theatre (Begin / End, touring 2010) and adapted The Odyssey for three youth theatre co-productions at Salisbury Playhouse, Cheltenham Everyman and Sixth Sense in Swindon in 2009. His play Threads was produced at Theatre 503 in January 2009, and The Eighth Day shortlisted for the Old Vic New Voices Award 2009. He starts two new commissions with Forest Forge this year, and is one of the Arts Council’s Artistic Assessors until 2012. He has an undergraduate textbook on Contemporary British Drama due for publication by Edinburgh University Press in September 2010.
Anna Reynolds (Loved) is one of our most prominent young writers. Credits include: Jordan (Winner of the Best New Play at The Writer’s Guild Awards), Wild Things (Salisbury Playhouse and Traverse Theatre), Skin Hunger (White Bear & BAC) awarded Time Out Critics Choice. Anna has been Writer in Residence at The Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Paines Plough and Clean Break Theatre Companies.
Said Sayrafrezadeh (All Fall Away) is a novelist and dramatist. When Skateboards Will Be Free, his critically acclaimed memoir about growing up socialist in the United States, was selected as one of the ten best books of 2009 by Dwight Garner of The New York Times. His short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, The New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications. He was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish American mother and an Iranian father, and he was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Saïd now lives in New York City with his wife.
Grant Watson (The Last Line of Defence) is PBAB's Associate Director for Film. Please see his full biog on the film page.