Ramesh Meyyappan, Singaporean based in Scotland, is a theatre maker who develops performances using an eclectic mix of visual and physical theatre styles as he continually seeks to develop and extend his theatrical visual vocabulary.  He enjoys the challenge of creating strong narrative visual work.   

Ramesh is something of a pioneer, he has continually explored visual styles that allow him to make work entirely accessible while raising awareness of deaf performers and directors, since he moved to Scotland in 2006, he played an important role in raising awareness of deaf to the Scottish theatre community. He was involved in the programme design team for the BA Performance in BSL (British Sign Language) and English at the Royal Conservatoire Scotland where he continues to teach the Visual Theatre module.   

Over the years, his solo performances and collaborations have toured nationally and internationally to much critical acclaim. He has been commissioned to devise, write and direct plays for other companies internationally, recently this has included: Peter Pan (Sweden), Lady M (Canada), 1971 (Bangladesh), Livsfrisen (Norway) and Christmas Carol (Scotland).  His work has been nominated five times for Best Actor at the Life! Theatre Awards (Singapore) and awarded the accolade twice. In Scotland he was nominated for a CATS (Critic Award Theatre Scotland) – Best Male Performance for Off Kilter & Love Beyond. First time he was nominated for CATS – Best New Play for Love Beyond (Best Scottish Production Award Winner). He is co-creator and performer for one man show Last Rites with Ad Infinitum Theatre.    

Ramesh is a board member of Vanishing Point theatre company and Associate Artist of Raw Material. 

Nicole Cooper’s theatre credits include: A View From the Bridge (Tron Theatre, Glasgow); Hedda Gabler (Bard in the Botanics); Macbeth (An Undoing) (Rose Theatre, Kingston; Theatre for a New Audience, New York; Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); Lear’s Fool (Bard in the Botanics); Macbeth (An Undoing) (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh); The Spark (A Play, A Pie & A Pint); Medea (Bard in the Botanics); The Tempest (Tron Theatre); The Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, As You Like It (all Bard in the Botanics); Sleeping Beauty (The Byre Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra (both Bard in the Botanics); How to Fix a Broken Wing (Catherine Wheels Theatre Company); Pleading (A Play, A Pie & A Pint); Scribble (Scribble Play); Timon of Athens, Measure for Measure, Coriolanus, Macbeth (all Bard in the Botanics); Sleeping Beauty (PACE); Love’s Labours Lost, The Merchant of Venice (both Bard in the Botanics); Horizontal Collaboration (Fire Exit); The Comedy of Errors, Julius Caesar, Othello, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, King Lear, Twelfth Night, Richard III (all Bard in the Botanics).

Film and television credits include: Getting Close (National Theatre of Scotland); Where Did He Go? (Traverse Theatre); The Nest (Studio Lambert); The Novels That Shaped Us (IWC Media); Jonathan Creek (BBC); Fried (Bwark Productions)

Amy Kennedy graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (in 2018 and received the Julia Stewart Award and the Citizens Theatre Society Award.) 

Theatre credits include: When Prophecy Falls (Groupwork) The Girls of Slender Means (Lyceum Theatre), Cinderella (Platform), Love Beyond (Raw Materials/Manipulate Festival) The Hope River Girls (Groupwork), Don Juan (Perth), The Honey Man (Exeter Northcott), Importance of being Earnest (Perth), Mother Goose fae Easterhoose (Platform), The Afflicted (Groupwork), All My Sons (Dundee Rep), NoMa (Tron Theatre/Outside Eyes), Green Zone (Overcoat Theatre Company), Trainspotting (Citizens Theatre). 

Screen: River City (BBC Scotland), Borgen (Netflix Dubbing), Another Time, Another Place (BBC Radio Scotland/Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), The Flu That Killed 50 Million (BBC), You, Me, Chippy and a Boat (RCS Short Film). 

Draya Maria’s theatre credits include Unsupervised Adulting (Performance Collective Stranraer), Yes Chef (Traverse Theatre), The Brunch Club (Grid Iron Theatre), Wildlife FM (National Theatre of Scotland). Screen credits include The Undertow (Complete Fiction/wiip for Netflix), Payback (HTM Television for ITV/Britbox), Twenty Twenty (NFTS Scotland Sean Connery Talent Lab/BBC), Art Class (Saulty Female Films), Fender Bender (Kino Eyes) and Haggis (Velvet Wolf Films). Draya trained at Ayrshire College and has an HND in Acting and Performance.

Orla O’Loughlin

Orla was listed in the Observer as one of the top fifty Cultural Leaders in the UK and in The List Hot 100 of Women in the Arts.

She was Artistic Director of the Traverse Theatre where directing credits included the award winning productions: Mouthpiece (Traverse Theatre/Soho Theatre/ Melbourne and Auckland International Arts Festivals); What Girls are Made Of (Raw Material / Traverse Theatre, Assembly, Tramway, Tron, Soho, Adelaide, Sao Paulo and Spoleto International Theatre Festivals); Swallow (Traverse); Ciara (Traverse, Tron); Spoiling (Traverse, Theatre Royal Stratford East); Meet Me at Dawn (Edinburgh International Festival) and Locker Room Talk (Abbey Theatre, Latitude Festival, BBC Radio, 4, Scottish Parliament, Traverse). 

Other directing includes: V.L (F.M.P at The Roundabout), James V: Katherine, (Raw Material and Capital Theatres Edinburgh); Enough of Him (National Theatre of Scotland); How Much is your Iron? (Young Vic); The Hound of the Baskervilles (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ UK Tour/West End); Kebab (Dublin International Theatre Festival/ Royal Court); For Once (Hampstead Theatre/ UK Tour); The Fire Raisers (BAC); Black Comedy, Blithe Spirit, Relatively Speaking (Watermill Theatre); Small Talk: Big Picture (BBC World Service/Royal Court/ICA); Women Talking (Edinburgh International Book festival, Toronto Festival of Authors); A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity and Clean (Oran Mor and 59E59, New York).

Her work has won a variety of awards including The James Menzies Kitchin Directors Award, U.K Theatre Award, Herald Angels, Fringe Firsts, Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland, Lustrum, The Stage Awards, Popcorn, Scottish Arts Club and Writers Guild of Great Britain Awards. Her recent production of The Time Machine: A Comedy at the Park Theatre, was nominated for an Olivier.

Orla is a former Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre, Associate Director of the Royal Court Theatre and Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse where she was awarded the Carlton Bursary.

Orla is currently Vice Principal and Director of Drama at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she was conferred the title Professor in 2020 in recognition of her ‘outstanding contribution to the advancement of her discipline’.

Anna Orton is a designer working across Theatre, Dance, Opera and Exhibition. Her previous work exhibiting, performing and curating as a visual artist in some of Scotland’s most pioneering spaces continues to influence her work in performance design.

Her design work includes the multi-award-winning production of Handel’s Messiah directed by Tom Morris, which premiered at Bristol Old Vic and was followed by a national cinema and online streaming release.

Recent credits includes: Oedipus Rex, The Tsar Has His Photo Taken and La Bohème (Scottish Opera), GUNTER (Dirty Hare/ Royal Court), VL (Francesca Moody Productions/ Roundabout), Escaped Alone (Tron Theatre/ Traverse), Blond Eckbert and Acis & Galatea (Hans Otto Theatre, Germany), Adults (Traverse Theatre), Kidnapped (National Theatre of Scotland), This Is Memorial Device (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Fringe First Award/ UK Tour), Robin Hood Legend of the Forgotten Forest and King Lear (Bristol Old Vic), Peter Pan and Wendy and A Christmas Carol (Pitlochry- Shortlisted for Best Emerging Designer, World Stage Design Awards 2021), Welcome Home (Soho Theatre) and The Effect (English Theatre Frankfurt).  

She has designed for many prestigious companies including Live Theatre Newcastle, English Touring Opera, Buxton Opera Festival, Theatre Ad Infinitum, Bath Theatre Royal, Stellar Quines, The New Theatre Dublin and The Watermill Theatre amongst others.

She was recipient of the OLD VIC 12 Designer Affiliation in 2019, an MGC Futures recipient in 2021 and was the first JMK runner up in 2023. Anna’s designs have also been nominated for the Offies and CATS awards. She has MA in Theatre Design from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and an MA in Fine art from Duncan of Jordanstone Collage of Art and Design.

David Paul Jones is an Edinburgh-based composer, songwriter, pianist and vocalist. His recent soundtracks and performances include Ramesh Meyyappan’s Love Beyond (2023), which won Best Music & Sound at the Critics Awards For Theatre In Scotland; Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (2024) with Ben Harrison; and his song-cycle from the poetry of Kathleen Jamie, Lone Tree (2024), which premiered at the Edinburgh International Book Festival ‘24. Previous productions with Ramesh Meyyappan also include Butterfly (2014) and The Coat (2021). For further information visit: www.davidpauljones.com

Derek Anderson’s Lighting Design credits include: Doubt, Snake In The Grass (Dundee Rep); Mrs President (Charing Cross Theatre); Snow White (MacRobert Arts Centre); James V (National Tour); Animal, Rags, My Dad's Gap Year, Hatched and Dispatched (Park Theatre); To Kill A Mockingbird (Lyric Hammersmith); Macbeth (Garrick Theatre); BK Shivani (Wembley Arena); Sweeney Todd (Deutches Theatre Munich); Hound of the Baskervilles, Our Man in Havana, Our Friends The Enemy, If We Got Some More Cocaine, Ticker (UK Tour); The Secret Life of Humans, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Handbagged and Spamalot (English Theatre Frankfurt); What I Go To School For (Theatre Royal Brighton); Rumplestiltskin (Theatre Royal Bath then MAC Belfast); Sunset Boulevard (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre); Pure Imagination, Marry Me A Little, Andrew Lippa in Concert, Scenes From a Marriage (The Other Palace); Man Up, Ignition (Frantic Assembly); Henry V (Cambridge Arts Theatre); The Wedding Singer, How To Succeed in Business (Lowry Theatre); Dessert, Promises Promises, Allegro, The Grand Hotel, Uppercut, Followers (Southwark Playhouse) and the Whatsonstage Awards (Prince Of Wales Theatre).  

Associate and Assistant Lighting Design credits include: Shakespeare In Love, Henry V (Noel Coward Theatre); Le Corsaire (English National Ballet); Skylight (Wyndhams Theatre then Golden Theatre, NY and Winner for Best Lighting Design at the 2015 Tony Awards) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Winner for Best Lighting Design at the 2014 Olivier Awards). Derek is also an Associate of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.

Lu Kemp is a theatre director and dramaturg with a distinctive reputation for her work in new writing. Between 2017 – 2023 she was Artistic Director of Perth Theatre, Scotland. She has directed for the Citizens, The Royal Lyceum Theatre, The National Theatre of Scotland, Artangel, The Tricycle, the Almeida and The Royal Shakespeare Company. From 2002 – 2005 she worked in-house at the BBC as a Radio Drama Producer.

Lu began her career as the Scottish Arts Council Trainee Theatre Director at TAG (touring arm of the Citizens Theatre). She later trained on the LEM at Lecoq, Paris, and with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, New York. 

Alasdair Hunter is a Scottish theatre director working internationally. He has directed over 20 of Shakespeare’s 38 plays.

He trained at the University of Glasgow, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Shakespeare’s Globe. His credits include work with Prague Shakespeare Company, Bard in the Botanics, Stone Soup Shakespeare, the Flea, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Shakespeare’s Globe. This summer he will direct King Lear for Prague Shakespeare Company.

Alasdair is the founder of Shakespeare.scot, curating international collaborations rooted in Shakespeare. He was formerly a director for the National Theatre’s Connections programme, is a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association, and teaches acting and directing at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.