Hannah (she/her) is an actor, writer, dramaturg and script reader.
She was previously an Editorial Assistant at the National Theatre and was attached to Camden People’s Theatre on their New Programmer’s scheme 2022–2024. She has also worked with the BFI, NEWFEST (NY), Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh International Film Festival and Theatre Royal Stratford East amongst others. She’s interested in artist development and how stories and performance can help us to imagine otherwise.
Shahid Iqbal Khan is an Offies-finalist and Olivier Award-nominated playwright published by Methuen Drama. His full-length stage plays are Stardust (Belgrade Theatre) and 10 Nights (premiered at Bush Theatre). On radio, he made his Afternoon Drama debut with Love Across The Ages (BBC Radio 4). Other works in his audio portfolio include shorts Bhavika, Night of the Living Flatpacks (both on community channels) and Brandlesholme (Sheltering) (BBC Radio 4).
His play Djinnity was shortlisted for the George Devine Award in 2023.
He is on the Genesis New Writers programme (Almeida Theatre commission) and is also a recipient of the Peter Shaffer commission (Octagon Theatre).
Born and based in the northern town of Bury, Shahid Iqbal Khan’s foray into creative writing began with a short play for Carol Godby’s Festival of Plays (Met Theatre, Bury). He joined the Manchester Muslim Writers’ group not long after. This collective gave him the confidence to write poetry and to share it with a wider audience at poetry recital events.
Somebody Jones is an award-winning Los Angeles native playwright/dramaturg, currently living, working, and dreaming in London. Jones’s work celebrates and champions Black culture in all of its charms and complexities. The playwright primarily works within the genres of horror, magical realism, verbatim, and recently, Black fantasy.
The name Somebody Jones means the more you run from your past, the more you’ll run into it.
Jodie has worked in the arts for over ten years with a background in fundraising before moving to producing and operations. She has worked across a variety of artforms for organisations such as Chinese Arts Now, London Theatre Company (Bridge Theatre), the Royal Opera House. Shubbak and Southbank Centre as well as a brief stint in TV for Wild Mercury Productions (Humans, Troy: Fall of a City).
At Chinese Arts Now, notable productions included Bats and Beats (SoundState Festival, Shanghai International Ping Pong Festival), Citizens of Nowhere? (Southbank Centre, Duddell’s, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019), Coalesce (Kings Place, Rich Mix) and Every dollar is a soldier/With money you’re a dragon which was selected for the 2021 Horizon Showcase and won the Arts Council Digital Culture Award for Digital Storytelling.
Ellie graduated with a distinction from the MA in Creative Producing at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2018. Previously she was the Producer at NSDF (National Student Drama Festival), winning a 2021 Digital Culture Award in the category of ‘Digital Trailblazers’ for their work during the Pandemic. She has also worked for companies including Laura Elmes Productions and DEM Productions. As a freelance theatre producer she has worked at Park Theatre, VAULT Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Manwah (he/him) joined Paines Plough as the Marketing and Audience Development Manager in 2022. He has previously held roles in administration and marketing at Cheek by Jowl and Gecko.
Charlotte Bennett (she/her) joined Paines Plough as Joint Artistic Director alongside Katie Posner in August 2019. For Paines Plough Charlotte has directed Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg (winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting) which premiered at Kiln Theatre in May 2021 before embarking upon a UK tour of seventeen venues and returning to the Kiln in November 2022, and Run Sister Run by Chloë Moss (Sheffield Theatres/Soho Theatre).
Previously she was Associate Director at Soho Theatre where she led the new writing department, developing artists and commissions and programming. For Soho Theatre she directed Whitewash by Gabriel Bisset-Smith, Happy Hour by Jack Rooke, curated a six-month off-site arts festival in Waltham Forest and led playwriting competition the Verity Bargate Award. Prior to this she was Artistic Director of Forward Theatre Project; an artists’ collective she founded. For Forward Theatre Project she made and directed new plays which toured nationally inspired by working in partnership with different communities around the UK and at venues including the National Theatre, York Theatre Royal, Northern Stage, Derby Theatre, Live Theatre and The Lowry. As a freelance director she has worked extensively for Open Clasp Theatre Company creating new plays inspired by women in the North-East and she held the role of Producer for theatre company RashDash for 4 years where she toured experimental new theatre around the UK.
Katie Posner joined Paines Plough as Joint Artistic Director with Charlotte Bennett in August 2019. For Paines Plough, Katie has most recently directed Fringe First award winning play Strategic Love Play by Miriam Battye; You Bury Me by Ahlam (winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting) which premiered at Bristol Old Vic, Edinburgh Lyceum and the Orange Tree; Hungry (Soho Theatre/Roundabout Edinburgh); Really Big and Really Loud and Black Love (Co-Director for Roundabout); and You Bury Me staged reading for the Edinburgh International Festival (Paines Plough/Ellie Keel Productions/45 North).
Katie is an experienced and award-winning director. She has worked across a wide variety of productions both overseas and on national tours, including multiple productions with York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre with whom she was Associate Director from 2009 until 2017. Her work encompasses both intimate pieces of new writing and larger-scale community pieces. In 2019, Katie received a UK Theatre Award nomination as Best Director with her production of My Mother Said I Never Should at Theatre by the Lake.
Her productions include: Richard, My Richard (Shakespeare North Playhouse/Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); My Mother Said I Never Should (Theatre by the Lake); Mold Riots (Theatr Clwyd); The Seven Ages Of Patience (Kiln Theatre); Swallows & Amazons (Storyhouse), Babe (Mercury Theatre); Playing Up (NYT); Finding Nana (New Perspectives); Made In India (Tamasha/Belgrade/Pilot); Everything Is Possible: The York Suffragettes, End Of Desire (York Theatre Royal); The Season Ticket (Northern Stage); A View From Islington North (Out Of Joint); In Fog And Falling Snow (National Railway Museum); Running On The Cracks (Tron Theatre); York Mystery Plays (Museum Gardens York); Blackbird, Ghost Town, Clocking In, A Restless Place (Pilot Theatre)