Michelle Asante plays Sister Evangelique. Her theatre credits include Our Lady of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate); Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike (Theatre Royal Bath); Things of Dry Hours, Dirty Butterfly (Young Vic); Welcome Home Captain Fox (Donmar Warehouse); Eclipsed, Sunset Baby (Gate Theatre); Wendy and Peter Pan (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Ruined (Almeida). Her television credits include Noughts & Crosses, Moving On, Lucky Man, Father Brown, Our Girl, Doctors, Casualty and Holby City.
Aretha Ayeh plays Immaculee. Her theatre credits include Leave To Remain (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith); The Hoes (Hampstead Downstairs); Miss Littlewood, The Fantastic Follies Of Mrs Rich and The Dutchess Of Malfi (Royal Shakespeare Company); Lady Chatterley’s Lover (UK tour); Love Me Tender (UK tour); Barnum (Chichester Festival Theatre); Rapunzel (Park Theatre); Dick Whittington and his Cat (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith) and Pendragon (Rose Theatre Kingston). Her film and television credits include The Stranger, The Strike, The 4’O’Clock Club, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Doctors, The Quiet Ones and Cucumber.
Michaela Blackburn plays Evas. Her theatre credits include Our Lady of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate); Morph (Tristan Bates) and Jackpot (Hackney Attic).
Pérola Congo plays Therese. Her theatre credits include The Color Purple (Curve Theatre); Tina - The Tina Turner Musical (Aldwych Theatre); The Addams Family (UK Tour/Mediacorp Singapore); Pinocchio (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Moby Dick (Union Theatre) and Oliver! (Grange Park Opera).
Pepter Lunkuse plays Marie-Claire Mukangango. Her theatre credits include Our Lady of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate); Much Ado About Nothing (Watford Palace); Holes (Nottingham Playhouse); Nell Gwynn (Globe/ETT); King Lear (Royal Exchange Theatre/Birmingham Rep/Talawa and broadcast on BBC); The Crucible (Royal Exchange Theatre); Twelfth Night (Iris Theatre at St Paul’s Church); The Vertical Hour (Park Theatre); Liberian Girl (Royal Court at London 2014 Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict) and Antony and Cleopatra (Chichester Festival Theatre). She featured in film Sink and her television credits include Emmerdale, Casualty, Father Brown and King Lear.
Michael Mears plays Father Flavia. His theatre credits include a UK tour and US premiere of his solo play This Evil Thing. Other credits include Harper Regan, All’s Well That Ends Well, Nation (National Theatre); Hamlet, Jubilee, The Comedy of Errors, Epicene, A Clockwork Orange (Royal Shakespeare Company); A Tale of Two Cities (Royal & Derngate); The Herbal Bed (Royal & Derngate/ETT); The Woman In Black (West End); You Never Can Tell, Measure for Measure and Henry IV parts 1 and 2 (Peter Hall Company, Bath and on tour). His film and television credits include Last Night In Soho, The Good Soldier Schwejk, Private Peaceful, Invisible Eyes, Sylvia, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Queen of Hearts, Little Dorrit, The English Game, Parade’s End, The Colour of Magic, Sharpe’s Rifles, The Lenny Henry Show – Delbert Wilkins, The Seventh Scroll and The Old Curiosity Shop.
Taz Munya plays Alphonsine. Taz is a British-Rwandan actress who has just graduated from Drama Centre London. She is very excited to be part of this company, which marks her professional debut.
Rima Nsubuga plays Vestine. Her theatre credits include Our Lady of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate) and Brit ain't Right by Maktub Theatre Company.
Ery Nzaramba plays Father Tuyishime. His theatre credits include Our Lady of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate); The Claim (Edinburgh/Summerhall ); Othellomacbeth (Lyric Hammersmith/Home Theatre/Edinburgh/Summerhall ); The Prisoner, Battlefield, The Suit (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord); The Bacchae, Blood Wedding (Royal & Derngate); The Legend of Hamba, The Epic Adventure of Nhamo (Tiata Fahodzi); The Snow Queen (Trestle Theatre); As You Like It (Curve Theatre) and Barabas (Hall for Cornwall). His film and television credits include The Gates of Vanity and The Bill.
Liyah Summers plays Anathalie. Her theatre credits include Maydays (Royal Shakespeare Company); Velveteen Rabbit and The Old Curiosity Shop (Everyman Theatre Cheltenham).
Ewart James Walters plays Nkango Mukamazimpaka. His theatre credits include Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Oronooko, Timon of Athens, Spanish Tragedy, Cymbeline (Royal Shakespeare Company); Nation, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Pied Piper, Measure for Measure (National Theatre); Trouble in Mind (The Print Rooms); The Crucible (Bristol Old Vic); The Hook (Northampton and Liverpool Everyman); A New World, As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); Cuban Revolution (Royal Court); Porgy and Bess (Savoy Theatre); Nathan The Wise (Hampstead Theatre); Master Harold and the Boys (Southwark Playhouse); Timon of Athens, Hamlet (Young Vic) and Moby Dick (Royal Exchange). Film and television credits include Killing Time, Born Free, AD72, Fox, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Gunpowder, Holby City, Top Boy, Afterlife, Class Act, Twelfth Night, Porgy and Bess, The Mixer, The Chief, The Cleopatras, The Bill, Visitors to Anderson and Rumpole of the Bailey.
Leo Wringer plays Bishop Gahamanyi. Leo returns to Theatre Royal Stratford East after playing Stool Pigeon in King Hedley II. Theatre credits include The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet (RSC); Our Lady of Kibeho, Soul (Royal & Derngate/Hackney Empire); As you like it, Anthony and Cleopatra (National Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Noël Coward Theatre); Father Comes Home From The Wars, Search and Destroy (Royal Court); Julius Caesar, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus and Othello (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory); Perseverance Drive (Bush Theatre); The Comedy of Errors (RSC Tour/Young Vic); Othello (Nottingham Playhouse); Twelfth Night, More Grimm Tales, As I Lay Dying and Blackta (Young Vic); Othello, Charlie Lavender (Southwark Playhouse); Two Horsemen (Bush Theatre, Time Out Award); Hamlet (Young Vic/Japan); The Winter’s Tale (Complicité, International & UK Tour); Divine Right (Birmingham Rep); The Odyssey (Gate Theatre); My Children! My Africa! (Salisbury Playhouse) and Medea (Abbey Theatre/Queens). His film credits include The Kitchen Toto, The Changeling, Night Hawks and television credits Urban Myths – The Trial of Joan Collins, Heirs of the Night, Black Earth Rising, The Moonstone, Gangsta Granny, Law and Order, Silent Witness, Mad Men and Specialists, Escape from Kampala, Canterbury Tales, Rough Crossings, Judge John Deed, Casualty and Rebus.
Mitchell Zhangazha plays Emmanuel. His theatre credits include The Three Birds (Gate Theatre); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (The London Palladium); The Lion King (The Lyceum); Caroline or Change (The National); Porgy and Bess (The Savoy); Oliver! (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Thriller Live (The Lyric); Peter Pan (Adelphi Theatre); Five Guys Named Moe (Festival Square Theatre) and Motown The Musical (Shaftesbury Theatre). Television credits include Red Cap and The Little Einsteins.
Katori Hall
Katori Hall is an Olivier Award-winning playwright from Memphis, Tennessee and the showrunner of P-VALLEY, a new Starz television series based on her play Pussy Valley. She also wrote the book for Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, the West End hit based on the life and catalogue of Tina Turner. Tina opens on Broadway in Fall 2019.
Katori’s play The Mountaintop, premiering at Theatre503 in 2009, transferred to the West End and won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010. Following its West End run, the play opened on Broadway in October 2011 to critical acclaim. Katori’s other work includes the award-winning Hurt Village which is currently in development as a feature film, Hoodoo Love, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, Our Lady of Kibeho, Purple is the Colour of Mourning and The Blood Quilt.
In addition to her Laurence Olivier Award, Katori’s other awards include a Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, National Black Theatre’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.
Katori has been published in publications such as The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The New York Times. She has also been a Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellow at the O’Neill, and is currently a resident playwright at The Signature Theatre in New York City. In 2012 and 2016, her play Children of Killers was performed as part of the National Theatre’s Connections Festival. Katori is a proud member of the Ron Brown tScholar Program and the Coca-Cola Scholar Program.
James Dacre
James is Artistic Director of Royal & Derngate, Northampton. He is a Board Director of Spirit of 2012, a Trustee for Talawa Theatre Company and a Franco-British Young Leader. He was previously Associate Director at the New Vic Theatre and Theatre503.
Theatre credits for Royal & Derngate include: Our Lady of Kibeho, Soul (with Hackney Empire); The Herbal Bed (with English Touring Theatre and Rose Theatre Kingston, UK Theatre Award for Best Touring Production); Brave New World (with Touring Consortium Theatre Company); The Hook (with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse); King John (with Shakespeare’s Globe and Salisbury International Festival); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre and Northern Stage) and The Body of an American (Evening Standard Award nomination). Other credits include: Verdi’s Macbeth (English Touring Opera/UK tour); Holy Warriors, As You Like It, Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Accrington Pals (Royal Exchange Theatre, UK Theatre Award); King James Bible (National Theatre); The Mountaintop (Trafalgar Studios 1/Theatre503, Olivier Award for Best New Play); Precious Little Talent (Trafalgar Studios, London Theatre Festival Award for Best Play, Evening Standard Award nomination); The Thrill of Love (New Vic/Stephen Joseph and transfer to St James Theatre); 4000 Miles (Bath Theatre Royal); Orpheus and Eurydice (Old Vic/National Youth Theatre); Nightshifts (Traverse); The Unconquered (UK tour and off-Broadway transfer); Judgement Day (The Print Room); Desire Under the Elms, Copenhagen and Bus Stop (New Vic). Work Off-Broadway includes Baal, The Error of Their Ways, Work and Come and Go.
James has directed and developed new work by Arthur Miller, David Eldridge, Dawn King, Mike Poulton, Ron Hutchinson, Rachel Portman, These New Puritans, Roy Williams, Katori Hall, Amanda Whittington, Dan O’Brien, White Lies, Dic Edwards, Suzan Lori Parks, Ed Kemp, Molly Davies, Torben Betts, Bekah Brunstetter and Ella Hickson amongst others. He has been awarded Fulbright and Schubert Fellowships in Theatre Directing and trained on the ITV/Channel 4 Regional Theatre Director’s Scheme.
