Actor/Writer

(Photo: © Guido Karp)

Bella has been acting, writing and actor training for nearly 30 years. With a passion for fact-based drama, she has performed in David Hare’s The Permanent Way (National Theatre/Out of Joint), Lightworks’ Sarajevo Story (Lyric Hammersmith), Susannah Cibber (AS Laughing Matter, National Theatre/ut of Joint), Mad Margaret (Richard III, Colorado Shakespeare Festival), murderess Florence Bravo (The Malvern Widow, Worcester Swan Theatre), Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester (Henry VI, Part 2, Shakespeare & Company, Massachusetts) as well as numerous fictional roles in TV, film, radio and theatre. Author of numerous publications (including The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit; Acting: The Basics 3rd Edition; Shakespeare & Company: When Action is Eloquence: and Facing The Fear: An Actor’s Guide to Overcoming Stagefright), she is also a singer-songwriter and a Distinguished Professor of Acting and Directing at the University of California, Riverside. She and Speer are co-PIs on BODY-WORD-VOICE www.bellamerlin.com

Director

(© Photo: Guido Karp)

Miles is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed actor, beloved face on television, film and theatre, as well as a familiar voice on radio and audiobooks. Recent Oscar-nominated films include Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand; and Damien Chazelle’s LaLa Land with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone; as well as numerous others. Television favourites include Aiden Dempsey inUltimate Force, Dan Fortune inSoldier Soldier, Roger O’Neill in the original House of Cards, as well as the popular American series Hunters with Al Pacino, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Days of Our Lives. Favourite theatre roles include 10 years at the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Macbeth, The Twin Rivals, The Witch of Edmonton, Volpone and Peter Pan; 4 years at the Old Globe, San Diego, with Adrian Noble, including Prospero (The Tempest) Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), Salieri (Amadeus) and Bottom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Not to mention, Lunatic and Lover with Andy Jordan, at the Old Red Lion, London. www.milesanderson.us

Dramaturg/Collaborator

Annika is a performance-maker, dramaturgical researcher and script consultant for theatre and film, most recently for The Girl on the Train (2016), Men, Women & Children (2014), Walking Stories (2013), and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013). She has directed plays as fundraisers for Women Help Women, Planned Parenthood, and Pacific Pride Foundation with the mission to generate collaborative, creative, and activist oriented theatre. She is also Professor of Teaching in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at UC Riverside where she runs the public speaking program. She is the Co-Director of the UC-Wide Public Speaking Initiative, that prioritizes interdisciplinary training in speech and rhetoric. She prioritizes communication pedagogy through close work with numerous campus programs, providing a large variety of public speaking workshops for the Graduate Student Resource Center, the Chancellor Research Fellows, the Science to Policy Certification Program, and the Social Entrepreneurship Engagement and Development (SEED) Lab, to name but a few. Speer is also supporting faculty of the Medical Health and Humanities Studies (MHHS) program. She and Merlin are co-PIs on BODY-WORD-VOICE.

Costume Designer

(Photo: Cindy Yamanaka)

Maggie is a costume designer for stage and screen whose work includes the Broadway musical Soul Doctor, the feature film Car Dogs, and the award-winning web series Send Me: An Original Web Series, which streamed on BET.com. She has designed at major theatres in the USA including Berkeley Rep, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, and the Pasadena Playhouse. She was an Assistant Costume Designer on many feature films including: Men in Black, Casino, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Mona Lisa Smile. Her work was featured in the exhibition CURTAIN CALL: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance, at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in 2008. She was the professor of costume design at University of California, Davis for 20 years. maggiemorgandesign.com

Sound Designer

David is a musician, sound designer and professor of theater studies with a focus on music theater at the LMU Munich. He has researched and taught at the universities of Hildesheim, Exeter and Kent and has been a collaborator with Bella and Miles on Tilly No-Body since its first inception. He studied cultural studies and aesthetic practice at the Hildesheim University Foundation and received his doctorate there with a thesis on theater as music (Narr, 2003). In addition to being a theatre and music-maker, he is an internationally acclaimed scholar. His research focuses on the musicalization of theater and the theatricalization of music, sound and performance, intermediality, as well as performativity and musicality in video games. Most recently, he has published the books Music and Sound in European Theatre: Practices, Performances, Perspectives (2024), Composed Theatre (with Matthias Rebstock, Intellect, 2011) and Theatre Noise (with Lynne Kendrick, CSP, 2012), the monograph Musicality in Theatre: Music as Model, Method and Metaphor in Theatre-Making (Ashgate, 2014) and Theatre Music. Analyses and Conversations (Theater der Zeit 2019). He is also the host of the podcast Staging Sound: Reflecting Theatre Music and Sound Design, with the episode “Collaborative Resonance” featuring Tilly No-Body and working with Merlin and Anderson. https://lmumunich.academia.edu/DavidRoesner

Scenic Designer

Kerry has been resident scenic artist, properties designer and frequent set designer in the Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production at the University of California, Riverside, for many years. Designs include The Widow of Valencia, Men on Boats, Cabaret and Loves Labors Lost. She has been the scenic artist throughout Southern California including Performance Riverside, A Noise Within, California Theatre, LA City College, Costa Mesa Playhouse, Pacific Theatre Ensemble, and The Odyssey Theatre. She has collaborated with Merlin and Anderson most recently on Three Sisters (directed by Merlin) and Macbeth (directed by Anderson) at UCR.

Executive Producer

Andy Jordan Productions is an independent production company committed to producing high quality new theatre - plays, musicals and comedy, usually by new writers, in all forms and styles.  We also produce audio drama (Andy Jordan's radio drama work is internationally recognised and has received many awards) and online drama. AJP have been producing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for 25 years. Their five productions at EFF 2024 garnered prestigious acclaim

Andy Jordan Productions (AJP) was founded in 2000 by Andy Jordan, a highly experienced director and producer in theatre, television and radio drama. It evolved from Bristol Express a renowned theatre company established by Andy Jordan.

AJP began by presenting the world premiere of Picasso'sWomen by Brian McAvera, a cycle of eight one woman dramatic monologues about the women in Picasso's life. Starring Susannah York, Toyah Willcox and Josie Lawrence, Picasso's Women was a huge success at the Edinburgh Festival 2000. In 2002 we presented a tour of Picasso's Women starring Jerry Hall, Frances Tomelty, Cherie Lunghi and Gwen Taylor in association with The Ambassador Theatre Group, one of the leading West End managements and theatre owners.

Find out about AJP past productions here

Contacts:

Producer Andy Jordan   andy@andyjordanproductions.co.uk

General Manager Chris Corner  chris@andyjordanproductions.co.uk

General Manager

Chris is a freelance theatre general and production manager, who has managed projects for many of the major new writing companies in the UK, including Foco Novo, Joint Stock, Bristol Express, Paines Plough, Bright Red, Moving Theatre, The Half Moon, Yellow Earth Theatre, and Lifeblood Theatre Co. Also work with York Early Music Festival, Leicester Haymarket, Sheffield Crucible, Royal Court and the Royal Opera House. Recent projects have included a bilingual Ukrainian/Russian Troilus & Cressida in Kyiv. He is Executive Director of Kali Theatre Company, UK, dedicated to “intrepid plays by fearless women” from South Asia.

Lighting Designer

Ben has been a Lighting Designer for theatre, dance, opera and theme parks for over thirty years throughout the USA, Europe and Asia. He has designed for productions with Merlin and Anderson including Three Sisters, Antigone and Macbeth. He is currently Production Director for the Performing Arts, and the Production Manager and Resident Lighting Designer for the Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production at the University of California: Riverside.

Social Media Director

Aubrey (they/them) is a photographer, digital content maker, video editor, and graphic designer. Currently a third-year Major in Theatre, Film and Digital Production at the University of California, Riverside, they run the department’s Social Media team, producing digital content and graphics, as well as working for the IT Services department, the UCR Information Technology Solutions. Previous experience for the Florida Masonry and Apprentice Foundation and i9 Sports. They are the Assistant Scenic Carpenter at the UCR’s TFDP Department, working with Merlin and Anderson on Three Sisters and Macbeth (assistant scenic designer).

Community Liaison

Emma (they/them) is a writer and theatre-maker from Maine. They launched into playwriting while studying acting at the Experimental Theatre Wing of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. They’ve lived in New York, Baltimore, a commune in Appalachia, and now Riverside, CA where they’re completing their MFA in Creative Writing at UCR. They love clowning and dark comedy but they’re especially passionate about work that explores the intersection of gender violence and mental health. With a passion for physical comedy they have trained at the Celebration Barn as well as Patch Adams’s Gesundheit Institute, and they co-wrote/acted in the short film, “Protect the Pigeons from Used Condoms”.