Meet the Party!
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Beth Shouler
Beth Shouler is at Curve making magic happen, supporting the development of new work.
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She is part of the Programming and Technical teams for The Party Somewhere Else - meaning she helps select amazing work and helps make it happen.
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Since graduating from RADA’s Postgraduate Theatre Design course in July 2011, Eleanor has worked regularly in a wide variety of styles and genres for theatre, opera, dance and festivals. She also did some windows for Selfridge’s London which really impressed her Grandma.
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When not designing she is teaching design as an associate Lecturer at Birmingham City University.
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See her full design portfolio at www.eleanorfielddesign.com
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Hannah Stone
Hannah Stone started acting age 11 when she played Magnus Magnusson in the end of the pier show.
She then trained as an actor at Bretton Hall, which involved running through the woods with no shoes on. She went on to perform in touring TIE shows but got frustrated telling kids not to do drugs and wearing elephant heads so she set up The Gramophones, an all female theatre company. They have been going strong for nearly 10 years and Hannah also acts and produces for other companies and is a mum.
Hannah is part of the Producing and Programming teams.
Kate Webborn
Kate creates artwork, puts on events and designs under the name fourbeatwalk - fun stuff like the logo for The Music Exchange, posters for Hello Thor and a David Lynch Cabaret.
As In-house designer for The Party Somewhere Else, she has created brochures, flyers, websites, and a lot of gifs of party hats! She is also part of the Events team - bringing celebration, fun and lot of confetti to everything The Party Somewhere Else do!
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Kath Akers
Kath has been keeping herself out of trouble this year as the Outreach and Partnerships part of the Party.
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In her other life, Kath is a State Registered Dramatherapist, taking on the world armed with laughter, imagination, a set of sharpies and a bubble wand.
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She is a storyteller and performer, and an associate artist of The Gramophones.
Most of all, Kath loves to make a racket and can be found around Nottingham joyously hammering on Carnival Drums with the Flying Free Bateria, and with Estrandosas, a kickass all-female carnival drumming troupe that she founded.
Minder Athwal
Minder is a freelancer with a focus on marketing, event planning and community building. She is also an improv comedy performer and an Old Vic trained workshop facilitator with a particular interest in using improv to help people build skills for life and business.
Within The Party Somewhere Else, she mainly focused on marketing and spends a lot of time taking photos and creating Instagram stories during meetings like a stereotypical millennial.
Her parents have never understood what she does for a living so she mostly simplifies or outright lies. They currently believe she is a party planner so not too far off...
Nikki Disney has a passion for art to evoke change and heads up the Wellbeing and Access team. She wears a range of fetching party hats including: theatre director, poet, singer, performer, yoga teacher, creative supervisor and state registered Dramatherapist (HCPC)... phew!
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She founded Stage Weight (a company concerned with artist wellbeing) and auROARa, a women's community theatre troupe which hits the streets of Nottingham with a song in their hearts at any opportunity.
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She will be at the party making sure people have their drinks topped up and ensuring there are seats for all.
Olwen Davies is a performance maker, artist and writer. She collaborates with performance companies and artists alongside making solo work. With an interest in the repossession of cultural images on screen, in comedy and in the uses of recorded and live moments in performance, Olwen creates work that explores the audience’s relationship with the screen and with each other. She is co-founder and joint artistic director of LaPelle’s Factory, currently an associate company of In Good Company, a professional development programme for emerging artists making work in the East Midlands. Funded by Arts Council England, delivered by Derby Theatre, Create in Mansfield and Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester. Olwen is also a sessional lecturer at The University of Worcester and Nottingham College, teaching degree level students performance practice related subjects.
Rebecca D'Souza
Rebecca D'Souza is an activist, feminist, actor and mum. She also has a fair whack of administrative experience and has recently discovered that actually, she's very pleased by a blooming good spreadsheet. She is an associate artist of The Gramophones. She last appeared in Kindertransport at Nottingham Playhouse, and regularly trains doctors and the like in Psychiatry through roleplay. Smashing life and work skills and experience together, she's been Project Managing 2019's festival, and working on the Producing and Programming teams. She is super excited to be helping provide opportunity to showcase some AWESOME female / non-binary led work and to Party with some EXCELLENT women in the process. Rep'd by Ashrow Talent Management.
Ria Ashcroft
Ria is a maverick and a problem solver, see a problem - eat a problem! That's her motto.
Ria and Hannah Stone are the bosses of The Gramophones. Ria set up Circus Hub in 2016. She spends most of her free time defying gravity, dangling upside down and walking dogs.
Siobhán Cannon-Brownlie
Siobhán Cannon-Brownlie is a director and theatre and party maker. She was an incredibly successful actor for approximately 9 months in the late 90s.
After peaking at age 7, she found her way in to directing, which thankfully hasn't yet resulted in nearly drowning as acting did. Siobhán trained at the Television Workshop, and went on to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School's Directing MA. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Major Labia, a patriarchy smashing comedy collective of the wittiest women in town.
Siobhán is part of the Producing and Access and Wellbeing teams for The Party Somewhere Else.
Tilly is a theatre-maker who mainly works as a director and producer but is currently branching out into writing and performing. This year she’s making a show about being an auntie which gives her an excuse to hanging out with her peach of a niece making a mess with paints and call it "research". She is the UK's only Doctor of Rural Touring, which is about as useful an accolade as it sounds and has yet to get her a free upgrade on a plane.
Tilly is part of The Party Somewhere Else’s Producing team, and has been overseeing the budget for this year’s festival, making sure all the different Party teams have the funds they need to make the magic happen.