Joanne

About Chinonyerem OdimbaDeborah BruceLaura LomasTheresa IkokoUrsula Rani Sarma

Deborah Bruce is a writer and theatre director. Her plays include: Dixon and Daughters (Clean Break/National Theatre 2023); Raya (Hampstead Theatre 2021); The House They Grew Up In (Minerva Theatre Chichester 2017); The Distance (Orange Tree Theatre and Sheffield Crucible 2014; a finalist for the 2012-13 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Same (National Theatre Connections Festival 2014); and Godchild (Hampstead Theatre 2013). Laura Lomas is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: The House Party after August Strindberg's Miss Julie (Chichester Festival Theatre / Headlong / Frantic Assembly 2024); Metamorphoses co-written with Sami Ibrahim and Sabrina Mahfouz after Ovid (Shakespeare's Globe 2021); Chaos (National Theatre Connections); The Blue Road (Dundee Rep Derby Theatre Royal & Derngate and Theatre Royal Plymouth youth companies); Joanne (Clean Break & Soho Theatre); Bird (Root Theatre and Echo); Blister (Paines Pough/Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama); Open Heart Surgery (Theatre Uncut); Come to Where Im From (Paines Plough); Some Machine (Paines Plough/Rose Bruford); The Island (Nottingham Playhouse/Det Norske Oslo); Us Like Gods (Hampstead Heat and Light); Gypsy Girl (Paines Plough Later at Soho) and Wasteland (New Perspectives/Derby Theatre; shortlisted for the Brian Way Award). Radio plays include My Boy (BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play; Bronze SONY Award for best radio drama) and Lucy Island (BBC Radio 3). Her screen work includes Rough Skin (Touchpaper/Channel 4; shortlisted for Best British Short at British Independent Film Awards and Raindance Film Festival). She has also written two episodes of Glue (E4/Eleven Films) and has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4 Manchester Royal Exchange and jointly by Clean Break and Birmingham Rep. She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow 2013 and a Yaddo Fellow 2014. Chinonyerem Odimba is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: Black Love (Paines Plough 2021); Unknown Rivers (Hampstead Theatre 2019); Princess and the Hustler (Eclipse Theatre Company Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre co-production 2019); Amongst the Reeds (Clean Break Edinburgh Fringe and Yard Theatre London 2016); A Blues for Nia (Eclipse Theatre/BBC); His name is Ishmael (Bristol Old Vic 2013); The Birdwoman of Lewisham (Arcola 2015) and Joanne (Clean Break Soho Theatre 2015). She is a winner of the Channel 4 Playwrights' Scheme 2016 (formerly the Pearson Playwrights' Scheme). Her screenplay Scotch Bonnet was filmed by the BBC for The Break a series of short films.