Synopsis
Emery Hunter trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating in 2021.
Professional credits: Undertow Overflow (Ben Harrison), Don’t Make Tea (Birds of paradise).
Training credits include Glory on Earth (RCS), The Assumption (Solar Bear/RCS), and The Overcoat (RCS).
Ciaran’s TV credits include: Galwad (National Theatre Wales/S4C / Sky Arts).
Theatre: Lord of The Flies (Leeds Playhouse, Belgrade Theatre Coventry & Rose Theatre Kingston); Hansel & Gretel (PaddleBoat Theatre Company); Galwad (National Theatre Wales); Flood (Theatre Temoin); Getting There (Deafinitely Theatre, Toucan Theatre & Oxford Playhouse); Playmakers (Mousetrap Theatre Projects) and Red (Polka Theatre).
As part of an emerging artist placement, Ciaran was involved in Wonder Boy (Bristol Old Vic), and in training on the Made in Bristol Programme - Ciaran performed in The Story of Guts (Bristol Old Vic).
Workshop: The Detective Dog (Tessa Bide Productions) and How High is Up (Fingersmiths).
Musical: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (National Youth Musical Theatre).
Stefan is super excited to be playing this third role for Pied Piper, Having previously appeared as Hare in ‘Hare & Tortoise’ and as Town Mouse in ’Town Mouse & Country Mouse’ in the UK, Europe and Singapore.
In addition to being an actor, Stefan teaches acting and creative writing to children in the UK, US and China, inspiring children to explore their creativity.
Zoë McWhinney (she/they) completed her actor’s training at the pioneering École de Théâtre Universelle in Toulouse (2020). Recent theatre credits include the title role in RED (Polka Theatre, October 2021) Everyday (Deafinitely Theatre, June 2022), Lilies on the Land (Apollo Theatre Co, Sep-Oct 2022) and the title role of Princess Rose in Sleeping Beauty pantomime (CAST, December 2022).
Zoë is also a BSL poet, Visual Vernacular composer and sign language theatre consultant. As a poet, they performed at The Roundhouse (2018), United Nations’ Geneva headquarters (2019), City of Birmingham Symphony and Orchestra (2021) and Glastonbury (2023).
Jessica trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Jess is a hearing actor and puppeteer from North London. Half American, half British, Jess has always been passionate about communication and the intersection between arts and health, which led her to begin her journey with British Sign Language during the 2020 Lockdown. Jess is thrilled to now be Level 4 BSL qualified, and is committed to developing her knowledge of deaf culture and deaf awareness within the hearing community, and specifically within the acting industry. Jess is so excited to be part of the cast of Can Bears Ski, a collaboration of two companies committed to encouraging young people through arts, puppets and play, to embrace their deafness, and who they are.
Stage credits include; ‘Everyone Cries Their First Time' at the Stockwell Playhouse, 'The Vagina Monologues' with Bluestocking Unity Project and 'A Year From Now' at the Tristan Bates Theatre.
Screen credits include playing Emma in 'Boredroom' (Daniel Harding, 2020) and Olivia in the 'Runaways' (Daniel Harding, 2020).
Nick acts, stage manages and creates sets and puppets. He has his own production company scratchbuiltproductions.com which has been making theatre since 2006 and is an Associate Company of Proteus in Basingstoke.
Nick has been making puppets and acting with Pied Piper for several years and helped to create a new strand of work for babies and young toddlers ‘DIG!’ And ‘BEACH’. He made the puppets for the popular ’Sarah & Duck’ tour from the television series, for ’Snowflakes’ at Oxford Playhouse and for ‘Gorilla’ at Polka Theatre.
Tina Williams is the Artistic Director of Pied Piper Theatre Company, which she set up in 1984 having trained as both an actor and a teacher.
Tina has written, adapted, directed and produced over twenty five plays for the company including a large scale national tour of Anne Fine's 'The Book of the Banshee', and 'A Little Princess' involving eight actors and eight young people.
Tina’s original plays have had four residencies at The Fortune Theatre in London’s West End. Her most recent titles include ‘My BIG Little sister’, 'Robin’s Winter Adventure’, The Big ENORMOUS Present’ and ‘Zoom' which she co-wrote with Nicola Sangster, alongside ‘DIG!’ Pied Piper’s first play for babies and young toddlers.
Tina was head of Youth and Education at The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford for fourteen years and toured nationally with YAT. Her plays have been performed in Europe and in Singapore. She has also directed ’Snowflakes’ for Oxford Playhouse.
This year brings a very special collaboration with Paula Garfield, the Artistic Director of Deafinitely Theatre to create ‘Can Bears Ski?’ for both a hearing and deaf audience.
For more details about Tina's work visit 'About Us'.
Paula Garfield is the Artistic Director of Deafinitely Theatre. An actor, director, workshop leader and organiser, Paula has worked on a variety of television, film and theatre projects over the past fifteen years. In 2002 she established Deafinitely Theatre with Steven Webb and Kate Furby after becoming frustrated at the barriers that deaf actors and directors face across the arts and media.
For Deafinitely Theatre, Paula’s previous productions include: Two Chairs, Motherland, Children of a Greater God, Playing God, Double Sentence and Gold Dust. She also devised and directed The Boy and the Statue for Deafinitely at the Tricycle Theatre and on a London schools tour. Paula has directed two productions at Shakespeare’s Globe: Love’s Labour’s Lost for the Globe to Globe Festival, as part of Deafinitely’s 10th anniversary celebrations, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her most recent productions for Deafinitely include: Tanika’s Journey (Southwark Playhouse), Grounded (Park Theatre), a national tour of family show, Something Else and Contractions at ND2 in 2017.
Paula was also awarded the Tonic Award for her work at Deafinitely Theatre.
Coming up, Paula with her team are organising a fundraising event at the Hackney Empire, where she is directing a one night performance of the Vagina Monologues. She is also working with Tina Williams on a new family show, Can Bears Ski? as well as the next full production, The Promise; a story about a deaf mother living with dementia.
Stephen Collins (he/him)
Associate Director of Can Bears Ski?
Stephen Collins has 13 years of experience as an actor, workshop facilitator and recently working as a Deaf Creative consultant/directing. He is the Lead Artist for The DH Ensemble and Associate Artist with 1623 Theatre.
Highlights include:
Consulting on Lord of the Flies & Charlie and Chocolate Factory (Leeds Playhouse); Gruffalo (Tall Stories). Performing in All Hands (The Nornen Project); Oliver Twist & A Christmas Carol (Leeds Playhouse); Perfect Show for Rachel with ZooCo (Barbican Centre); A Christmas Carol(Bristol Old Vic); Up N Under (Fingersmiths); Reasons To Be Cheerful, Threepenny Opera & The Iron Man (Graeae Theatre); Love’s Labour’s Lost at The Globe & Tyrannosaurus Drip (Deafinitely Theatre). Featuring as the Harkonnen trooper in the film Dune (Legendary), on TV in Doctors (BBC) & Sliced (Dave), in advert like the Mini Cooper Ad(Iconoclast) & Post Office Ad (Ogilvy/ Family Productions). Lending my voice in a radio play Bartholomew Abominations (Naked Productions) with BBC Radio 4.
Polly graduated from Brighton Art School in 1999, where she studied illustration. Her best-selling book Penguin
won the Nestlé Silver Award in 2007, The Book Trust Early Years Award 2007, The Red House Award 2008 and
was shortlisted for the Greenaway. Her Tilly and Friends books were turned into a successful series on CBeebies
and sold around the world. Polly is also the co-founder of Long Nose Puppets, an award-winning puppet company
who have made and toured successful adaptations of her books around the UK. As well as collaborating with with
Raymond Antrobus Polly has made books with Michael Rosen, Michael Morpurgo and Eoin Mclaughlin.
Pronouns; He / Him
Poet / Educator / Freelance Writer / Listener
Author of 'To Sweeten Bitter' (2017) 'The Perseverance' (2018), 'All The Names Given' (2021) and children's picture book 'Can Bears Ski?' (2020)
Movement Direction credits include: Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre); It Is So Ordered (The Pleasance); Bunny (White Bear); Wish List (Royal Exchange & Royal Court); Redefining Juliet (Barbican); See Bob Run (Bread & Roses); Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Young Vic and UK Tour); Love is Easy (music video; McFly); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Custom/Practice); The Kitchen (Fourth Monkey); Faith, Hope & Charity (Southwark Playhouse); Emma Thompson Presents: Fair Trade (Shatterbox - Latitude, Rich Mix).
Direction Credits include: Jon Udry Punches Gravity in the Face (Jon Udry); Life on Wheels (Bella Kinetica); Rapunzel (Fourth Monkey).
Angela teaches at RADA. Most recently Angela has directed the movement in Frankenstein for The Royal Exchange, Manchester.
Princess and Pea (Tutti Frutti), The Fever Chart (Pilot Theatre), The Diver (Soho Theatre and Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo), Fly in the Ointment, Cover her Feet (Stephen Joseph Theatre), King Arthur, As You Like It, The Crucible (costume design), Wind In The Willows,Coram Boy, 1984, Keys to the Kingdom, Bouncers, September in the Rain, The Trial, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (York Theatre Royal). For Pied Piper, Burglar Bill, Robin’s Winter Adventureand Hare and Tortoise.
Nick is an actor, stage manager, puppet and scenery maker and puppetry director. Nick is the co-founder of Scratch Built Productions, based at Proteus in Basingstoke. website:-scratchbuiltproductions.com
Nick has made sets and puppets for Pied Piper for the last six years and in this year's production takes the role of stage manager and puppetry director for ‘Zoom!’
Nick has appeared in two Pied Piper productions for babies and young toddlers ‘DIG!’ and ‘BEACH’.
Julian is an associate artist of Pied Piper Theatre Company. As well as music for Pied Piper he has composed music for lots of theatre shows for children and young people, including Charlie and Lola's Best Bestest Play, Charlie and Lola's Extremely New Play and Gorilla (Polka Theatre, directed by Roman Stefanski), Up and Down (GaGa Theatre Company), The Paper Washi Wish and Little Sunshine, Little Rainfall (A Thousand Cranes Theatre), and A Christmas Carol (Lakeside Arts, Nottingham). He has written several musicals for young people including Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood and Flat Stanley(with Mike Kenny, Engine House Theatre) and Run! A Sports Day Musical (with Lisa Evans, Polka Theatre).
Most recently Julian has adapted The Everywhere Bear for the Polka Theatre and on tour.