PRODUCTION CREDITS AND BIOGRAPHIES

Biographies

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Tom Blake

Tom is an actor and musician, trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, France. Before becoming an actor he studied visual art at the Slade School of Fine Art, making work as a painter and performance artist.

 

Previous work includes The Open (The Space), It Will Make You Feel Better (Theatre 503), The Interpretation of Dreams (Bunker Theatre), Stop and Search (Arcola Theatre), Gods and Dogs (The Rude Mechanicals), Gigi Star and Her Vocal Cords of Magic (Applecart Arts), Love Again (Sony Pictures), Medieval Miracles (Eastern Angles) and The Sound Collector (Jam Jar Theatrical) for which he received an Offie nomination.

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Dominic Selvey

Dominic graduated from his BA (Hons) Acting course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in July 2023. He is incredibly grateful to have worked in two pantomimes with Tread the Boards Theatre Company, numerous Shakespeare plays, Dracula and to have had the opportunity to tour in Europe for three months with the English Theatre Company. Dominic has always adored bears so is thrilled to be working with From The Heart Theatre on The Bear Who Went to War.

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Adam Boyle

Adam is an actor and puppeteer who has been professionally not growing up for the last 15 years, having just finished a run at the Edinburgh fringe with Box Tale Soup’s acclaimed production of Gulliver’s Travels. Some of his other favourite credits include; National tours of Blood Wedding & Tartuffe with Theatrical Niche Ltd, 5 star run of Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Brockley Jack Theatre in London and a sellout run of Lisa MacGregor’s play Delivered.

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Simona Litvinskaitė

An emerging lithuanian actor living in the UK to pursue her career in the theatre industry. Recent graduate of Coventry University's Theatre and Professional Practice course.

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Lily Beal

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Elzbieta Kalicka 

Elzbieta trained at Wac Arts acquiring a Diploma in Professional Musical Theatre. 

 

Her theatre credits include The Mozart Question, The Brothers Grimm present:

Cinderella (The Barn Theatre, Cirencester) and Joan of Arc in JEANNE The Musical (The

Turbine Theatre).

 

Credits in training: Mac the Knife in The Threepenny Opera, DNA and Bernarda Alba.

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Ricky Oakley

Ricky has appeared in a wide variety of theatre across the country, including in Mischief Theatre’s Magic Goes Wrong in the West End aswell as the Uk tour. 

He has also worked with the BBC for tv and Radio and is looking forward to bring The Bear That Went to War to Coventry audiences!

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Alan Pollock

Alan is a playwright, TV writer, radio writer and children’s author.

Theatre credits include: The Death of Cool (Hampstead Theatre);  Pigplay  (Traverse Theatre); All Tomorrow's Parties (Royal Exchange Theatre); What Do I Get? (Old Red Lion); One Night in November, Too Much Pressure, Godiva Rocks, Meet me In The Ruins, Allesley Silas  (Belgrade Theatre);  The Bear Who Went To War (Albany Theatre); A Christmas Carol, Peter Pan, The Brothers Grimm Present Cinderella, The True Adventures of Marian and Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Three Musketeers (Barn Theatre)

TV credits include: Attachments (BBC); Black Cab (BBC); Always and Everyone (ITV); The Bill (ITV)

Radio credits include: Philip and Sydney, Every Duchess in England, May There Always Be Sunshine (BBC Radio 4)

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Kirstie Davis 

Kirstie has worked at many theatres around the country including

the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Salisbury Playhouse and

Cheltenham Everyman. For six years she was the Associate

Director and then Acting Artistic Director of Watford Palace

Theatre where she directed acclaimed productions of Top Girls,

The Daughter-in-law and The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

She was CEO and Artistic Director of Forest Forge from 2009 to

2016 where she commissioned and directed over 20 new plays,

which included: Free Folk by Gary Owen, the first adaptations of

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Stardust by Russ Tunney

and Woman of Flowers by Kaite O’Reilly.

Recent projects include: Kiss me Quickstep by Amanda

Whittington at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch, Daddy Long Legs by

Paul Gordon and John Caird and The Girl on the Train by Rachel

Wagstaff and Duncan Abel at The Barn Theatre, Ladies That Bus

and the sequel Ladies That Dig by Joyce Branagh, both of which

went on national tours; Robin Hood by Andrew Pollard at The

Dukes Theatre, Lancaster and a revival of The Wolves of

Willoughby Chase, The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary by

John Nicholson and Tom’s Midnight Garden by David Wood at The

Minack Theatre. The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary is now

on a national tour and will be at the Southwark Playhouse this

Christmas. She has just directed a pilot tour of The Elves and the

Shoemaker by Joyce Branagh and Alice in Wonderland by Andrew

Pollard at Williamson Park in Lancaster.

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Abby Clarke

Abby is a theatre designer and practitioner. She trained in Performance Design at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, was a finalist at the 2024 Offie awards for both Set and Costume design for Unfortunate, was nominated as ‘Best Designer’ for the The Stage Debut Awards 2019, and was a finalist in the 2017 Linbury Prize for Stage Design.

Some of Abby’s design credits include: Unfortunate - The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch (Southwark Playhouse & National Tour), In the Ruins of the Big House (Factory International), The Jolly Christmas Postman (Royal & Derngate Theatre), The Owl Who Came for Christmas (Leicester Curve); Beauty and The Beast (Theatre By The Lake); As You Write It (Shakespeare North Playhouse); Abida Parveen (The Lowry); Alphabus (Manchester International Festival); The Bear Who Went To War (regional tour), The Show Windows (Coventry City of Culture); Road (Leicester Curve); The Allesley Silas (Belgrade Theatre); Read All About It (Belgrade Theatre); In the Meantime We Try (Belgrade Theatre); An Evening With… (Shakespeare North Playhouse); Bird in the Window (UK tour); The Furies (Oxford Playhouse); Living Together (Oxford Playhouse); The Witching Way (Royal Exchange); Luminosity (HOME Theatre); Prince Gorge (Camden People’s Theatre); Dia-Beat-Es (UK tour); HMS Pinafore (Minack Theatre); Humans At Work (Warwick Arts Centre); SWIM (HOME Theatre); Our Friends in the North (HOME Theatre).

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Rebecca Applin

Rebecca is an award-winning composer for theatre and media.  Recent projects include THE KING’S POLAR BEAR and THE WORST PRINCESS with Full House (with whom she is an Associate Artist); FRANKENSTEIN (ON A BUDGET) with Lamphouse Theatre; WASTEBUSTERS, an eco-musical which tours primary schools in Northern Ireland; British Council-funded CONNECTIONS THROUGH CULTURE INDIA-WALES; THE BEAUTY PARADE, a collaboration between D/deaf and hearing cultures, commissioned by Wales Millennium Centre.  She is the arranger for ROSIE AND HUGH’S GREAT BIG ADVENTURE, a new musical with the songs of Nick Cope.  Rebecca was the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Award holder at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and Mercury Theatre, Colchester.  Her media work includes I KNOW ME with Gamelab, a TV musical working with and for teenagers with SEND, commissioned by BBC Learning Zones, nominated for a BAFTA award.

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