Cast & creatives “Hand to God”

Matt Addis (Pastor Greg)

Matt’s theatre credits include War Horse (National Theatre); To Dream Again (Theatr Clwyd/ Polka); Remarkable Invisible, Handbagged, Not About Heroes, Two, The Railway Children, The Blue Room, Dumb Show, Keep Smiling Through (Theatre by the Lake); The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Stones in His Pockets, When Harry Met Sally, The Sound of Music (Popular Productions); Private Resistance, Red Skies (Eastern Angles); Pythonesque, A-Team the Musical (Gilded Balloon); Come on Over (Old Vic New Voices); Boeing Boeing (Comedy Theatre); In the Shadow of the Glen (Union Theatre). Television includes W1A, Born Wilde, Doctors, Rose, Glan Hafren and Pobol Y Cwm (BBC); The British (Sky/HBO); Queen Victoria’s Men (C4).

Samantha Dakin (Jessica / Jolene)

Samantha grew up in California and trained at Drama Centre London. Theatre credits include: The Odd Couple (Cinnabar Theatre, California); Home Free! (Arts Theatre West End); The Screenwriter’s Daughter (Leicester Square Theatre); A View From The Bridge (Young Vic at Wyndham’s Theatre); Remembrance of Things Past (92Y, New York); A Kid Like Jake (Old Vic New Voices); The Rubber Room (Old Vic New Voices); The Emperor Self (Arcola); The Trip to Bountiful (Courtyard Theatre). Film: Hyde Park on Hudson, The Good Neighbour, The Chameleon. Television: EastEnders, Doctors, Tree Fu Tom.

(Photo © Susan Shacter)

Nicholas Hart (Jason / Tyrone) 

Nicholas trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre credits include Father Christmas (Lyric Hammersmith); Alice’s Adventures Underground (The Vaults, Les Enfants Terribles); puppeteering Joey in War Horse (National Theatre, West End, and NT Live); Hand to God (Vaudeville, West End); Of Mice and Men (Watermill Theatre, Newbury) and SOLD (Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh).

Tom Machell (Timothy) 

Tom is an actor, writer and comedy performer originating from Newcastle upon Tyne. He trained at The New York Film Academy and makes up 1/5 of the surreal, award-winning comedy group zazU. zazU have had sell out runs at the Soho Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and are currently developing their work for television and radio. As an actor, Tom most recently appeared in the viral sketch show Every Blank Ever for Comedy Central and in the feature film Dinosaur Hunter alongside Jenny Agutter. Other screen credits include Babs (BBC), Lodger (BBC), Air Aces (American History Channel), the forthcoming feature film Trautmann, BFI funded shorts Sticky and Litterbug and short films Die Agentin and The Bucket, which Tom also wrote.

Stage credits include Life According to Saki (Off Broadway – New York Theatre Workshop); Benighted (Old Red Lion); The Comedy of Errors (Off Broadway – The Drilling Company) and 3 runs of Guinness World Record holding comedy show NewsRevue, which he also writes for.

Sarah Waddell (Margery) 

Originally from Glasgow, Sarah trained at Drama Studio London. Theatre includes: Flo in Saturday Night Fever (Royal Caribbean Productions); Desireé in A Little Night Music (All Star Productions); Jack’s Mum in Into The Woods (All Star Productions); Warden in Cause Célèbre (Old Vic); Doreen in The York Realist (Riverside Studios); Maw/Didi/Maggie in The Hard Man (Finborough Theatre); Emily/Charlie in State Fair (Finborough); Georgie in The Full Monty (Charing Cross Theatre); Liza in Girls Night (UK Tour); Felicia in A Class Act (Landor Theatre).

Film & TV credit includes Janet Peters in Doctors; Margaret in Being; Jess in Prevenge; Older Isla in Scarred at Last; Jackie in Esther’s Funeral; Marian in Deadpan Valentine; various commercials and corporate productions.

Derek Anderson (Director)

Derek studied Film and Television Production at the North East College of Scotland followed by Theatre Production from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.

On his directing debut, Derek won the 2015 Whatsonstage Award for Best Off-West End Production for Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Twickenham Theatre. The critically acclaimed production, starring Olivier Award-winner David Bedella in the title role, was also nominated for Best Musical Revival. Last year Derek directed the Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret and The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, both for ACT Aberdeen. He followed these productions with Stephen Sondheim’s Company in January this year. Other work includes Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim for Stowe Arts and the world premier of Eyes Closed, Ears Covered by Alex Gwyther at the Bunker Theatre, nominated for three Off-West End Awards. Derek also works as a lighting designer and has previously been at the English Theatre Frankfurt to design the lighting for Spamalot, Handbagged and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Rachel Stone (Set and Costume Designer)

Design credits include: Dessert, Stalking the Bogeyman, Upper Cut, Short and Stark (Southwark Playhouse); Calamity Jane (Tring Park School of Performing Arts); Boy With Beer (King’s Head Theatre); Cabaret (ACT Aberdeen);  Sweeney Todd (Twickenham Theatre); That Face, Carousel (Landor Theatre); The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (Finborough Theatre); Songs for a New World, My Mother Said I Never Should (Bridewell Theatre);  Ruffled (Theatre 503); Company (Pleasance Theatre). Associate credits include: Disco Pigs (Irish Repertory Theatre, New York); Handbagged (UK Tour and Roundhouse Theatre, Washington); The Grinning Man (Trafalgar Studios); Bad Jews (Arts Theatre); The EL Train (Hoxton Hall).

Assistant credits include: The Secret Theatre, The Winter’s Tale (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); The Band, Steel Magnolias, Anything Goes (UK Tour); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Theatre Cocoon, Tokyo); Bat Out of Hell (Coliseum); Fatherland (Royal Exchange); Dead Funny (Vaudeville); Watership Down (Watermill Theatre); Oliver! (Grange Park Opera); Groundhog Day, The Lorax, Future Conditional (Old Vic);  The Mentalists (Wyndham’s Theatre); This Is My Family (Sheffield Crucible); 13 (Apollo).

Zia Bergin-Holly (Lighting Designer)

Zia is a lighting and set designer. She designs for theatre, dance, opera and live music events. She works internationally and has a base in both the UK and Ireland. She recently won the 2017 Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Lighting Design for her design of Pan Pan Theatre Company’s production of The Importance of Nothing.

Zia graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a B.A. (Hons) in Drama and Theatre Studies, where she specialised in lighting and set design. She went on to participate on the Rough Magic SEEDS Programme 2012-2013 and is currently the Resident Associate Designer with Pan Pan Theatre. Her work has included designs for performances as part of the Dublin and Belfast Theatre Festivals, The Dublin Fringe, The Edinburgh Fringe, 10 Days In Dublin, Kilkenny Arts, Baboró, Hyderabad Literary Festival (India), IPAY (USA), and On The Edge – TYA (UK) festivals, as well as assistant design credits for performances on the West End. To see examples of her work check out www.ziaholly.com

Design credits include:

Melt, Northern Star, Enjoy, Unspoken, Anna Belle Eema, Assassins, Way to Heaven (Rough Magic), The Shitstorm (Abbey Theatre and Dublin Fringe Festival), You Forgot The Mince (Imagine If Theatre), Images Ballet Company 2017 Tour (London Studio Centre), Annie (Cork Opera House), The Ladykillers (Lyric Theatre Belfast), The Importance of Being Earnest (Bruiser Theatre), Benighted *Nominated for Best Lighting Design at the Off West End Awards 2017* (Damien Tracey Productions in association with The Old Red Lion), The Importance of Nothing *Winner of Best Lighting Design at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2017* (Pan Pan Theatre), The Nest (Lyric Theatre Belfast and Young Vic Theatre London), GRACE JONES: Bloodlight and Bami (Musical of My Life Films), FABRIC *Winner of a Scotsman Fringe First Award* (Robin Rayner Productions in association with TREMers), Inhabitance, BROADENING *Nominated for Best Design at the Dublin Absolut Fringe Awards 2012* (Glass Doll), They Called Her Vivaldi, A Feast of Bones, The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (Theatre Lovett), East of Berlin (Brinkmanship Theatre), The Dead (Dublin Theatre Festival), The Night Alive (Lyric Theatre Belfast and Dublin Theatre Festival), Before Monsters Were Made, Reckoners (15th Oak), Night (Hilary Woods), East of Berlin, Northern Star (The Lir Academy), On The Wire *Nominated for Best Production at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2015* (Wildebeest Theatre), FUSED (Dan Bergin), The Last 5 Years (Trees Rd Productions), The Separation (Pixilated), Flesh and Blood Women (Green Shoot Productions), Turn Out the Lights (Sounds Alive), LAMBO, Clear_The_Air (Underscore_Productions), #BURNED (META Productions), HUMAN CHILD (Collapsing Horse), The Nutcracker, Romeo & Juliet (Ballet Ireland).

Hendrik Dingler (Sound Designer)

Hendrik Dingler is a Frankfurt am Main based Composer, Sound Designer, Live Performer and Audio Engineer. Since 2015, Hendrik works full-time at the English Theatre Frankfurt (ETF).Pieces of him were played at the Lange Nacht der Musen (Darmstadt, Germany), the Galerie Lausberg (Toronto, Kanada) and at the Music Festivals Limburg on/off, Next Generation (ZKM, Karlsruhe), Linux Audio Conference (Maynooth, Ireland) and the Musicacoustica-Bejing (China).

Compositions and Sound Designs: Quadrangle AV (cultural capital 2010, Zeche Zollverein Essen, Germany); Ruhrlautsonate (Pina Bausch theatre, Folkwang UdK); Stadt Land Ruhr (Pina Bausch theatre, Folkwang UdK); Cats lost in Space (short film by Eva Münnich); Regenbogenmaschine (short movie by Samuel Maasho and Riccardo Jurkovic); Disgraced, Witches, Living with Lady Macbeth (all ETF); TAMAH (short film by Erhan Yürük, participation at the 6th International Film Music Competition, original music by Jeremy Dirat); Cut’n go ahead v.0.1.5 (performance at the Institut für Neue Medien Frankfurt). www.hendrikdingler.de

Melanie Schöberl  (Assistant Costume Design)

Melanie`s first experience as a costume designer was for the Chaincourt Theatre Company at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. In 2006 she worked as a costume assistant for the choreographer/director Wanda Golonka on Crave by Sarah Kane. During the same year she was part of the creative team of the Sebastian Hartmann production Being Lawinky. She did costume design for The Threepenny Opera, The Crucible and Master Class. Her work as assistant costume designer includes The Who`s Tommy, Rain Man, Breaking the Code, Sweet Charity, Good People, The Ruling Class, Saturday Night Fever, Venus in Fur, The Collector, Other Desert Cities, Death and the Maiden, The Glass Meangerie, The Life, Disgraced, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Spamalot, Handbagged, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Pygmalion and Jekyll & Hyde all for The English Theatre Frankfurt.

Marc Frankum  (Casting Director)

Marc originally trained as an actor at Drama Centre London before moving into casting. Previous shows for The English Theatre Frankfurt include: Jekyll & Hyde, Pygmalion, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Handbagged, Spamalot, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Glass Menagerie, Disgraced, Death and the Maiden, Other Desert Cities, Ghost, The Musical, Strangers on a Train. Marc has also recently cast The Band the Musical, Out Of Order, Dial M for Murder, An Inspector Calls, End of the Rainbow, Calendar Girls (UK Tour); I Capture the Castle (Palace Theatre Watford/Bolton Octagon); Much Ado About Nothing, Clybourne Park, Noises Off, Macbeth (Mercury Theatre Colchester); Hand to God, The Bodyguard, The Woman In Black, Duck House (West End); The Full Monty (2016/17 UK Tour); The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night (Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank/Shakespeare’s Globe); Barbarians (Tooting Arts Club); When Blair had Bush and Bunga (Pleasance One);  Goodnight Mister Tom (West End/Chichester Festival Theatre/The Children’s Touring Partnership); Stepping Out (Salisbury Playhouse); The Mousetrap (60th Anniversary Tour); Mother Adam (Jermyn Street Theatre); The Hairy Ape (Southwark Playhouse); Sign of the Times (Duchess Theatre);  Far Away (Bristol Old Vic) and The History Boys (Theatre Royal Bath/West Yorkshire Playhouse) and was casting associate on Big, the Musical (Plymouth/Dublin); Good Canary (Rose Theatre Kingston)  and Elf, The Musical (West End/Plymouth/Dublin/Manchester).