PEANUT BUTTER & BLUEBERRIES

Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain

Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain plays Bilal. His theatre credits include Brown Boys Swim (Soho Theatre & UK Tour) and Coram Boy (Nottingham Playhouse). His television work includes Surface (Apple) and the upcoming BBC series Virdee. His film work includes the title role in Jamie’s Wager and The Landlady. Usaamah trained at LAMDA.

Humera Syed

Humera Syed plays Hafsah. Her theatre credits include: Great Expectations (Royal Exchange Theatre), FAITH (RSC/Coventry City of Culture), The Village (Theatre Royal Stratford East), The Arabian Knights (Royal Lyceum Theatre), and Anita and Me (UK Tour). Her television work includes: The Stranger and Hullraisers.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

Playwright

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is an educator, writer and poet from Leeds. Her work disrupts narratives about history, race, knowledge and power – interrogating the root purpose of conversations about Muslims, migrants, gender and violence in particular. Suhaiymah works to provide herself and others with the tools to resist systemic oppression by unlearning what society and the education system have instilled in us. She was the runner-up of the Roundhouse National poetry slam 2017 with her viral poem, This is Not a Humanising Poem which gained 2 million views and was short-listed for the Outspoken Prize for Poetry in 2018. Suhaiymah is the author of poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), co-author of the anthology, A FLY GIRL’S GUIDE TO UNIVERSITY: Being a woman of colour at Cambridge and other institutions of power and elitism (Verve Poetry Press, 2019) and hosts the Breaking Binaries podcast.

Her latest book, Seeing for Ourselves: and Even Stranger Possibilities was published with Hajar Press in 2023. This comes on the back of her book, Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia published with Pluto Press in 2022.

Suhaiymah has written for The Guardian, Independent, Al-Jazeera, gal-dem and other national media outlets and her work has featured across radio and television, magazines and digital media. Her poetry, articles and books can be found on University and school syllabi. She has also been commissioned to write plays including: Brown Women Do It Too (Royal Court); A Coin in Somebody Else’s Pocket (Theatre Uncut); Whose Eyes Are These Anyway? (The Albany); My White Best Friend and other Letters Left Unsaid (The Bunker) and The End of Diaspora (Free Word Centre) and during her Writer in Residence at the Leeds Playhouse in 2021-22, her play Take Care had a public reading in Furnace Festival.

Peanut Butter and Blueberries is Suhaiymah’s first full length play.

Sameena Hussain

Director

Sameena Hussain is a freelance theatre director and facilitator based in West Yorkshire. Currently Associate Director at Leeds Playhouse, she’s worked with Hull Truck Theatre, Opera North, Lawrence Batley Theatre, RSC and Soho Theatre.

Sameena’s work is rooted in community and connection and since she started her career, she’s been on a mission to remove barriers (both invisible and visible) preventing people from engaging with theatre and her projects have included everything from heritage projects and directing intergenerational performances, to creating and delivering artist development programmes and co-leading anti-racist strategies in institutions.

Sameena is passionate about making theatre a safe and brave space, enabling dialogue and connection.

Theatre credits include, as director: Romeo & Juliet (Leeds Conservatoire); A Christmas Carol (Hull Truck Theatre); I Wanna Be Yours, Decades (Leeds Playhouse); La Voix Humaine (Opera North/Leeds Playhouse) and Our White Skoda Octavia (Eastern Angles).

As associate Director: A Christmas Carol, Henry V (Lawrence Batley Theatre).

As Assistant Director: Dr Korczak’s Example, Night Before Christmas, There Are No Beginnings, Europe, Road and A Christmas Carol (Leeds Playhouse).

Khadija Raza

Designer

Recent theatre credits include: The Secret Garden, Every Leaf a Hallelujah, Antigone (Regents Park Open Air Theatre); Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play (Royal Exchange Theatre/Manchester International Festival/Headlong/Young Vic); Sundown Kiki, The American Dream 2.0 (Young Vic); Augmented (Told By an Idiot/Royal Exchange Theatre); Mixtape (Royal Exchange Theatre); The Flood (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch); Talking About a Revolution (The Barn); Julius Caesar (Shakespeare’s Globe/UK Tour); 10 Nights (Graeae/Tamasha Theatre/Bush Theatre); Philoxenia, Hijabi Monologues (Bush Theatre); Bach & Sons (Bridge Theatre); Skin Hunger (Dante or Die); Funeral Flowers (Roundhouse/UK Tour); The Bee in Me (Unicorn Theatre); Great Ormond Street Hospital – Binaural Project (Unicorn Theatre/Great Ormond Street Hospital); A History of Water in the Middle East (Royal Court); Fly the Flag/Writing Wrongs (Donmar Warehouse); The White Best Friend (and Other Letters Left Unsaid) (Bunker Theatre); No One is Coming to Save You (Bunker Theatre/Edinburgh Festival); Cacophony (Almeida Theatre/The Yard); Loki and Cassie – A Love Story (Almeida Theatre); Spun (Arcola Theatre) and I Want you to Admire Me/But You Shouldn’t (Camden People’s Theatre).

As Design Consultant: Dugsi Dayz (Side eYe Productions) and Love Reign (Young Vic).

As Associate Designer: The Father and the Assassin (National Theatre) and The King of Hell’s Palace (Hampstead Theatre).

As Assistant Designer: The Unknown Island (Gate Theatre).

Rajiv Pattani

Lighting Designer

Trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Theatre credits include: Some Demon (Arcola/Bristol Old Vic); The Maladies, Testmatch (Orange Tree Theatre); 10 Nights (Omnibus Theatre); £1 Thursdays (Finborough Theatre); Trueman and the Arsonists (Roundhouse Theatre); High Times, Dirty Monsters (National Tour); Strategic Love Play (Soho Theatre/Paines Plough Tour); Hungry (Soho Theatre, Paines Plough/Roundabout); Sorry, You’re Not a Winner (Paines Plough Tour); The Garden of Words (Park Theatre); Zoe’s Peculiar Journey Through Time (Southbank Centre/National Tour); Hairy (Polka Theatre); The Flood (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); SMOKE, Yellowfin (Southwark Playhouse); Alice in Wonderland (Poltergeist Theatre Company/Brixton House); Yellowman, Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, OUTSIDE (Orange Tree Theatre); Supernova (Theatre503/National Tour); Wolfie (Theatre503); The White Card (Northern Stage/Leeds Playhouse/Birmingham Rep/Soho Theatre/HOME Manchester); Mog the Forgetful Cat (Royal & Derngate/National Tour); Kabul Goes Pop! Television Music Afghanistan! (Brixton House/National Tour); Pilgrims (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); Winners (Theatre on the Downs/Wardrobe Ensemble); Final Farewell, Dawaat (Tara Theatre); Hunger (Arcola Theatre); Dirty Crusty (Yard Theatre); Dismantle This Room (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs); Nassim (Bush Theatre/Edinburgh Traverse/ International Tour); Babylon Beyond Boarders, Leave Taking and Ramona Tells Jim (Bush Theatre).

Helen Skiera

Sound Designer

Theatre credits include: Mind Mangler: Member of the Tragic Circle (Mischief/Apollo Theatre/UK Tour); Museum of Infinite Realities (Brussels, Technical Productions); F**ked Up Bedtime Stories Series 2 (English Touring Theatre); Cinderella, Red Riding Hood (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Not: Lady Chatterly’s Lover (Happy Idiot Productions/UK Tour); The Long Song (Chichester Festival Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Bristol Old Vic); The Lovely Bones (Birmingham REP/UK tour); Out of Water (Orange Tree); Silence (Mercury); Here I Belong (Pentabus); This Is Not For You (Graeae GDIF/SIRF); Instructions For Correct Assembly, Bodies (Royal Court); Imber: You Walk Through, Betrayal, The Magna Carta Plays (Salisbury Playhouse); The Encounter (Complicité); Good Dog, I Know All The Secrets In My World, Nhamo, Hamba (Tiata Fahodzi); House and Garden (Watermill); Harajuku Girls (Finborough); The Dog, The Night and The Knife (Arcola).

As Associate: Viola’s Room (Punchdrunk); The Dark Is Rising (BBC/Complicite audio drama); East is East (Birmingham REP/Chichester Festival Theatre); Touching The Void (Duke of York‘s); Barbershop Chronicles (National Theatre); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Young Vic/Apollo Theatre); Adler and Gibb (Royal Court) and I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole (The Gate).

As operator: King Charles III, Chimerica, Jersusalem and Enron. 

Other credits include: Bussing Out (MayProductions/UCL); The Prick and The Sting (Raucous); BLI-STA (Clean Break); David’s Bad Day, National Elf Service, Bad Altitude (Fast Familiar) and You Lay Your Hand Backwards (Metta Theatre).

Natasha Harrison

Movement Director

After studying at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Natasha went on to complete her Masters in Movement: Directing and Teaching, graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

For Park Theatre: When it Happens, Hir, Whodunnit (Unrehearsed), Whodunnit (Unrehearsed) 2, A Single Man, Building the Wall, La Cage Aux Folles and Winner’s Curse.

Movement and choreography credits include: Good Enough Mums Club (UK Tour); Lord of the Flies (Leeds Playhouse); Linck & Mullhahn (Hampstead Theatre); Ride (Leicester Curve & Southwark Playhouse); The Bolds (Unicorn Theatre); A Game of Love and Chance and Hunger (Arcola); One Jewish Boy (Trafalgar Studios); Four Minutes Twelve Seconds (Co-Director & Movement Director, Oldham Coliseum); A Christmas Carol (Derby Theatre); Mold Riots (Theatr Clwyd); Shakespeare Nation and Julius Caesar: First Encounters (RSC); Rocky Road (Jermyn Street); The Sweet Science of Bruising (Wilton’s Music Hall); La Belle Helene (Blackheath Halls); Trouble in Tahiti & A Dinner Engagement (RCM); Handbagged (Salisbury Playhouse); Not Such Quiet Girls (Leeds Playhous/Opera North); Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood (CAST Doncaster); Moll Flanders (Mercury Theatre); Wasted, Dear Brutus and  The Cardinal (Southwark Playhouse).

Other productions include: The Rake’s Progress (British Youth Opera); Blackthorn (Paines Plough at Edinburgh Festival); Tumulus (Soho Theatre Studio/Vault Festival); Tiny Dynamite (Old Red Lion Theatre); Ode to Leeds, Blackthorn (Leeds Playhouse); Twist (Theatre Centre); The Shed Crew (Red Ladder); Une Education Manque and Les Mamelles de Tiresias (Royal College of Music).

Julia Horan CDG

Casting Director

For Kiln/Tricycle: Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) (also Criterion Theatre), The Wife of Willesden (also BAM/ART Boston), Girl on an Altar, Pass Over, Red Velvet (also Garrick Theatre/St Ann’s Warehouse).

Recent theatre credits include: Oedipus (Wyndham’s Theatre); Kyoto (RSC); Player Kings (Noel Coward Theatre/Tour); Opening Night (Gielgud Theatre); King Lear, Romeo & Juliet, The Clinic, A Streetcar Named Desire, Macbeth, The Duchess of Malfi, Three Sisters, The Wild Duck, Machinal, The Writer, The Treatment, Oil, Uncle Vanya, Medea, Game, Mr Burns, Before the Party (Almeida Theatre); The Doctor (Almeida/Duke of York’s/Park Ave Armory, New York); The Twilight Zone (Almeida Theatre/Ambassadors Theatre); Summer and Smoke, Mary Stuart (Almeida Theatre/Duke of York’s Theatre); Oresteia (Almeida Theatre/ Trafalgar Studios/Park Ave Armory); Hamlet, Chimerica (Almeida Theatre/Harold Pinter); School Girls; or the African Mean Girls Play, Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith); Tambo & Bones (Theatre Royal Stratford East); A Little Life (Harold Pinter Theatre/Savoy Theatre); Sons of the Prophet (Hampstead Theatre); The Jungle (Young Vic Theatre/Playhouse Theatre/Curran, San Francisco/St Anne’s Warehouse, New York); A View from the Bridge (Young Vic/Wyndham’s Theatre/Kennedy Centre, New York); The Events (Actors Touring Company/Young Vic); Blood Wedding, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, Fun Home, Yellowman, Wings, Life of Galileo, Once in a Lifetime, Blue/Orange, The Trial, Ah, Wilderness (Young Vic); The Inheritance (Young Vic Theatre/Noel Coward Theatre); Yerma (Young Vic Theatre/Park Ave Armory); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Young Vic Theatre/Apollo Theatre); Appropriate (Donmar Warehouse); All About Eve (Noel Coward Theatre); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace Theatre); The Inheritance (Young Vic Theatre/Noel Coward Theatre); Yerma (Young Vic Theatre/Park Ave Armory); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Young Vic Theatre/Apollo Theatre); Obsession, Hamlet (Barbican); City of Glass (59 Productions); Martyr (ATC); Hope, The Internet is Serious Business, Wolf from the Door, Adler & Gibb, Birdland, Khandan, The Mistress Contract, The Pass, Pigeons, Gastronauts (Royal Court Theatre); The Nether (Royal Court/Duke of York’s Theatre); Spring Awakening, The Seagull (Headlong); A Doll’s House (Duke of York’s Theatre/BAM) and The Lighthouse Keeper (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group).

Recent television/film credits include: Together (BAFTA Winner Single Drama), Hamlet, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere, The Exception, Departure and The Trial – A Murder in the Family.

Gurkiran Kaur

Voice and Dialect Coach

For Kiln Theatre: NW Trilogy

Theatre credits include: The Secret Garden (Regents Park Open Air Theatre); Dugsi Dayz (Royal Court); Red Pitch (Soho Place/Bush Theatre); The Cord, A Playlist For The Revolution, Paradise Now, The P Word, Favour (Bush Theatre); Sweat, Great Expectations (Royal Exchange Manchester); The Buddha of Suburbia, Falkland Sounds, The Empress (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Frankie Goes To Bollywood (Watford Palace); This Much I Know, Lotus Beauty (Hampstead Theatre); The Enormous Crocodile: The Musical (Leeds Playhouse), A Poem For Rabia (Tarragon Theatre Toronto); Brassic FM (Gate Theatre); I Wanna Be Yours (Melbourne Theatre Company); Wuthering Heights, Unexpected Twist (Royal & Derngate); Anansi The Spider, Marvin’s Binoculars (Unicorn Theatre); I Wonder If…, Chasing Hares, Best of Enemies (Young Vic); A Dead Body in Taos (Fuel Theatre); Silence (Donmar Warehouse); The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Simon Friend Entertainment); Finding Home (Curve Leicester); The Climbers (Theatre by The Lake); Offside (Futures Theatre); Henry VIII (Shakespeare’s Globe); Queens of Sheba (Soho Theatre); How To Save The Planet When You’re A Young Career & Broke (Roundhouse); Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Good Karma Hospital (ITV/Tiger Aspect Productions) and Hotel Portofino (ITV/PBS/Eagle Eye).

Maariyah Sharjil

Costume Supervisor

Maariyah Sharjil is a designer.

She is a recent first-class graduate from BA Design for Performance at the Royal Central School of speech and Drama (2021). Before her design training, Maariyah worked at Sands Films as a costume constructor.

Her most recent productions include; Costume researcher for Life of Pi (American Repertory theatre); Design associate and costume supervisor for The P-Word (Bush Theatre); Assistant Costume Supervisor for The Father and the Assassin (National Theatre) and Costume Designer for The Key Workers’ Cycle (Almeida).