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simple8 in association with Park Theatre presents the World Premiere of

Don't Sleep There Are Snakes

A new play by Sebastian Armesto and Dudley Hinton with simple8

Cast: Mark Arends, Christopher Doyle, Rachel Handshaw, Yuriri NakaEmily Pennant-Rea and Clifford Samuel


Biographies

Mark Arends

Trained: LAMDA 

Theatre includes: The Angry Brigade (The Bush Theatre); The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (Royal Shakespeare Company); 1984 (Almeida/Headlong); Beauty And The Beast, The U.N. Inspector, A Dream Play (National Theatre); Cat In The Hat (National Theatre/Young Vic/Theatre de la Ville, Paris); Love's Comedy, Alison's House (Orange Tree Theatre); Marianne Dreams (Almeida); Macbeth, The May Queen, Urban Legend (Liverpool Everyman); The Glass Menagerie, Henry V, What Every Woman Knows (Manchester Royal Exchange); Hallelujah (Theatre503); Vieux Carre (Manchester Library Theatre); Fierce: An Urban Myth (Grid Iron Theatre Company); Tamburlaine The Great (The Rose Theatre)

Film includes: Draw On Sweet Night, Cat In The Hat, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Pride and Prejudice

Television includes: New Tricks, Doctors, Skins, The Innocence Project, Silent Witness, The Bill, Casualty, Holby City

Mark founded and runs Make Mend and Do Theatre Company. His work as a writer/director includes Something Very Far Away (Unicorn Theatre/International Tour, Off West End AwardBest Show For Young People); At The End Of Everything Else (Battersea Arts Centre/Unicorn Theatre/National Tour) and Jusqu’au Bout Du Monde (BIAM International Puppetry Festival, Paris).

For more information visit www.makemendanddo.com

 

Christopher Doyle

Trained: Webber Douglas

Christopher is co-founder of Simple8, and has produced and performed in all their productions, including: Les Enfants du Paradis, The Four Stage Of Cruelty, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Moby-Dick & The Texas Sharpshooter (all at Arcola Theatre), winning the Peter Brook Award for best ensemble in 2013 and 2015.

Other theatre includes; Of Thee I Sing (Royal Festival Hall), How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Royal Festival Hall), Macbeth (Lyric, Belfast), Soho Cinders (Soho Theatre), The Playboy of the Western World (Old Vic), The Silver Tassie (Druid/ Gaiety/ Broadway), The Hostage (Southwark Playhouse), Tombstone Tales (Beggarsbelief/ Arcola), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (The Dukes), We All Fall Down, The Echo Chamber (both with En Masse, Edinburgh Underbelly, UK Tour), Newsrevue (Canal Café), Metamorphosis (OMAC), The Boy-Friend (Jill Freud & Co), Comedy Of Vanity (Union Theatre, Edinburgh Underbelly), Dave (Ayott Productions), Riverdance (UK & World Tour).

Film includes; For Grace, Dream On, Dead Cat, Willy Woofta, Lemonade, The East Front, Rat-Run, Tiny Dancer.

 

Rachel Handshaw

Rachel Handshaw is an American actress based in London.  Recent credits include roles in the feature films, Snowden, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Edge of Tomorrow, and The Fifth Estate. Onstage in the United Kingdom, she has appeared in The Lonely Soldier Monologues at the Cockpit Theatre, Crowd as part of the ObamAmerica festival at Theatre503, The Helen Project at the Lost Theatre, Penelope who Really Cried at the White Bear Theatre, Rhinegold at The Yard, liberty equality fraternity at the Tron Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, Lethe and The Rise and Fall of Lucas Petite at The Arches, and The Wars of the Roses trilogy at the Scottish Youth Theatre. In New York City, she worked extensively in Off Broadway theatres, as well as regionally at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Hangar Theatre. Rachel trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly the RSAMD), Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and Sarah Lawrence College. 

 

Yuriri Naka

Yuriri was born in Tokyo, Japan, and trained at Rose Bruford Collage in London. This is her first project with Simple 8 theatre and she is very excited to be part of it.

Her theatre credits include: The Imaginarium (Secret Productions) and Love Suicides At Sonezaki (Wilton’s Music Hall).

Her film and TV credits include: 47 Ronin (Universal Studios), The Forest (Gramacy Pictures), Speed Racer (Warner Bros.), All That Remains (Major Oak Entertainment), Toast of London (Channel 4), Hoff The Record (Channel 5) and The Fattest Man in Britain (ITV).

Yuriri is also an experienced voice artist; she has worked with BBC, NHK, Big Finish to name a few

 

 

 

 

Emily Pennant-Rea

Emily trained at Webber Douglas.  

Theatre includes; Mary Broome,  (Orange Tree Theatre); The Four Stages of Cruelty and Les Enfants Du Paradis, (Simple8 at Arcola Theatre); Othello, (Ludlow Festival); The Entertainer, (Litchfield Garrick); Twelfth Night, (Creation Theatre); Private Lives, (Eastbourne Theatre and Tour); Charley's Aunt, (Bath Theatre Royal and Tour) and a season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Film and Radio credits include; L'uomo Perfetto, (Warner Europe), Dead Cat  (Low Fat Films) The Franchise Affair, (BBC Radio 4); The Silent Wife, One Last Dance and Our Zoo (FoxYason Music). 

 

 

 

 

Clifford Samuel

Clifford trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Recent theatre credits include the UK and US tours of David Greig’s award-winning The Events, The Lightning Child as Pentheus (Shakespeare’s Globe) and the One Man show Obama The Mamba (Leicester Curve/Lowry Salford) for which he received Best Actor Nomination at the MTA Awards.

Other theatre credits include; Troilus and Cressida (RSC/Wooster Group), The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julius Caesar as Octavius (RSC), Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice and Arden of Faversham (RSC Workshops), Mother Courage as Eilif and Statement Of Regret as Adrian Mackenzie (both National Theatre), The Changeling (Cheek By Jowl), One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Tricycle/Tour), The Girl In The Yellow Dress – Best Actor Nomination, Off West End Awards (Theatre 503/Salisbury Playhouse), Every Coin (Soho), In The Blood (Finborough), Carthage Must Be Destroyed (Theatre Royal, Bath), The Burial (Almeida), Chasing The Moment (Arcola), Exit Sign (Royal Court Rough Cuts Festival), Tierno Bokar workshop with Peter Brook at Bouffes Du Nord, Paris

TV credits include the BAFTA nominated 3 part special, The Bill: Salvation (as Tyrone), Roman’s Empire, London’s Burning and Grange Hill.

Film credits include upcoming feature Lock-In, Looking for Jacob, Betsy and Leonard, Shoot On Sight and as Charley Charles, drummer with The Blockheads in the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll