Jenny Jules is an English actress. She started her acting career as a member of the youth theatre programme at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London. [1] Her career has been closely linked with the Tricycle Theatre where she has acted numerous times; her credits there include two plays by August Wilson, both directed by Paulette Randall: Two Trains Running and Gem of the Ocean , Walk Hard by Abram Hill, Wine in the Wilderness by Alice Childress, the dramatic reconstruction (by Richard Norton-Taylor) of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, The Colour of Justice, and Lynn Nottage's Fabulation , directed by Indhu Rubasingham. In 1992, she won a Time Out Award for her portrayal of Mediyah in Pecong at the Tricycle Theatre. That same year, she appeared with Helen Mirren on the second installment of Prime Suspect for Granada Television/ITV.
Kathy Burke directed Jules in Debbie Tucker Green's Born Bad at the Hampstead Theatre, and Jules has also performed in Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues more than 100 times in the West End and elsewhere. She has performed in a variety of leading roles at the Almeida Theatre, notably in A Chain Play, Theodore Ward's Big White Fog and Harold Pinter's The Homecoming , both directed by Michael Attenborough, and in 2010, Indhu Rubasingham directed her in Lynn Nottage's Ruined . [2]
In 2009, she played Jane Pilkings in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman at the National Theatre. In 2010, she played Ruth Younger in Michael Buffong's production of A Raisin in the Sun at the Manchester Royal Exchange, a performance that won her a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2011, she returned to the role of Mama Nadi in Charles Randolph-Wright's production of Nottage's Ruined at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. That same year, Jules won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress for her turn as Mama Nadi in Ruined. [2]
In 2012, she played Mavis in Michael Buffong's production of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John at the National Theatre, and Regan in King Lear at the Almeida Theatre, directed by Michael Attenborough. In 2013 Jules spent most of the year playing Cassius in Phyllida Lloyd's all-female production of Julius Caesar , first at the Donmar Warehouse in London, later transferring to St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.[ citation needed ]
In 2014, Jules played Penny in Suzan-Lori Parks' new play, Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3, at The Public Theater in New York and then at the American Repertory Theater in Boston. She made her Broadway debut in 2016 as Tituba in Ivo van Hove's production of The Crucible at the Walter Kerr Theatre, [3] which starred Ciarán Hinds, Sophie Okonedo, and Saoirse Ronan. [4] In March of 2019, Jules took over the role of Hermione Granger (from Noma Dumezweni) in the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . [5] [6]
Since 1992, she has been married to actor Ralph Brown.[ citation needed ]
Sophie Okonedo is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA TV Awards, an Emmy Award, two Laurence Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019, both for services to drama.
The Kiln Theatre is a theatre located in Kilburn, in the London Borough of Brent, England. Since 1980, the theatre has presented a wide range of plays reflecting the cultural diversity of the area, as well as new writing, political work and verbatim reconstructions of public inquiries.
Raymond Fearon is a British actor. He played garage mechanic Nathan Cooper on ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street and voiced the centaur Firenze in the Wizarding World film series Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.
Carmen Esme Munroe, is a British actress who was born in Berbice, British Guiana, and has been a resident of the UK since the early 1950s. Munroe made her West End stage debut in 1962 and has played an instrumental role in the development of black British theatre and representation on small screen. She has had high-profile roles on stage and television, perhaps best known from the British TV sitcom Desmond's as Shirley, wife of the eponymous barber played by Norman Beaton.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Saoirse Una Ronan is an American-born Irish actress. Primarily known for her work in period dramas since adolescence, she has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards and five British Academy Film Awards.
Josie Rourke is an English theatre and film director. She is a Vice-President of the London Library and was the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre from 2012 to 2019. In 2018, she made her feature film debut with the Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated historical drama Mary Queen of Scots, starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.
Paul Arditti is a British sound designer, working mainly in the UK and the US. He specialises in designing sound systems and sound scores for theatre. He has won awards for his work on both musicals and plays, including a Tony Award, an Olivier Award, a Drama Desk Award and a BroadwayWorld.com Fans' Choice Award for Billy Elliot the Musical.
Yanna McIntosh, sometimes credited as Yanna MacIntosh, is a Jamaican-born Canadian television, movie and theatrical actress.
Ruined (2008) is an American play by Lynn Nottage. The play premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play explores the plight of women during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine is a play written by Lynn Nottage.
Helen Schlesinger is a British stage and television actress. In film and on television, she has appeared in 24 Hour Party People (2002), Rose and Maloney (2004), Sex Traffic and Dirty War (2004), Sensitive Skin (2005), Trial & Retribution (2006), Merlin (2012), The Hour (2013), and Lewis (2015).
The Great Game: Afghanistan is a British series of short plays on the history of Afghanistan and foreign intervention there, from the First Anglo-Afghan War to the present day. It is organised into three sets of four plays and draws its name from the 19th and 20th century Great Game, a geopolitical struggle for dominance between The British and Russian Empires. The main plays are linked by monologues and duologues giving historical background and verbatim theatre edited by Richard Norton-Taylor from modern figures linked with western involvement in Afghanistan, such as William Dalrymple, Hillary Clinton, Stanley McChrystal and David Richards.
Jonathan Butterell is an English choreographer, stage director, and film director. He has worked in the West End, on Broadway, and Off-Broadway.
Philippa Elaine Fanti Bennett-Warner is a British actress. She began her career as a child actress, playing young Nala in the original West End production of The Lion King (1999). She went on to earn WhatsOnStage and Ian Charleson Award nominations for her roles in the musical Caroline, or Change (2006) and Michael Grandage's King Lear (2010) respectively.
Indhu Rubasingham,, is a British theatre director and the current artistic director of the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, London. In December 2023, it was announced she would take over as Artistic Director of the National Theatre in 2025 from Rufus Norris.
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Anupama Chandrasekhar is an Indian playwright born and based in Chennai. She is known for her play The Father and the Assassin, which earned her a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Best Play and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
Rebecca Scroggs is an English actress. She has performed numerous roles in the theatre including at the Royal National Theatre, Birmingham Rep and Sheffield Crucible. She is known for playing Fiona "Tosh" Mackintosh for 63 episodes of BBC’s EastEnders in 2014.