Leeds Grand Youth Theatre

Dawn Holgate: Choreographer

Dawn Holgate is Course Leader for the Foundation Dance Degree at Leeds City College. She is also an avid community dance practitioner in Leeds and across the East Riding of Yorkshire, where she currently coordinates 11 youth dance groups and is the Artistic Director of the East Riding Youth Dance County Company.

Dawn is currently studying for her Master’s Degree in Choreography at Leeds Beckett University and her interests lie in themes associated with cultural and personal identity and community dance.

Pete Rosser: Musical Director

Pete is a composer, pianist, accordionist and songwriter, working in community music and theatre across the UK for over 30 years. Specialist subjects: jazz, tango and improvisation.

www.peterosser.co.uk

Robin Simpson 

Robin is a professional actor, storyteller and writer based in West Yorkshire. His many acting credits include Northern Broadsides, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre and York Theatre Royal (including the Olivier Award winning ‘The Railway Children’), and he is the resident Dame in The Lawrence Batley’s Theatre annual pantomime. His storytelling has been performed in libraries, schools and museums up and down the country including the Summer Reading Challenge and Manchester Jewish Museum.

@RobinCSimpson

Nickie Miles-Wildin

Nickie has previously worked with the Leeds Actors In Training and we are delighted to welcome her back. Nickie is Associate Director for Graeae Theatre Company and has a wide and varied career as a writer, director and workshop facilitator. Nickie is best known for her role as Miranda in the London Paralympics Opening Ceremony 2012, co-directed by Jenny Sealey.

@knockback78

Testament

Testament is a Hip-Hop MC, writer, theatre maker and world record breaking human beatboxer. Testament’s work includes the celebrated Hip-Hop album Homecut: No Freedom Without Sacrifice, as well as several spoken word performances for BBC Radio. In 2019 he was Channel 4 Writer in Residence at Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester.

Testament is currently touring his new one-man show, WOKE (The Roundhouse, Royal Exchange Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse & Camden’s People’s Theatre). He wrote award-winning BBC Radio 4 drama The Beatboxer and his play Black Men Walking, toured nationally in 2018 and was nominated for Best New Play at the UK Theatre Awards and for Best Play at the Writer’s Guild Awards.

He’s worked with a diverse range of people including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ray Parker Jnr and the originator of Hip-Hop himself DJ Kool Herc. Testament’s poetry has been published in several anthologies and has been used a teaching resource in the UK and in over 14 countries around the world. Testament was also a judge for The BBC Young Writers’ Award with First Story & Cambridge University in 2019.

@testamentonline

Sam Kenyon

Sam Kenyon is a writer, composer and teacher based in London. He read English at Cambridge University before training in Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. After performing for twelve years, he began directing and composing.

In 2016 he wrote the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation, which toured nationally, and in which the mechanicals were played by local amateur companies, and the fairies by local schoolchildren. His first full-length show, Miss Littlewood, based on the life of maverick theatre director, Joan Littlewood, premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2018.

He has taught singing for over twenty years to professional singers and actors, focussing especially on technical safety and vocal development, as well as on repertoire and style.

@ogleforth