Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre today announces full cast and creative team for the brand new adaptation of Ben Okri’s Every Leaf A Hallelujah, adapted and directed by Chinonyerem Odimba (22 May – 10 June, press performance 25 May, 11am).
The full cast includes Hannah Akhalu (Jack V Giant) as Mangoshi, Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah (The Color Purple, Waitress West End) as Mummy, Florence Odumosu (2:22 A Ghost Story at Lyric and Criterion Theatres) as Boabab Tree, and Fred Smiley (The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots UK Tour) as Daddy.
Tickets for Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre 2023 are on sale: www.openairtheatre.com.
CAST BIOGS
Hannah Akhalu (Mangoshi)
Hannah Akhalu is an actor and theatre practitioner born and raised in East London. Since finishing her training, she has worked with Little Angel Theatre, Almeida Theatre and Orange Tree Theatre.
Training: East 15 Acting School
Theatre includes: Jack V Giant (Polka Theatre); Handa’s Surprise (Little Angel Theatre).
Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah (Mummy)
Training: The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance
Theatre includes: The Color Purple (UK Tour); Waitress (Adelphi Theatre); Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (Palace Theatre); Recognition (Talawa Theatre); The Color Purple (Leicester Curve/Birmingham Hippodrome); Seussical (Selladoor Theatre Company/International Tour); Cinderella (Jordan Productions); Cinderella (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); Hairspray (Regent’s Theatre); Oliva Tweest (The Other Palace); Blues Brothers (Icon Theatrical/European Tour); Muscovado (Burnt Out Theatre); Love Beyond (Commissioned Productions).
Television includes: Autopsy, Break Up of the Bands (ITV).
Film includes: White Girl (Bullion Productions); Hummingbird (Lionsgate); Cemetery Junction (Columbia Pictures); Street Dance (Vertigo Films).
Florence Odumosu (Boabab Tree)
Theatre includes: 2:22 A Ghost Story (Lyric and Criterion Theatres); Black Is The Colour Of My Voice (UK Tour, Seabright Productions); Christmas Dinner (The Royal Lyceum Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Pitlochry Festival Theatre); Sh*tfaced Showtime: Alice Through the Cocktail Glass (Underbelly Festival); Into The Woods (Cockpit Theatre); Birdwoman (Bush Theatre); Intelligent (Arcola Theatre) and Eight Percent (Theatre 503).
Fred Smiley (Daddy)
Training: Colin’s Performing Arts and Colchester Institute
Theatre includes: Kinky Boots (UK Tour); The Book of Mormon (Prince of Wales).
Television includes: Michael McIntyre's Big Show (Theatre Royal Drury Lane).
CREATIVE BIOGS
Chinonyerem Odimba (Adaptor & Director)
Chinonyerem Odimba is a Nigerian British playwright, screenwriter, poet and director. She is currently the Artistic Director and CEO of tiata fahdozi.
Chinonyerem’s recent work ranges from Medea at Bristol Old Vic, We Too, Are Giants for Kiln Theatre, Unknown Rivers at Hampstead Theatre, Prince and the Pauper at Watermill Theatre, The Seven Ages of Patience at Kiln Theatre, and Princess & The Hustler which toured across the UK for Eclipse Theatre/Bristol Old Vic/Hull Truck. More recently Chinonyerem has written for Young Vic Theatre on the experimental AI play, RSC/Coventry City of Culture 2021 Faith, and is currently under commission with ETT for Who is She, a projection mapping project, and Kiln Theatre, as well as new commissions for BBC Radio 3 and Kiln Theatre.
In 2022, Chinonyerem won the WGGB Writer’s Guild Award for Best Musical Bookwriting for her play Black Love and in 2023 was named on The Stage 100, a list of the hundred most influential people working in theatre.
Chinonyerem’s TV credits includes Scotch Bonnet for BBC Three and A Blues for Nia for BBC/Eclipse Theatre, Adulting for Channel 4, and more recently My Best Friend Married a Warrior for CBBC.
For radio, credits include The Last Flag, and Eve as part of This Is Your Country, Now series on BBC Radio 4.
As a director, Chinonyerem has worked for Bristol Old Vic, Theatre503 and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, as well a new drama Braids by Olivia Hannah for Live Theatre/BBC Radio 4. In January 2022, Chinonyerem directed a new play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm ‘When the Long Trick’s Over’ for HighTide Theatre, and more recently directed her new play Black Love at Kiln Theatre.
Heather Basten (Casting Director)
Heather Basten is an English casting director based in London. She has been recognised as a Screen International ‘Star of Tomorrow’, a BAFTA Breakthrough Artist, CDG Award Winner and CSA Artios Nominee. Heather has most recently cast Dreaming Whilst Black, the first UK TV series commissioned from A24 (Euphoria, Ladybird, Moonlight Helmers), which will air later this year.
Film includes: House of Spoils (Amazon/Blumhouse); The Guests (Universal/Blumhouse) The Origin (Animal Kingdom/Escape Plan/Selkie Productions).
Theatre includes: Beneatha’s Place (Young Vic); Red Pitch (Bush Theatre); God of Carnage (Lyric Hammersmith).
Ewa Dina (Associate Director)
Ewa is a Nigerian-born, Sheffield raised and now London-based human who trained as an actor at Rose Bruford. Since graduating, she has gone on to work as an actor, director, facilitator & poet. Music and movement are integral parts of Ewa’s process; she is a confident mover.
Ewa wants to create and be part of stories that help us to expand our empathy and humanity. She likes to lead rooms with compassion and flexibility to reflect this.
Ewa is associate director at Nouveau Riche and 1/4 of No-Table Productions.
As a facilitator, Ewa has worked for Company Three, The Institute of Contemporary Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, amongst others.
Ingrid Mackinnon (Movement Director & Season Associate - Intimacy Support)
Ingrid Mackinnon is a London based movement director, choreographer and intimacy director.
For Regent’s Park: Once On This Island; Antigone; 101 Dalmatians; Legally Blonde; Carousel (Intimacy Support), Romeo and Juliet (Movement Director/Winner of Best Choreographer at the Black British Theatre Awards 2021).
As Movement Director and Choreographer, theatre includes: The Meaning of Zong (Barbican/Bristol Old Vic/UK Tour); Blue (ENO); Further than the Furthest Thing (Young Vic); Trouble in Butetown (Donmar Warehouse); Enough of Him (National Theatre of Scotland); A Dead Body In Taos (Fuel Theatre); The Darkest Part of The Night, Girl on an Altar (Kiln); Playboy of the West Indies (Birmingham Rep); Moreno (Theatre 503); Red Riding Hood (Stratford East); Antigone (Mercury, Colchester); Liminal – Le Gateau Chocolat (King’s Head); First Encounters: The Merchant Of Venice, Kingdom Come (RSC); Josephine (Theatre Royal Bath); Typical (Soho); #WeAreArrested (Arcola/RSC); The Border (Theatre Centre).
Intimacy credits include:
Es & Flo (Wales Millennium Centre); Phaedra (National Theatre); Super High Resolution (Soho Theatre); Enough of Him (National Theatre of Scotland); Girl on an Altar (Kiln Theatre).
Ingrid holds an MA in Movement: Directing and Teaching from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Ben Okri (Writer)
Ben Okri is a poet, playwright, and novelist. Among his many accomplishments, he has published Booker Prize winner The Famished Road and Astonishing the Gods, which was selected as one of the BBC’s ‘100 novels that shaped our world.’ In 2018, he adapted Camus’ The Outsider for The Coronet Theatre to much critical acclaim, which won The Offies Award for Best Theatre Production. His most recent works include the novel The Freedom Artist, a volume of short stories, Prayer for the Living, his latest book of poems, A Fire in my Head, and his environmental fable for all ages, Every Leaf a Hallelujah.
He has published eleven novels, including Starbook, The Age of Magic, and Dangerous Love, four books of Short Stories, two collections of essays, and three volumes of poems. He has invented a new form of storytelling called the ‘Stoku’, which is a cross between the short story and the haiku. His works have been translated into 27 languages. He has been a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was awarded an OBE.
Ben Okri’s books have won numerous international Prizes including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Africa, the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the Chianti Ruffino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize.
Khadija Raza (Designer)
Training: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
For Regent’s Park: Antigone.
Theatre includes: The Flood (Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch); Talking About a Revolution (The Barn); Julius Caesar (Globe/ UK Tour); Sundown Kiki; Love Reign; The American Dream 2.0 (Young Vic); 10 Nights (Graeae/ Tamasha Theatre in association with the Bush); Bach & Sons (Bridge Theatre); Skin Hunger (Dante or Die); Augmented (Told by an Idiot/ Royal Exchange Theatre); Funeral Flowers (The Roundhouse/ Tour); The Bee in Me (Unicorn Theatre); White Pariahs (The Albany Theatre); A History of Water in the Middle East (Royal Court); Great Ormond Street Hospital – Binaural Project (Unicorn Theatre/Great Ormond Street Hospital); The King of Hell’s Palace (Hampstead Theatre); Fly the Flag/Writing Wrongs (Donmar Warehouse); My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid) (Bunker Theatre); Cacophony (Almeida and The Yard); Philoxenia, I Want You To Admire Me/ But You Shouldn’t (Camden People’s Theatre); Loki and Cassie – A Love Story (Almeida); Spun (Arcola Theatre); No One Is Coming To Save You (Bunker Theatre/Edinburgh Festival); Mixtape (Royal Exchange Theatre); Hijab Monologues (Bush Theatre); The Unknown Island (Gate Theatre).
Opera includes: Dido (Unicorn Theatre); Opera Makers (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); L’heure Espagnole, Gianni Schicci (Opera Nationale de Lorraine).
Riwa Saab (Sound Designer)
Riwa Saab is a cross-disciplinary artist who works with space, sound, and words. She started writing and performing her own original music and poetry while growing up in Beirut, and quickly moved into theatre-making as an embodied way of story-telling.
Training: Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Theatre includes: You Bury Me as assistant director (Bristol Old Vic, Lyceum Edinburgh, Orange Tree Theatre); What Will I Tell My Children? as director, deviser, performer; Between: A New Musical as director and dramaturg (Barbican).
Sound Design includes: A Guest (Vaults Festival); Maryland (Riverside Studios, National Youth Theatre); Babel (Camden People's Theatre); Butterflies of Life (Jermyn Street Theatre); Redbrick (Jermyn Street Theatre); Human Nurture as associate sound designer (Theatre Centre, UK Tour).
Abdul Shylon (Voice & Singing Director)
Theatre includes: Secret Cinema; NW Trilogy, Black Love, The Darkest Night, Wife of Wilsden (Kiln).
Television includes: The League of Gentlemen (BBC).
Film includes: The Last Line, Perfect, Engineer.
Abdul has also worked with Kano, Omar, Matt Bianco, Mark de Clive Lowe, DJ Spinna, Noisettes, Stereophonics, Crystal Fighters, Arthur Beatrice, Larry Gaaga & Patto Rankin, Lilys Kitchen, Ballymore, Gap, Evesleep, Box Clever Theatre Company, The young Vic, Apples & Snakes, BAC, City Academy, Goldsmith's University, Rose Bruford, Brixton House, Magic Radio.
Sura Susso (Composer, Musical Director & Musician)
Surahata Susso, also known as Sura Susso is a young and prodigious kora player, percussionist and composer from Gambia, West Africa. Sura is from the griot tradition, a lineage of hereditary musicians in West African, keeping the culture, history and tradition alive through music. He came to the UK in 2004, at age 17 to perform as the percussionist of the popular Seckou Keita Quintet who toured all over the world until 2010. He also started composing music and performing as a solo artist in many prestigious venues and festivals across the UK and the Gambia. He also regularly opened shows for the likes of Baaba Maal (Glastonbury Festival) or Buika (Barbican). Sura released his much anticipated second album in March 2021 called ‘Tili Saba’. Tili Saba comes nearly a decade after his debut album, Sila Kang. The carries the listener on a journey across periods and settings, immersing them in the warm and uplifting sounds of Gambian music including traditional, acoustic, and more modern upbeat sounds.
