Click on the links on the left to find out who does what at Escape Artists -

The Bridge

and see how they're involved in turning our model of
socially inclusive arts practice into a reality

WORKSHOP LEADERS

Megan Bunting

Gained a degree major in Theatre in Canada, where she hails from. Since then she has worked widely as a drama teacher, acting coach, and as a professional actor in touring theatre companies. Megan's experience with drama based projects in the criminal justice system began with her work at the Department of Justice Canada.

During her time in England, Megan has successfully piloted drama workshops with Havering Youth Offending Team. She is currently studying for an MA in Cross-Sectoral Community Arts at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Richmond Trew

Has been working within the arts and criminal justice sector for over 12 years as an actor, musician and workshop leader. He has toured for many years with Insight Arts, and worked on a number of projects with Escape Artists.

Chris Streeks

Is an actor, trainer and workshop leader who is passionately committed to supporting and developing marginalised young people in fulfilling their aims.

He has worked and trained widely with the RSC,and in Voice Technique and Movement. He has performed for the BBC, MTV and at the Royal Opera House. He regularly gives talks, performances and workshops in schools, YOIs and prisons. He has a Community Sports Leader Award, a Basketball Leader Award and continues to train as an amateur boxer. He has recently published his first book, Letters To A Young Person

More about Chris in the Talks and More section

Julian Forrester (Chair)
Is a freelance arts manager with 30 years' experience of fundraising, budgeting, project planning/delivery and resource management. He is currently the manager of Cove Park: an international centre based in Scotland for the arts and creative industries.

Cathy Dunbar
Is the Service Co-ordinator at the Castle Project in Cambridge, a registered charity providing support to vulnerable young people.

Geraldine Poore
Is a solicitor with strong expertise in training, equal opportunities and management.

Tessa Mitchell
Has extensive experience of working with young disadvantaged people and of developing projects in both the formal and community education sectors.

Amanda Matravers
Is the Deputy Director of the degree course in Applied Criminology and Police Studies at the University of Cambridge, where she is also a lecturer.

Sue Hains
Formerly the Development Adviser for the PLUS Strategy; her background is in education, arts and the criminal justice sector.

Follow the links to find out more about individual patrons and how they came to be involved with Escape Artists.

Harold Pinter

Sir Ludovic Kennedy

Dame Beryl Bainbridge

Deborah Bull CBE

Roger Waters

Born 10 October 1930 in East London, playwright, director, actor, poet and political activist.

Pinter has written twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal, twenty-one screenplays including The Servant, The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and many of his own plays including his latest, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000.


He has been awarded the Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature (Vienna), the Pirandello Prize (Palermo), the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He has received honorary degrees from fourteen universities.


Pinter's interest in politics is a very public one. Over the years he has spoken out forcefully about the abuse of state power around the world, including, recently, NATO's bombing of Serbia. His most recent speech was given on the anniversary of NATO'S bombing of Serbia at the Committee for Peace in the Balkans Conference, at The Conway Hall June 10th 2000.

www.haroldpinter.org

Harold Pinter became a patron of Escape Artists in 1996 shortly before he saw the company's inaugural production (The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter) at the Etcetera Theatre in London.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy was born in Edinburgh in 1919. His father, Captain E. C. Kennedy, died heroically in command of HMS Rawlpindi, and he himself served in the Royal Navy throughout the war, mainly in destroyers., taking part in the pursuit of the Bismarck. He enjoyed a long career as a campaigning television journalist, and his book 10, Rillington Place, helped change British law. He was knighted in 1994.

Dame Beryl Bainbridge was born in Lancashire on 21 November 1934. She was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in Liverpool and worked as an actress at Liverpool Repertory Theatre. She was awarded a DBE in 2000. She wrote her first novel, Harriet Said, during the 1950s, although it was not published until 1972.

Her first published novel, A Weekend with Claud, appeared in 1967 (revised edition 1981), and was followed by Another Part of the Wood (1968), and The Dressmaker (1973), adapted as a film in 1989. The Bottle Factory Outing (1974) won the Guardian Fiction Prize and Injury Time (1977) won the Whitbread Novel Award. An Awfully Big Adventure (1989) drew on her experiences as an actress working in Liverpool during the 1950s and was adapted as a film. Her more recent novels, based on real lives and historical events, include The Birthday Boys (1991), the story of Captain Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition; Every Man For Himself (1996), set on board the Titanic; and Master Georgie (1998), chronicling a young surgeon's adventures during the Crimean War. Every Man for Himself won the Whitbread Novel Award and Master Georgie won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), the WH Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, According to Queeney (2001), is the story of Dr Johnson's relationship with Hester Thrale.

Beryl Bainbridge lives in north London.

Beryl Bainbridge's association with Escape Artists goes back to the days when the founder members of the company were still based at HMP Wayland. She very kindly visited the prison drama group to advise it on its production of Terra Nova by Ted Tally. Beryl had just written The Birthday Boys (see above) which, like Terra Nova, was based on Captain Scott's Antarctic expedition.

She was born on 22 March 1963 and joined The Royal Ballet in 1981.

She had a 20 year career with The Royal Ballet until 2001, reaching the rank of Principal Dancer in 1992 and touring the world with the company.

Alongside her career on the stage, she taught nutrition at the Royal Ballet School between 1996 and 1999, and established the Royal Opera House Artists' Development Initiative in the Clore Studio Upstairs in 1999.

She has written and presented several programmes and series for the BBC including Dance Ballerina, Dance (1998), Leaving Barons Court (1999), The Dancer's Body (2002), Travels with my Tutu (1998), Breaking the Law (2001) and Law in Order (2002).

Since 1998, she has been a member of Arts Council England and she served on the board of the South Bank Centre from 1997 to 2003.

Deborah Bull was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1999 to 2001 and a contributing editor for Harpers & Queen in 2000.

She has written two books, The Vitality Plan (1998) and Dancing Away (1999), as well as The Faber Guide to Ballet for publication in September 2004.

She has been Artistic Director of ROH2, a programme of small-scale and developmental work at the Royal Opera House, since 2002.

www.deborahbull.com

As the Director of the Royal Opera House Artists' Development Initiative (see above) Deborah Bull invited Escape Artists to present the first ever play to be performed at the Royal Opera House soon after it was re-opened in 1999. Blagger, the company's own devised play, ran in the the Clore Studio Upstairs for three weeks.

Roger Waters grew up in Cambridge and with Syd Barrett was a founding member of Pink Floyd.

In 1968, when Barrett's deteriorating mental health led to his departure from the band, Roger set the band's artistic direction, along with co-writer, guitarist, and singer David Gilmour, who had joined the band to augment, and then replace, Barrett. Together, they brought Pink Floyd to world fame, producing a series of albums, including dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

In July 1990, as part of a project in aid of the Leonard Cheshire Memorial Fund For Disaster Relief, Roger masterminded a massive performance of The Wall by the remains of the Berlin Wall. This ambitious event was televised around the world and at the time was the biggest concert ever staged.

After leaving Pink Floyd, Roger embarked on a solo career: producing three concept albums and a movie soundtrack. After Amused to Death in 1992, he spent much of the 1990s composing an opera about the French Revolution entitled Ça Ira, which is to be released as a CD/DVD set by Sony Classical in September of 2005.

After the tsunami disaster of December 2004, Roger performed Wish You Were Here with Eric Clapton at the NBC benefit concert. On June 12, 2005 it was announced that he and Pink Floyd would reunite for a performance at the Live 8 concert in London, on July 2.

The announced Pink Floyd Live 8 performance went on as planned, playing a four song, 20-minute set. Before going into Wish You Were Here, Roger gave an uncharacteristically emotional introduction, remarking on the sentiment of playing with his former bandmates, of Live8, and of the song's inspiration, former Floyd leader Syd Barrett.

Of his latest work, Ça Ira, Roger has said:

"It's not just a piece about the French Revolution, it's about revolution in a much broader sense, and it's about the capacity that human beings have for personal change... The piece is an exultation and an encouragement to those of us who believe the human race can discover its humanity and its capacity for empathy to the point where it may be possible for us at some point to guarantee the basic human rights of the individual (around the world)."

www.roger-waters.com

One of Roger Waters' earliest compositions is a song set in Cambridge: Grantchester Meadows from the album Ummagumma. Escape Artists approached Roger's management company to see if we could use the song in our forthcoming production, Adoreus - a Cambridge Cantata. Permission was granted; Roger then expressed an interest in finding out more about the project and the work of Escape Artists, which resulted in him becoming a patron of the charity in July 2005.