the beat of our hearts
  • logo of the beat of our hearts -- a pink heart with an eighties style font of block text in the middle of the heart, reading the beat of our hearts.

    • the beat of our hearts

    Creative Team

    Naomi Turner

    Picture of Noami Turner - black and white in profile. She has frizzy hair and is smiling. Naomi (she/her) is the producer of our play, The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Naomi works part-time at Exeter Phoenix programming the theatre and creating talent development opportunities for local artists, and is also a freelance producer, theatre & filmmaker. She has created award-winning short dance films as Co-Artistic Director of LeMoon, most recently ‘Scapelands’; a BBC commission as part of the New Creatives scheme, which had its TV premiere last year on BBC4.

    This year she produced a new series of radio plays with Documental Theatre exploring the experiences of carers & people in support roles, funded by the Audio Content Fund, which is being broadcast on various radio stations across the UK throughout Autumn 2021. She is currently producing Quirk Theatre’s newest family show ‘Rhia and the Tree of Lights’ for this winter.
    Naomi is incredibly excited to come on board to produce ‘The Beats of our Hearts’, after having previously collaborated with Natalie McGrath to deliver Come As You Are Festival at Exeter Phoenix in 2019, as well as working with the Wellcome Centre over the past few years to deliver Exeter Phoenix’s Mental Health Awareness Festival ‘BLOOM’.

    Sophie Cottle

    Picture shows a colour portrait of Sophie. She has shoulder length chestnut hair and is wearing a black top. She is smiling into the camera.Sophie is the Movement Director for The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Sophie is a Theatre Maker from Bristol, with acceptance and humanity at the centre of her work. Movement directing credits include: ‘Little Women in Black’ (The Wardrobe Theatre), ‘Nora: A Doll’s House’, ‘Chaos’, ‘Zero for the Young Dudes!’ (The Egg), ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ (Cheltenham Everyman), ‘Unlocked and Unbolted’ & ‘Great Expectations’ (The Corn Exchange, Newbury), ‘The Crusaders’ (The Kings Theatre, Portsmouth).

    Sophie also created site responsive works ‘After Party’ & ‘Icarus’ with Emile Clarke, as part of a socially-distanced festival, in a disused factory in Bedminster, in association with Gathering Voices.  

    Sophie has over 10 years experience as a freelance facilitator. Most recently becoming a Dance Artist with Flamingo Chicks, an award-winning inclusive company working disabled children and those with life-limiting illnesses. In Autumn 2021, Sophie collaborated with the British Paraorcestra on their production of SMOOSH!. 

    Passionate about change, Sophie is an Associate Artist at Rising Arts Agency; a creative social enterprise in Bristol. In 2020, she was commissioned to create a digital poetry collection ‘The Abrupt Pause’ – three poems were featured on billboards across the city as part of the #WhoseFuture2 care and wellbeing campaign. Sophie’s work with Rising includes being a Creative Consultant with the National Trust on their Youth Engagement Programme.

    Training as an actor at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Sophie graduated in 2016 and has worked as a performer and puppeteer ever since; her most recent credit being the title role in ‘Charmane’ with gender non-conforming company Raised Eyebrows Theatre (UK tour).   Sophie’s need for social change, inclusive approach and desire to tell visual stories is what really excites her about working as the Movement Director on ‘The Beat of Our Hearts’. 

     

    Scott Hurran

    Picture shows a black and white portrait of Scott, who is pictured with shoulder length hair and a beard.Scott is the Director for The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Scott Hurran is a Leverhulme Arts Scholar. He is the Artistic Director of Ecclesia and was previously Artistic Associate at Eastern Angles.  Scott received the 2020 New Creatives commission from BBC Arts and Screen South 

    Theatre includes: [As Director] Fluid by James McDermott (Eastern Angles) Patient Light by Simon Longman (Eastern Angles) Signal Fires (Hightide/Eastern Angles) Paper Cut (Theatre503) Spare Change by James McDermott (Hightide staged reading) Sonny by Deborah Bruce  (Arts Ed) The Tide Jetty by Tony Ramsay, Oh What a Lovely Food War, We are British (Eastern Angles) Brainstorm, Macbeth, Our Town (Farrer Theatre); Hidden (UK Tour); Counting Stars, Shortlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, (Assembly, Edinburgh Fringe); The House of Bernarda Alba (Kings Head Theatre); Three to Four Days (Theatre 503); Immigrant (Theatre Uncut, Young Vic); The Grandfathers (National Theatre Connections, Theatre Chipping Norton and Oxford Playhouse); The Seventh Continent(Prague Quadrennial). 

    [As Assistant Director] Botticelli in the Fire, dir. Blanche McIntyre (Hampstead Theatre) Women in Power dir. Blanche McIntyre (Nuffield Theatre, and Oxford Playhouse) I Call my Brothers dir.Tinuke Craig (Gate Theatre); Theatre Uncut dir. Emma Callander  (Young Vic); The Precariat dir. Chris New (Finborough Theatre); This Same England dir. Elizabeth Freestone (The Royal Shakespeare Company and Pentabus Theatre).

    Film includes: [As Director] Pecking Birds (Ex Animo Fund); Career Boy (Official Selection Raindance Film Festival); Medicine Man (Official Selection Cannes Film Festival, Short Film Category).

    Radio: [As Director/Writer] The Blackwater Mermaids (BBC ARTS) Plucking Nose Hairs.

     

    Pete Butler

    Picture shows a colour portrait of Peter, who looks sideways onto the camera. He has short hair and a beard and is wearing a white t-shirt against a pale blue background.Pete is the Designer for The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Peter is a Winner of the 2021 Linbury Prize for Stage Design. Credits include: Patient Light (UK tour) Paper Cut (Theatre 503); Since U Been Gone (VAULT Festival); Prague Quadrennial Emergence Festival (The V&A). As Associate Designer: Cabaret Prologue (Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre) As Assistant Designer: Arrangement/ Decommission (Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio). 

     

     

     

     

     

    Tom Foskett-Barnes

    Picture shows a black and white portrait of Tom, who is pictured in profile with a neutral expressionTom is the Sound Designer and Composer for The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Tom Foskett-Barnes is a composer and sound designer working across film, theatre and sound art. Screen credits include Oscar-nominated short documentary ‘Black Sheep’ and Bafta-nominated short film ‘toni_with_an_i’. For stage, Tom has worked the at theatres including Old Vic, the Arcola, Soho Theatre and The Globe.

    In 2016 Tom was Sound and Music Composer in Residence with ROLI as part of the Embedded_Innovate Scheme and in 2017 Tom was selected as part of the Old Vic 12. Tom’s audio documentaries about the UK’s queer history, ‘Living with the Light On’ and ‘Quilts of Love’, were both broadcast by the BBC and produced in collaboration with ICA, the Chisenhale Gallery and NTS. 

    Tom trained at the Royal College of Music as a SoirĂ©e d’Or Scholar generously supported by a Clifton Parker Award and was also the recipient of a BAFTA UK Scholarship. Tom is a participant in the 2019 BFI NETWORK x BAFTA Crew programme.

     

    Jamie Platt

    Portrait shows a black and white picture of Jamie, who has short hair, is smiling and wears a black top.Jamie is the Lighting Designer on The Beat of Our Hearts.

    Jamie trained at RWCMD and has been nominated for five Offie Awards, a Knight of Illumination Award and a BroadwayWorld Award. 

    Lighting designs include: The Last Five Years (West End); Jellyfish (National Theatre); Moonlight and Magnolias (Nottingham Playhouse); Either, Paradise, Yous Two (Hampstead Theatre); Anna Karenina (Guildhall); Le Grand Mort (Trafalgar Studios); Gently Down The Stream, Alkaline (Park Theatre); Absurd Person Singular (Watford Palace Theatre); Mythic (Charing Cross Theatre); Beast, Klippies (Southwark Playhouse); Singin’ in the Rain (The Mill at Sonning); To Dream Again (Theatr Clwyd & Polka Theatre); Blood Orange, The Moor, Where Do Little Birds Go? (Old Red Lion Theatre); Checkpoint Chana, Quaint Honour, P’yongyang, We Know Where You Live, Chicken Dust (Finborough Theatre); Vincent River (Hope Mill Theatre); Pattern Recognition (Platform Theatre & world tour); Reared, Screwed, Grey Man (Theatre 503); Sonny, Once on this Island (ArtsEd); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, The Herd, The Wonderful World of Dissocia (RCSSD); Scenes from the End of the World, The Act (Yard Theatre). 

    Associate lighting designs include: Disney’s Frozen, INK, The Night of the Iguana, The Starry Messenger, Bitter Wheat (West End); SIX (West End, UK tour & International); Albion, The Hunt, Three Sisters, Machinal (Almeida Theatre).

    Wabriya King

    Portrait of Wabriya in black and white. Wabriya is looking directly at the camera and has a neutral expression. She is wearing a stripey top and large hoop earrings.

    Wabriya graduated as an actress from The Oxford School of Drama in 2012 and qualified with an MA in Dramatherapy from the University of Roehampton in 2019. She believes that the arts have a responsibility to its performers to support their mental health wellbeing. This is clearly a shared belief as her work is gaining momentum within theatre and screen.

    Wabriya recently became the Production Dramatherapist at the Bush Theatre supporting staff and productions, including: Old Bridge, 10 Nights, Overflow, Pink Lemonade and Lava.

    Separate to the Bush Theatre, Wabriya worked alongside: Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre); Can I Live? (Complicite); Get Up Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical (Lyric Theatre); White Noise (Bridge Theatre); Is God Is (Royal Court Theatre); Curious (Soho Theatre); For Black Boys
 (New Diorama); Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse); Blue/Orange (Royal & Derngate); Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Death Of A Black Man (Hampstead Theatre); Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner (Royal Court Theatre); Shuck ‘n’ Jive (Soho Theatre); Sessions, May Queen, Black Love (Paines Plough); 846 Live (Theatre Royal Stratford East); TYPICAL (Soho Theatre); The High Table (Bush Theatre).