Writer | Michèle Winstanley

Michèle is an actress, playwright and qualified sign language interpreter. She began her acting career at age ten, attending the Anna Scher Children’s Theatre in Islington. After twenty years as a jobbing actress, in the late 1990s Michèle tried her hand at writing, and in 2000 her first play, Keepers, was produced at Hampstead Theatre. This led on to commission from Soho Theatre for her second play, Edging Gently Forwards. After a break from writing to raise a daughter and learn sign language, Michèle returned to writing with Broken Water. Other writing includes: Mugs Like Us: Dorothy Slatter (Space Theatre 2017); Jacintha Said What? (Short film. Longlisted for the UK Film Festival 2022). As a freelance BSL interpreter Michèle works in and around London, specialising in community, medical, and ante natal settings.

Director | Nicola Samer

Training: Nicola has trained in theatre, design and fine art. Training includes MA Theatre Directing (Middlesex University, London & GITIS – Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, Moscow), Lincoln Centre Theatre Directors’ Lab (New York), NIDA (Sydney), ROH attachment (London), B. Design Visual Communications (UTS & Central Saint Martins) and Fine Art (Slade, London).

Directing includes: The Theatre Ashes (The Festival, Hampstead Theatre), Uprooted (Look Left Look Right, Shoreditch Town Hall), Head of The Table (Workshop, Old Vic Lab), Gutted (Marlowe Theatre), As You Like It (RYV Theatre, Regional Tour), Prophecy (Look Left Look Right, Charter House), Much Ado About Nothing (The HandleBards; Assembly Rooms, National & International Tour – The Stage Awards nominee), Going Bush (Bush Theatre), Comedy Of Errors (RYV Theatre, Regional Tour), The Suicide Shop (St James Theatre), The Power of Poison Lab (Old Truman Brewery), Miracle on 34th Street (Premiere UK Tour), Ruben Guthrie (New Wimbledon), Collision (Latitude & Bestival), Earthworks (Arcola), Little Women, the Musical (Best New Musical, Shortlisted Nominee Off West End Theatre Awards), Figaro Revival (Buxton Opera Festival), Ironbark Theatre’s Ashes (Latitude), Maman and The Edge (Theatre503), Fiddler on the Roof (Cambridge Arts Theatre), The 52 Show (Leicester Square Theatre), Can I Get a Kiss From Daisy? (Old Vic, Reading), Miss Julie (Sterts Theatre, Cornwall), Scenes of a Massacre (Custard Factory, Birmingham) and The Tempest (New Theatre, Sydney).Other Credits: Resident Director with the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company Plays at The Garrick Season, including The Winter’s Tale, All On Her Own, Harlequinade and Romeo and Juliet. Associate Director on The Ladykillers (Liverpool Playhouse, West End & UK Tour), Once, The Musical (West End), Ghost Stories (West End), 39 Steps (West End), Great Expectations (Ett & Watford Palace), Flashdance (West End), My Fair Lady (International Tour), Kes (Liverpool Everyman Playhouse), Resident Director on UK Tours of Aspects of Love and The Witches Of Eastwick, Sound Of Music (UK Tour), Follies (London Palladium), A Family Affair (Arcola) and Eugene Onegin (Byo, West End). Nicola Is Currently Resident Director on Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (London).

Designer | Sorcha Corcoran

Sorcha is 5x Offie nominated set and costume designer. Recent credits include Anna Karenina (Rose Bruford College), Hot Orange (Half Moon Theatre), The Changeling (Southwark Playhouse), Boris III King of Bulgaria (Arcola Theatre), On the Other Side of the War (Southwark Playhouse), Lear (Hope Mill Theatre), Papercut (Park Theatre), Variation and Buckets (The Egg Theatre Bath), Hamlet (Southwark Playhouse), Agrippina (Hamstead Garden Opera), Closure (HOME Theatre Manchester), Dr Faustus (Southwark Playhouse), Her Naked Skin (Rose Bruford College), Grandad Anansi (Halfmoon Theatre), Edward II (Lazarus Theatre), The Replacement Child (Hope Mill Theatre), Baby Box (York Theatre Royal), Salome (Southwark Playhouse), Fever Pitch (The Hope Theatre), How To Find Your Name (English Touring Opera), Khojaly (The Union Theatre) and Vagina Cake (Hope Mill Theatre).

Lighting Designer | Sherry Coenen

Award winning lighting designer Sherry Coenen works across the UK and US. She has a BFA in Lighting Design from the University of Miami and is a member of APLD.Theatre includes: XXXMas Carol (Wales Millennium Centre), SpitLip’s Operation Mincemeat (New Diorama Theatre, Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios – nominated for Knights of Illumination award 2019), Frankenstein (Beatbox Academy at BAC – Knights of Illumination winner 2019), I Want My Hat Back Trilogy (Little Angel Theatre – Offie TYA Design winner 2023), Izindava (UK Tour), Brigitte Aphrodite’s Parakeet (Paines Plough Roundabout, Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Christopher Brett Bailey’s This is How We Die (UK Tour), The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch), Skin Tight (Park90), CELL (UK Tour), Conquest of the South Pole (Arcola), These Trees are Made of Blood (Arcola), Brrr! (UK Tour), 5 Guys Chillin’ (Kings Head Theatre) and Anton Chekhov (Hampstead Theatre).

Sound Designer | Odinn Orn Hilmarsson

Odinn is an Icelandic composer and sound-designer working primarily in theatre, podcasts and short film. He has a particular interest in experimenting with everyday sounds and turning them into music, a project which he documents on his Instagram. Odinn currently co-produces and does all the audio for horror-comedy anthology podcast Ramon Fear’s Terror Tapes. Recently Odinn has worked on the award-winning short film Two Stars Short (Sweet Doh), The Island (The Cervantes Theatre) and the children’s musical In the Dead of the Night (Faceplant Theatre).

PR | Caroline Newte Hardie

PR for Artists and Events: cnewtehardie@outlook.com

Casting Director | Suzy Korel CDG CDA

Suzy has been in the casting business for over forty years and still loves it. She has cast numerous films, television and theatre productions, including at the Old Vic and the Oxford Playhouse. Her main body of work has been in commercials, including the award-winning original series of commercials for Gold Blend. Suzy is delighted to be working on this production of Broken Water for Arcola Theatre.

Producer | Emma Faulkner

Emma is the Artistic Director of Lightbox Theatre. She is a former recipient of the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme bursary in association with The Young Vic, and a former trainee director of the Orange Tree Theatre.

For Lightbox Theatre she has produced all its shows since 2013 and has directed Over the Bridge; John Ferguson (Finborough Theatre); The Air Around Us (Theatre 503, Omnibus Clapham and community venues); Other People (St James Theatre/The Other Palace); Everyday People (Bridewell Theatre); and Cardboard Village (The Station, Bristol).

Other directing includes: Swimming (Theatre 503); 17 (Finborough Theatre and Vibrant Festival); London 2012: Glasgow (Theatre Uncut at the Bussey Building); Christmas The Musical (Battersea Mess and Music Hall); The Scared Ritual of the Nymphs of Natterjack, part of Bush Bazaar (Bush Theatre); Different is Dangerous (Tamasha); After the End (Dundee Rep and Pleasance, Edinburgh); The Miracle, Forfeit (Dundee Rep); Forfeit, What Love Is (Òran Mór and Dundee Rep); The Ruffian on the Stair, Making Good, Absolute Return (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond); and Knives in Hens (St Mary’s at BAC). 

Associate Direction includes Sunshine on Leith (National Tour). As Assistant Director, she has assisted Alan Ayckbourn on Taking Steps. Other credits include: Sleeping Beauty and A Doll’s House (Dundee Rep); Alison’s House, Spring Shakespeare, The Lady or the Tiger and The Ring of Truth (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond). 

She is a former script reader for National Theatre of Scotland and was a production assistant at the Young Vic Theatre

Producer | Emma Sampson

Emma is a producer and director. As a director she worked with the renowned touring Shakespeare company, the HandleBards for ten years, directing productions of Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Richard III and assisting on productions of Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet and A Comedy of Errors. Other directing credits include the Hound of the Baskervilles (Westgate Gardens, Canterbury); Mugs Like Us and Tartuffe (the Space); and the new writing festivals The Ashes (Hampstead Theatre), Small Lives Global Ties (Tamasha / Unicorn Theatre), Bits of Obits and Lost Soles (Riff Raff Productions)

Emma was the Executive Producer for Upstart Theatre Company from 2015 to 2021 where she produced the international collaborations Phone Home (Shoreditch Town Hall) and The Chorus Project; Last Night I Met You Dreaming (Ovalhouse) and their annual DARE Festival at Shoreditch Town Hall. From 2022 to 2023 she worked as a Producer at the Sydney Opera House, where she produced theatre, art installations, music, films and live broadcasts, including: Hot Brown Honey, a multi-genre cabaret; Circling Time, featuring songs and stories from multi-award winning and renowned Mutti Mutti artist Kutcha Edwards; Traces, an interactive art installation and performance that was developed with First Nations artists, in partnership with Google Creative Labs; Lu Yang’s DOKU, a trans-national performance where two dancers in two different cities, Sydney and Hong Kong, performed wearing motion capture suits and met in a virtual world; The Last Post – Winds of Change, a music video featuring buglist James Morrison and Didgeridoo play Mark Atkins playing a new version of The Last Post on top of the Opera House sails; Megan Cope’s Whispers, an epic art installation which took over the Opera House’s forecourt and broadwalks; and DanceRites, Australia’s National First Nations dance competition staged on the Sydney Opera House Forecourt.

Producer | Corinne Louise Bibby

Emma Sampson and Corinne Louise Bibby first met Michèle Winstanley in 2014 and began work to bring Broken Water to the stage. Many things happened between then and now and sadly Corinne didn’t get to see the curtain rise on this terrific play. 

Corinne was a Producer, Dancer, Designer and Operations Manager. As an Operations Manager she opened and ran the Crystal Maze Live Experience London and worked with Secret Cinema on Moulin Rouge, Dr Strange Love, Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. From 2017 she was the Operations Manager at Battersea Arts Centre during the renovations and repairs following the destructive fire in their main space.

In 2013 she produced Lost Soles for Riff Raff Theatre, a pop-up gallery and theatre which was part of the London Design Festival. During her career she worked as a production assistant and design assistant on many projects ranging from festivals, to dance projects, to pop-up venues and clubs, to BAFTA nominated films and high profile photoshoots.