Actor, Writer: Noel came to Belfast in the late 1970's to work at the Lyric Players Theatre, appearing in works by Yeats, O'Casey, Gatti, Shakespeare, Griffiths, Beckett, Thompson, O'Neill and Miller; as well as numerous musicals. He directed 'Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme' and 'Vanek' for the Lyric; also 'The Country Wife' and 'The Government Inspector' for 'el cheapre' at the Lyric. Noel has undertaken Television work in the Irish language to include, 'Adharca Fada',  'Marú' , 'Scúp' and 'Corp agus Anam'. He played Jim O'Dowdin the famous and loved TG4 soap 'Ros na Rún' for several years, before an unfortunate and bloody demise. While BBC productions include 'Give my Head Peace', 'Breach of Trust', 'August Saturday' and 'Line ofDuty’. Noel was commissioned by Aisling Ghéar to write and perform a one man bi-lingual show, 'Seo, Robert’, which was performed throughout N. Ireland.

Actor, Singer, Songwriter: Sarah trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts (Acting course), London, 2001 – 2004. Theatre credits include, Love, Billy (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), Jack and the Beanstalk (Waterfront Hall), Girls and Dolls, Seven Days in June, Swingstate Cabaret and Fireworks (Tinderbox Theatre Company), The Canterbury Tales (Bruiser Theatre Company, Belfast run and tour) and many, many more. Television credits include: Pajanimals (Henson Company with Sixteen South), Sesame Tree (Sixteen South and Sesame Workshop), Sketchy with Diarmuid Corr (Green Inc.), The Dwelling (Stirling Television), Casualty and Down to Earth (BBC).  Radio credits include: Resurrection (BBC), Sarah directed Hippos in the Shower (Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival) and The Girl on the Sofa (Primecut Productions), and has produced a series of radio commercials for Charles Hurst and theatre performances for children. She founded Polly Poppet Workshops, which facilitates pre-school children’s workshops, and Performers Theatre Arts, which facilitates after schools performing arts sessions to children and young people.

Actor, Singer, Voice-over Artist: Elaine graduated from Sunderland University where she attained a B.A. Hong for Creative Arts Studies. Her theatre credits include among others; ‘Ghostbusters 1948’, ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’, Wireless Mystery Theatre ‘That Face’, Transfer Theatre Company ‘Cuss the World’,’Spanner in the Works’, ‘The Little Prince’ Bruiser Theatre and ‘The Selfish Shelfish’ Conflux TIE. She has performed with Accidental Theatre in The Biscuit Tin Readings and also in 2013 and 2014s Fast & Loose at the Lyric Theatre Belfast. Elaine is delighted to be working with Accidental on their latest production, The Lost Martini. She has been a member of the Northern Ireland Clown Doctor Team since it’s creation in 2004

Actor, Writer: Megan studied English and French at Queens University before training as an actor at the Gaiety School of Acting and under David Scott on his Applied Art of Acting course. Previous roles include Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Madeleine O’Hart in The Clearing, Grace Gifford in Seven Lives for Liberty, and Erin in the Irish language television drama Scúp. She has performed twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Megan’s first full-length play, Subject No.Y, was performed at last year’s Pick ’n’ Mix festival . Megan also wrote a play in 12 hours for Accidental Theatre’s Fast and Loose, a 24-hour play project. Megan plays the saxophone, violin, flute and recorders

Actor: Chris is a Lyric Theatre Drama Studio graduate. His recent theatre credits include, MojoMickybo (Bedlam Theatre Company/David Grant), iSpy (Big Telly/Zoe Seaton), Pineapple written by Ronan Blaney (Oscar Nominee) (Accidental Theatre/JP Conaghan). Chris has recently appeared in Scup (BBC/TG4) and will be appearing in an episode of The Sparticle Mystery (CBBC) later this month. He also played Boy (Lead) in Coviro Productions The Secret Life of Balloons which was nominated for the Young Film Maker Award at 2014 Cinemagic, it has been short listed for the takeover film festival at the QFT and will receive its USA premier in New York at the Winter Film Festival as well as this it will be shown at the British Film Institute’s Raw Film Festival. Chris has worked with Accidental Theatre before in various Biscuit Tin Readings and their festival show two years ago Death...(on a shoestring).

DOUBLE BASS Chris Allen

TRUMPET Michael Barkley

GUITAR Martin Byrne

KEYBOARD Ciaran Maher

The Team

DIRECTOR Richard Lavery

Richard is the artistic director and a co-founder of Accidental Theatre. He trained as a director in London with an MFA in Theatre Directing from Birkbeck College, and subsequently worked at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. He returned to Belfast to focus on developing new writing that bridges the gap between the UK and European styles of theatre. Directing credits include: The Kitchen, the Bedroom and the Grave (Donal O’Hagan), DEATH (on a shoestring) (Dave Kinghan), Limbo (Declan Feenan), The Writers’ Room (Michael Shannon), Confession (Darran McCann), and Happy as Larry (Dave Kinghan).

WRITER Shannon Yee

Shannon Yee is a biracial playwright and producer living in Belfast since 2004. She has been commissioned to create work that challenges the status quo in theatre, either through topic or artistic process, from Replay Productions, Accidental Theatre, Terra Nova Productions, female-playwright-led Agent 160 Theatre Company, & Assault Events. Currently one of the MAC’s HATCH supported artists, she was the only NI playwright invited onto the Royal Court’s National Playwriting Group (2013). Shannon has won the Tyrone Guthrie Centre Residency Award, James Baldwin Playwriting Award, Artist International Development Award (British Council/ACNI), two Arts & Disability Awards Ireland, and funding support from the Wellcome Trust & Arts Council NI. Her new project Reassembled, Slightly Askew, a sonic arts-based, visceral drama that immerses the audience individually in her experience of nearly dying from a rare brain infection and rehabilitation with an acquired brain injury, opens at the MAC this April as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.

DRAMATURG Emily DeDakis

Born in the U.S.A and joined Accidental in 2009. in 2013 Emily was awarded a fellowship from the BBC performing Arts Fund to train as a Dramaturg with Accidental Theatre. Until recently Emily co-chaired the Northern Ireland Theatre Association’s working group for emerging professionals. A freelance editor and writing tutor, Emily has facilitated arts projects with a diverse range of people - school students, ex-prisoners, refugees, and local writers' groups. She has a PhD in creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast and taught on the undergraduate programme. In late 2012 she will collaborate with drummer David Lyttle and pianist Conor Scullion on an improvised musical reading from her novel-in-progress Voicetown.

DESIGNER Rachel Szmukler

Rachel trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course in London, and has a first class degree in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art. Design for theatre includes The Kitchen, the Bedroom and the Grave (Accidental Theatre), Oklahoma! (A&O at Opera Holland Park), Limbo (Citizens, Glasgow), Saturday Night Fever (Old Vic Tunnels/Everyman Cinema) and costume design for FOG and Blue Surge (Finborough Theatre). Opera productions include set and costumes for Noye’s Fludde, The Little Sweep, and Brundibar (Blackheath Halls), Semele and Orfeo (Hampstead Garden Opera), The Cunning Little Vixen (Co-Opera Co) and set design for La Rondine (Go Opera).

COMPOSER Martin Byrne

Martin graduated from SAE London in 2004 and QUB in 2009, with a first in Music Technology (BSc). In 2011 Martin began a self-motivated project called Song A Day For A Year, where he wrote and recorded 365 original pieces of music in one year. He received the ACES award from the NI Arts Council to fund his Song A Week For A Year project in 2012. Martin has composed for many successful Accidental Theatre productions and produces original works for digital media and film with Warp & Woof Productions LTD. 

STAGE MANAGER Elaine Barnes

Elaine has worked extensively throughout Northern Ireland as a Stage & Production Manager and was shortlisted for an SMA Individual Award in 2008. Her theatre credits are vast and include: Those we pass on the street, Ghosts of Drumglass, Titans, Carnival, Henry and Harriet and To Have & To Hold (Kabosh); Sweeny Todd (The Mill Theatre), Johnny Meister and The Stitch (Jigsaw Theatre Co.), Caught Red Handed, Girls and Dolls and The Duke of Hope (Tinderbox Theatre Company), Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Christmas Eve can Kill You, True West, The Lonesome West and The Snow Queen (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); The Blind Fiddler (Lyric Theatre, Grand Opera House and Edinburgh Fringe Festival), La Bohème and The Gala Evening 2008 (Castleward Opera), The Liverpool Boat (Red Lead Arts), The Submarine Man (Upstate Theatre) and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Brassneck productions), The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty at the Grand Opera House Belfast as well as the regional tour of Coole Lady (Green Shoot Productions).  She worked with GBL Productions on A Night in November starring Patrick Kielty, Christmas Eve Can Kill You  Women on the Verge of HRT and the Dublin version of 51 shades of Maggie.  Elaine has also worked with Spanner in the works production of Diablo and the Secret Door.  Most recently Elaine has just finished a northern Irish tour of Dirty Dancin in le Shebeen. (Redbrick Productions). Elaine production-managed The Chronicles of Long Kesh (Green Shoot Productions 2008,  2009 and 2011 tours which included Australia and Tasmania), winner of The Stage Award for ‘Best Ensemble’ @ Edinburgh Festival and This is What We Sang (Kabosh 2009 & 2010), winner of the 1st Irish Festival ‘Best Production’ 2010 in New York.  Elaine was also DSM of Crimea Square.  Which won the Belfast audience award at this years Belfast Festival.

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Teresa Hill

Teresa completed a BA in Drama at Queens University Belfast then went on to do an MA in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has been involved with a number of theatre and community projects over the years in Belfast, London, Kenya, Uganda, Antigua and Thailand, running workshops and creating projects with a wide range of people. She has worked with a number of different organisations, from Trócaire to the National Trust and with many theatre companies across the UK. Teresa is the Outreach Coordinator for Accidental Theatre and has worked facilitated work across Belfast in this role. She has also worked on a number of their previous plays in a Stage Management role. 

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Pol McLoone

Pol studied at the University of Ulster where he gained a BA Hons in Drama in 2012. He worked as ASM on Fahy productions ISDA award winning play 'Solictors' directed by J.P Conaghan in 2011. He then worked as DSM on Fahy productions play 'All There is' directed by J.P Conaghan in 2014. He worked in The Playhouse Theatre in Derry from 2013-2015 as ASM on shows such as 'Over The Wire', 'Josef Locke: A grand adventure' and many more.

MARKETING MANAGER Elizabeth Meehan

Elizabeth has a PhD from the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast. She established a marketing communications consultancy in 2012, coffeenosugar, which seeks to help businesses achieve marketing with integrity. Elizabeth is currently working for Accidental Theatre in marketing communications. Her love for the arts manifests in writing and she has received SIAP funding in 2012 and 2014 from the Arts Council Northern Ireland to work on the first book of a trilogy, which explores belonging and identity. In 2013 she was awarded an international stipend to complete a writing residency in Can Serrat in Barcelona, Unchanging Dolls, which explores the aggressive sexualisation of women in modern society.

MARKETING OFFICER Stephen Coulter

Stephen was awarded the BBC Performing Arts Fund for Creative Producer at the MAC in 2014. More recently, he was responsible for the marketing promotions for the very successfulMojo Mickeybo, which was performed at the Lyric in February earlier this year.

MARKETING OFFICER Catherine McIlvenna

Catherine is an editor and writer from Tyrone. 

IMAGE DESIGN Ciaran Monaghan