Trustees
Photo credit: Mike Fulford
Yvonne Brewster OBE co-founded Talawa Theatre Company along with Carmen Munroe, Mona Hammond and Inigo Espejel.
Talawa was created in direct response to Yvonne Brewster’s recognition of the lack of creative opportunities for actors from minority ethnic backgrounds and the general marginalisation of Black peoples from cultural processes that was prevalent at the time of the Company’s inception. Since 1986, Talawa has grown to become one of the most successful Black theatre companies in the UK. It has mounted more than forty productions – many of which are award-winning – taking in everything from Shakespeare to African classics, Oscar Wilde to new Black British work and Nobel-prize winning playwrights to high-voltage musicals. The Company has performed the work of writers such as C.L.R. James, Derek Walcott, Michael Abbensetts, Wole Soyinka, Patricia Cumper, Mustapha Matura and Michael Bhim. (source: Talawa Theatre Company)
Yvonne was awarded an OBE in 1993 for Services to the Arts.
She is featured in the archives 100 Great Black Britons, Historical Geographies,The British Blacklist, Unfinished Histories and the National Theatre Black Plays Archive
Yvonne has edited two collections of plays published by Oberon Books, Mixed Company: Three Early Jamaican Plays by Sylvia Winter, Louis Marriott, Cecily Waite-Smith and For The Reckord, three plays by Barry Reckord.
Along with Oscar James and Roland Rees, Yvonne created The Alfred Fagon Award to commemorate Alfred’s life and work and to recognise the craft of playwriting by Black British writers.
Yvonne was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black British Theatre Awards in 2023.
Sheelagh Killeen Rees studied at Tiffins then Wimbledon College of Art, Theatre Department and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London where she also studied stage design.
She has worked at Covent Garden, the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells before moving onto the BBC Costumes Department and ABC TV where she spent 11 years at the ATV Elstree Studios becoming a Senior Costume Designer working on many big Period productions including Life of Nelson directed by Simon Langton, which was filmed in Naples, Italy, and for Life of Disraelie directed by Claude Whatham.
Sheelagh was on the board of FOCO NOVO Theatre Company and designed costumes for their Productions A Seventh Man, Play Mas, Puntila, Snap and Bloody Poetry.
After a career as a costume designer Sheelagh started her own Company Art/Lit Consultancy Ltd promoting writers to publishers and artists to galleries.
Sheelagh is Treasurer of The Alfred Fagon Award and has been associated with it since it began. She is the Award archivist.
Nina Malone was born in Clarendon, Jamaica and has been with The Identity Agency Group for 8 years. Nina is a Bafta Voting Member, runs masterclasses with Your Cinema and theatre meetups with Afridiziak Theatre News.
Balancing the demands of the entertainment industry with the joys of family life, she finds fulfilment in discovering and nurturing exceptional talent for screen and stage.
Nina has written articles for various platforms such as the Strategist UK, Working Mums and has appeared on BBC Radio and Channel 5 news, Nina has been featured in Grazia Magazine and Stylist Magazine and as a guest speaker for BAFTA and The Cultural Diversity Network, a voice for Black, Asian and Ethnic Minorities at News UK.
Nina is passionate about positive and honest representation in the media and strives to make a lasting impact on the entertainment landscape.
IAG Talent | Identity Agency Group
Sola is an award winning writer, director, producer and dramaturge working in opera, music theatre, visual arts, film and dance. Her theatre work in drama, opera and dance includes productions for Theatre Royal, Stratford East, English National Opera, Adzido Pan-African Dance Ensemble, UK regional theatres, Waterfront Belfast and the Royal National Theatre Studio.
She is the Artistic director of Ariya, Britain’s first opera company dedicated to creating performance opportunities for black classically trained performers and composers. Her production of Dido and Aeneas for the Purcell Tercentenial Celebrations was highly acclaimed for its innovative use of Baroque and West African classical instruments. She has worked internationally in Hungary, Czech Republic, Ghana, South Africa and USA where she directed the premieres of the opera Chaka and the music-drama Orunmila’s Voices by the renowned Nigerian composer Akin Euba.Her short film, The Flowering was shown at the BFI. Her poetry has been set to music by Akin Euba and performed at both Harvard and Cambridge Universities. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
James St. Ville is a barrister. He was called to the Bar in 1995. At Gray’s Inn, he was awarded the Bird & Bird Award for Intellectual Property, the Moot Society Prize and the Prince of Wales Award. At St. John’s College Cambridge, he was a Morton Scholar and awarded 1st Class Honours in Engineering, Sir Joseph Larmor’s Plate, the St.John’s College Prize and the University IEE Institution Prize. He is recommended as a Leading Junior in Information Technology and Intellectual Property by Chambers UK and by Legal Experts and is a chartered engineer with commercial experience of electronics, optical communications and engineering.
James St. Ville KC (Chair)
Brian Walters was Chair of the judges of the Alfred Fagon Award between 2016-2018.
From May 2010 to October 2015 Brian was Deputy Literary Manager at the National Theatre, where his job involved research and reading revival plays for possible production, script editing with writers to develop their plays and arranging script workshops and readings.
While at the National Theatre Brian worked with many writers including Michael Cole, Rachel Delahay and Oladipo Agboluaje. He also worked with a number of directors including Ola Ince, Natalie Abrahami and Elayce Ismail. Brian has also worked as dramaturge for various theatre companies including Ice & Fire and The Wardrobe Ensemble.
He’s worked in the literary departments for Paines Plough, Bush Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, and Nabokov Theatre Company, and worked at the Tricycle Theatre.
Brian was co-writer on the devised theatre play World Factory, a play looking at the relationship between clothing brands in England and garment factories in China, which involved research trips to Shenzhen in China and Berlin. World Factory played at the Young Vic theatre in May 2015.
Brian has completed the Developing Drama course at the National Film & Television School.
Previously Brian worked with the BBC Writersroom and has worked as a script reader for Channel 4’s Scriptwriting course. He has also worked at the British Film Institute in the Programming Unit which programmed for regional cinemas.
Patron
Baroness Floella Benjamin, OM DBE DL