Greg Arundell

Greg Arundell is a neurodivergent creative, playwright, and actor. He trained at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, graduating in 2024. As a writer, his work has been championed by BOLD Elephant, The Bush, Theatre Royal Haymarket, and the RSC. They are an alumnus of Pentabus New Voices.

“I’m drawn to work that breaks free from traditional ideas of what a play should be. I’m excited by bold, brash, and punchy theatrical experiences that explore their themes in fresh, unexpected ways. That’s the kind of theatre I want to create.”

Waves

Waves is an immersive, non-linear theatrical experience that blends text, movement, music, and multimedia to explore grief, trauma, and memory.

Claire Beerjeraz

Claire Beerjeraz (They/She) is a freelance Writer, Director, Performer, Visual Artist, Facilitator, and Creative Therapist whose multidisciplinary practice explores identity, lived experience, and social justice. Their writing spans stage and screen, often navigating themes of queerness, racism, disability, and gender, and is rooted in a deep commitment to truth-telling, care, and community.

An alumni of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse’s Young Writers programme (2023) and First Take’s REEL Queers Screenwriting programme (2024), Claire has developed and showcased work across notable venues in the Northwest, including the Unity Theatre, Dukes Theatre, Liverpool Everyman, and Tate Liverpool. Their practice is not only about storytelling but also fostering spaces for open discourse, collective healing, and transformative action.

Claire was a finalist for the LCR Inspirational Young Person Award (2023), recognised for their impact in arts and advocacy and as a board member for Tmesis Theatre, they continue to champion equity, accessibility, and the amplification of Global Majority voices in the creative industries. Through all their work, Claire is driven by a belief in the radical potential of creativity to imagine and build a more just, empathetic future.

Rooted

I will be developing my show Rooted which explores the impacts of white supremacy, colonialism, and the cis-hetero patriarchy on the ability to find ‘home’, something often portrayed as a safe base to retreat. It delves into the nuanced experiences of the global majority people, with intersecting marginalised identities, such as queerness, disability, and lower socioeconomic class, highlighting the challenges faced in relation to race, immigration, grief, and the body. Through Reach, I am hoping to explore these aspects in more detail in my writing, pulling from my lived experience. I want this piece to amplify the critical thinking and reflection needed around safety and inclusion in communities, and their responsibilities in this process as well as celebrate the joys that can be found when you do feel and find ‘home’.

Melodie Karczewski

I’m a writer and actor from Thanet, now living in London with my crazy dog Finch (shoutout). I’m so excited to be part of this year’s Reach programme and to develop my full-length play. It honestly feels like a dream to have the time, support and space to bring a story I care about to life.

I love telling stories that mix humour and grit, inspired by truth and that mix of fucking weirdness that intrigues human beings. I’m drawn to work that asks big questions but stays grounded with real people.

A little about my writing journey so far: In 2023, I wrote, directed and performed in my short play The Taste of Healing at The Yard Theatre as part of RWCMD’s New Season. My 60-minute TV pilot Great Minds was shortlisted for BAFTA Rocliffe, and I’m proud to be a BBC Writers Room Welsh New Voice.

I trained as an actor on the BA Acting course at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and I’m a member of Open Door. Before that, I was part of the BFI Academy, NFTS BFI Academy and HighRise New Gens.

Let’s do this!

Cremating the Phoenix

Cremating the Phoenix is a dark comedy that follows Madonna, a woman in her twenties working her first solo shift at a funeral home. Stepping out for a cheeky smoke, she unknowingly leaves the door open to an unsettling introduction… A strange woman waiting for God. Things get weird as secrets are revealed and chaos ensues… after all, everyone has skeletons in their closet.

This is a story of grief, faith and friendship.

Georgia Kelly

Georgia Kelly is a playwright, producer, and actor based in Coventry.

As a Producer they run Blindspot Nights, a scratch night dedicated to creating union-wage opportunities & support for working/under-class theatremakers in the Midlands, and in the long-run changing how we as a sector engage with class.

As a writer their work often encompasses similar themes alongside queerness and individual/community histories, reliably challenging what we laugh at and why, and what we do with the choices we have.

Toast

Toast is a one-man-show about food poverty, Universal Credit, and holding theatre careers together with your bare hands while mold slowly consumes your overpriced houseshare. Using documentary & verbatim material, Toast is based on Kelly’s experiences of being skint, being briefly ‘no fixed address’, and in a codependent off-again-on-again relationship with the DWP – as well as the experiences of friends and peers in similar positions. Through exploring ideas of ‘Model Minorities’ this absurdist dark comedy exploits the way theatre often leans a little too heavily into ‘Poverty Porn’ & ‘Culture Safaris’ while ignoring the real working/under-class artists falling through its gaps. Toast seeks to take the us vs them sensation of sitting in a safely darkened theatre and challenge just how much entertainment we deserve.

Jess Senanayake

Jess Senanayake (she/they) is an award-winning theatre maker and poet hailing from Essex, now based in East London. Her work spans a range of disciplines, including Producing, Performance, Stage Management, Direction and Facilitation. Their poems have been featured in Brownies, House of Poetry, THE FAT ZINE, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Jess’s practice incorporates themes of identity, home and belonging, and prioritises equity, justice and joy for marginalised groups.

Selected credits include: Slave Play (Noel Coward Theatre), Pippin (Theatre Royal Drury Lane – WOS Award Nom), Your Lie in April (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), A Playlist for the Revolution (Bush Theatre – Olivier Nom), The PappyShow’s 10th Birthday Pit Party (Barbican), Don’t Drink the Water (Almeida Theatre), NO I.D (VAULT Festival – Show of the Week), RIDE – A New Musical (Charing Cross Theatre), A Monster Calls (UK and US Tour), and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (UK Tour).

island time

island time is a bilingual poem-play about mixed heritage, belonging, and what it really means to be an island girl. Set between the shores of Colombo, and a seaside town in the UK, island time explores what it means to ebb between cultures, the impact of waste colonialism, and the importance of the sea to coastal communities. Written in English and Sinhala, this epic story harnesses movement, live soundscaping and vivid coastal imagery to share experiences of growing up, moving to, and leaving, as charted through the sea.

Sam Zelaya

Sam is a queer, disabled actor and writer from London. He studied at Royal Holloway and currently trains with Collective Acting Studio. Best known as the voice of Raul in Netflix’s Wendell & Wild, Sam has also performed with CRIPtic in 2024 as part of The Crip Monologues and is thrilled to be working with them again. 

Sam is passionate about queer theatre and strives through his work to create interesting roles for other actors from underrepresented groups. He is looking forward to writing his first full-length play with the Reach programme. When not writing or performing, Sam can be found drawing, crafting, perfecting his donut recipe or reading about doomed Arctic expeditions.

Other acting credits include Creon in Antigone, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, and several shows across both Camden Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe.

Ink (working title)

Ink is a play about love, sex, queerness, disability and the trials of renting in London. It follows three young queer disabled people and the connections between them that form and reveal themselves through a series of chaotic warehouse parties. Much of the story is inspired by my own experience of living in a queer warehouse community.