How to flip ten cents into a dollar
by Nia Akilah Robinson, directed by Kalungi Ssebandeke
at Theatre503, 14 May – 1 June 2024
Theatre503 announces the cast and creative team for 2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award finalist Nia Akilah Robinson’s debut play The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar. The production features: Ella Dacres (The Book of Dust), Jack Gouldbourne (Masters of the Air), Romeo Mika (Peter Pan Goes Wrong) and Sydney Sainté (UK stage debut).
Theatre503 and Executive Producer Zena Collins join forces again following Zena’s collaboration on the original Theatre503 production of J’Ouvert by Yasmin Joseph – a huge hit which was nominated for an Evening Standard Theatre Award and transferred to the West End. Clarisse Makundul Productions joins as Associate Producer.
Directed by JMK Award winner and Theare503’s Carne Associate Kalungi Ssebandeke (Meetings, Orange Tree), the creative team includes Ruth Badila (Set/Costume), Chuma Emembolu (Lighting), José Guillermo Puello (Sound), Yemurai Zvaraya (Movement Director), Aundrea Fudge (Voice and Dialect Coach), Fran Cattaneo (Casting Director) and Lydia Doyle (Casting Assistant).
“So why should I sacrifice my husband’s body, for medicine he/me/or my child wouldn’t receive?
Just look at the outbreak that happened during the summer.
Black people helped White people, we became bleeders, nurses, grave diggers because White people
convinced us that we weren’t susceptible to getting it.
Then Black people got Cholera.
Who was there to help us?
No one.”
Set in Pennsylvania and shifting between the early 1800s and the present day, The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar is a stunning and profound play that explores the impact of grave robbing for medical science, and the historical disruption of Black bodies that never got their rest. Timelines collide and secrets and lives become buried and revealed, as a reckoning comes to call: the roots to our ancestors are not as long as we may think.
Nia Akilah Robinson is a playwright and actor from Harlem. Her work has been developed through residencies, fellowships, commissions, and development with a number of prestigious companies and festivals in the US (full biography in credits). Director Kalungi Ssebandeke is Theatre503’s Carne Associate Director. His credits include Meetings (Orange Tree) as winner of the 2023 JMK Directing Award.
The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar was selected from 1466 scripts as one of five finalists for the 2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and its premiere follows the success of the recent sold-out and extended production of the Award’s winner A Woman Walks Into a Bank by Roxy Cook. Theatre503 is delighted to confirm that the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award will return for 2024/5, with submissions opening on 1 June 2024. Further information will be announced soon.
Venue: Theatre503, above the Latchmere Pub, 503 Battersea Park Road, London, SW8 3BW
Dates: 14 May – 1 June 2024
Times: Tues to Sat + Mon 20 May at 7.30pm; Sat 25 May & Sat 1 June at 2.30pm; Weds 29 May at 12 noon
Parent & Baby matinee: Weds 29 May at 12 noon
Pay What You Choose: 22 May at 7.30pm + 1 June at 2.30pm
Tickets: £22 full price, £18 concessions, 6 X £6 tickets per performance (23 May – 1 June), £15 previews (14 – 20 May)
Box office: www.theatre503.com / 020 7978 7040
THEATRE503
Theatre503 is at the forefront of identifying and nurturing new voices at the very start of their careers and launching them to the industry. We stage more early career playwrights than any other theatre in the world – with over 120 writers premiered each year from short pieces to full length productions.
We provide a diverse pipeline of talent resulting in modern classics like The Mountaintop by Katori Hall and Rotterdam by Jon Brittain – both Olivier Award winners – to future classics like Yasmin Joseph’s J’Ouvert, winner of the 2020 James Tait Black Prize and a West End transfer/BBC Arts recording, and Wolfie by Ross Willis, winner of the 2020 Writers Guild Award for Best New Play.
Writers who began their creative life at Theatre503 are now writing for series including One Day, The Crown, Succession, Doctor Who, Killing Eve and Normal People, and every single major subsidised theatre in the country now boasts a new play by a writer who started at Theatre503.
CAST
Charity/Modern-Day Charity – Ella Dacres
Mother/Modern-Day Mother – Sydney Sainté
John /Modern-Day John – Jack Gouldbourne
Cuffee/Modern-Day Cuffee – Romeo Mika
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer – Nia Akilah Robinson
Director – Kalungi Ssebandeke
Set & Costume Designer – Ruth Badila
Lighting Designer – Chuma Emembolu
Sound Designer – José Guillermo Puello
Movement Director – Yemurai Zvaraya
Casting Director – Fran Cattaneo
Casting Assistant – Lydia Doyle
Voice & Dialect Coach – Aundrea Fudge
Stage Manager – Shereen Hamilton
Production Manager – Adam Jefferys
Producer – Ceri Lothian
Associate Producer – Clarisse Makundul Productions
Executive Producer – Zena Collins
BIOGS
ELLA DACRES – cast (Charity/Modern-Day Charity)
After studying with the National Youth Theatre, Ella’s professional debut was as Alice in The Bridge Theatre’s La Belle Sauvage: The Book Of Dust. Other theatre credits include Julius Caesar (RSC) and Romeo and Juliet (National Theatre). Ella’s television work includes This Is Going To Hurt (BBC) and most recently, The Bends (pilot for FX). Short Film credits include Daylight Rules (BFI and SKY).
JACK GOULDBOURNE – cast (John /Modern-Day John)
Jack has been acting since he was 11. His professional debut was onstage as Iz in Cargo (Metal Rabbit Prod, Arcola Theatre) in 2016. Since then, Jack has primarily worked on screen, with credits including Calum in Fighting with my Family (Seven Bucks, Channel 4 Films) and Norman Whaley in Sister Boniface Mysteries (BBC).
Jack’s portrayal of characters like Nuro in Secret Invasion (Marvel Studios), Jimo Power in Casualty (BBC), Kris in Holby City (BBC), and Craig Megson in As I Am (Zebrafish Media) show his passion and ability to portray a diverse range of characters.
ROMEO MIKA – cast (Cuffee/Modern-Day Cuffee)
Training: LAMDA
Romeo is a Bafta scholarship recipient and Open Door alumni. Since graduating, Romeo recently made his professional theatre debut with Mischief Theatre Company, in their National Tour of Peter Pan Goes Wrong.
Credits whilst training include: The Leftovers, We Anchor in Hope, New Labour and The Children (Short Film).
SYDNEY SAINTÉ – cast (Mother/Modern-Day Mother)
Sydney Sainté is a New York-born, London-based actor. After receiving her BFA in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2014, she made her Off-Broadway debut in the world premiere of Roy Williams’ play Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner at Atlantic Theater Company. Credits include Black Cake (Hulu) and The Mallorca Files: Series 3 (Amazon).
NIA AKILAH ROBINSON – Playwright
Nia Akilah Robinson is a playwright and actor who reps Harlem with all her might. She is a graduating second-year playwright in the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Her work has been seen and developed with Steppenwolf Theatre, The Hearth, The New Group, Theatre503 (UK), The Ground Floor: Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Conference, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Waterwell, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Urbanite, and New Georges.
She has been a MacDowell Fellow, Travis Bogard Eugene O’Neill Foundation Fellow, and a writer for PEN America and EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (short play). Nia has had residencies at NYSAF and The Pocantico Center through YoungArts. Nia’s work will be featured in the 2024 46th Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2024 The Fire This Time Festival, was featured in the 2023 SPACE JAM @ Roundabout Theatre, and the 48th Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival. She participated in the National Black Theatre Soul Series and received the 2023 Film & TV Mentorship by Mitzi Miller.
She has been awarded 1st Place for the 2023 A is For Playwriting Contest, the Next Wave Initiative Lorraine Hansberry Writing Scholarship, a Miranda Family Fund Commission, and the NYSCA Grant (CCCADI). She was a finalist for the Audible Commission, the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the Blue Ink Playwriting Award. She is a member or alumna of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood, I-73 at Page 73, The Orchard Project NYCGreenhouse, The Wish Collective, and TheBlackHERthePen. She is proudly represented by Alex Gold at Creative Artists Agency.
KALUNGI SSEBANDEKE – Director
Kalungi Ssebandeke trained as an Actor at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he was made BAFTA Scholar 2017-2019 plus a Josephine Hart Scholar. After working as a Writer/Director and lead facilitator at White City Youth Theatre, working as a director-in-residence and drama teacher at a leading independent school and directing Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life at Bristol School of Acting, Kalungi made his professional directorial debut with Meetings by Mustapha Matura, 2023’s winner of the JMK Directing Award. He is currently the Carne Associate Director at Theatre503.
Acting credits include: We Need New Names (New Perspectives and Fifth Word); The titular role in Othello (The Watermill); Duchess of Malfi (Almeida); Blood Knot (Orange Tree); The 14th Tale by Inua Ellams (Fuel Theatre); Image of an Unknown Young Woman (The Gate Theatre); We are Proud to Present… (The Bush Theatre); One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Kiln/Sheffield Theatres plus national tour); There’s Only One Wayne Matthews (Sheffield Theatres); Skins (Channel 4 in an episode written by Daniel Kaluuya); Columbite Tantalite (Young Vic/Guardian and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Writing Credits include: Prodigal (Orange Tree); Assata Taught Me (The Gate Theatre, directed by Lynette Linton); Marriage Plan (Euras Films).
Kalungi is also a musician and his debut album Katugende is available on all streaming sites under the name Kalungi Fresh.
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