Profiles

Portal: New Writing Collective is a Dorset-based playwriting group, established in early 2018 to build a fertile and supportive environment in which local writers have the opportunity to share and develop their skills and practice, with the aim of individual and collective professional progression. With a commitment to engaging with and strengthening the local cultural provision, the group have made connections with Bournemouth Emerging Arts Festival (BEAF), Head To Toe Theatre Company and Matt West of ArtfulScribe, as well as freelance local actors and directors. Meeting and sharing work on a monthly basis, the group staged a scratch night of their work at the Lighthouse in May 2019 and will produce ‘Chasms’, for Paines Plough’s Roundabout festival in September 2019.

SISATA was created out of a passion for Shakespeare, making theatre accessible and the Swanage Amphitheatre. Starting out with just a week's run at this spectacular site in the Prince Albert Gardens in 2012 they have since grown and their annual show now tours to various locations and theatres across the South of England. Adapting to each location, we bring classic stories to life and enable audiences to be a part of storytelling that is enthralling and stimulating; enabling audiences to be immersed in the worlds we inhabit.

20-year-old artist Olly Olssøn made his successful festival debut this summer at Larmer Tree, with a bigger sound from a full four-piece band; the live set combined tracks from his current E.P ‘Footsteps in the Dark’ with a series of new tracks (on iTunes and Spotify this autumn). The focus this autumn is writing and producing more raw, authentic tracks, inspired by life events; Olly is mixing edgy vocals with more complex piano scores, plus new tracks featuring Olly on guitar, all the reward of working closely with long term mentor Micky Waters (bassist rock band The Answer), his influence allowing Olly to widen genres he reaches into with new music… Olly is aiming to be headlining again at the Lighthouse again early in 2020…

Hangover Hill’s founder, musician and record producer Matt Black has been performing professionally since 1992. Beginning his career as a hotel pianist, these days he is much in demand as an entertainer for large corporate events where he has performed alongside the likes of Boy George and Brian Connolly. He opened Hangover Hill studios, which he runs with fiancé Mel, to produce and promote not just his own work, but that of other emerging artists in the locality. He writes a regular music business column in for Southampton-based AND Magazine as well as working closely with many local radio stations as both a content provider and as a presenter himself. He is also an ambassador for Write It Down Records, a Bournemouth-based charity fundraising record label.

Tabby is a graduate from the University of Oxford with a First in English, and she writes poetry, plays and short stories. She has been published in The Missing Slate, The Oxford Magazine and The ISIS and was twice winner of the Graham Midgley Memorial Prize for Poetry in 2015 and 2017. Alongside her work as Lead Facilitator for Lighthouse Young Writers, she works part time as an English tutor, and as a script reader and Literary Assistant (Solicited Scripts) for the Finborough Theatre in London. She will be taking part in the Royal Court Writers Group in Autumn 2019.

Lucy is currently studying for a Creative Writing BA Hons, while writing as a contributor for Bristol based music blog Tap The Feed. She is the curator and editor of I Don’t Want To Go Insane, a small magazine that showcases the work of artists dealing with, and discussing, mental health. Her poems and spoken word have been displayed in a variety of Dorset based exhibitions, and she’s had the pleasure of assisting Kidz In Care. As well as currently writing a collection of poems, Lucy is working on a novel and a short script.