Lessons from Teacher x

Dorsetborn creates and tours brand new theatre across the UK. They believe in emerging artists, the ambition of live storytelling, and that everyone deserves high-quality drama, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Led by Artistic Director Rohan Gotobed, since 2022 Dorsetborn have generated 50+ paid opportunities for freelance artists, engaged with over 3500 audience members, and partnered with organisations including Dorset Libraries, National Trust, National Youth Theatre, Lighthouse Poole, and Wessex Museums.

Dorsetborn’s previous productions include ‘Fort’, ‘PRIDE’, and ‘Georgia and the Iceberg’. They have also produced ‘Writing Out Loud’ for Poole Pride in 2024 and 2025.

Instagram: @dorsetborntheatre

Facebook: @dorsetborntheatre

Website: dorsetborn.co.uk/

Rohan is the Artistic Director of Dorsetborn. He trained at Birkbeck and the Unicorn Theatre. His recent credits as director and writer include: A Shipwreck Story, Fort, PRIDE, and Georgia and the Iceberg (Dorsetborn); Our Freedom: Then and Now (Poole Lighthouse); We Fear: Leviathan (Inside Out Dorset) and Getting Closer (MAST Studios/Eastern Angles). He works as a facilitator for ArtfulScribe and Poole Lighthouse, as well as for Coram Shakespeare Schools Festival. He is an associate artist of National Youth Theatre.

What venue are you looking forward to the most?

I love touring with Dorsetborn. With each show we discover different theatres that care about new writing as much as us. I’m really excited to be bringing Lessons from Teacher x to the Mercury in Colchester. They’ve supported me brilliantly as a writer in the past, and it will be great to finally perform in their intimate studio space.

What’s your favourite line from the play?

When I first read the final line of the play, the hairs of my neck stood on end. It’s such a brilliant encapsulation of everything we’re talking about as a society at the moment. Would you like a sneak peak? Well, it’s –

I’m an actor best known for playing Dana Monroe in EastEnders. I’ve also starred in TV series’ including The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, Call The Midwife and Casualty and I’ve just finished filming a romantic comedy called ‘Sad Singles In Your Area’ which will be out next year. I started my career at just 10 years old,  in musical theatre, when I was cast in ‘Oliver!’ at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

I met Rohan (the director of Lessons From Teacher x) as part of the Gate Theatre’s Young Company when I was a teenager and I’m so excited to work on my first project with him!

Venue: The venue I’m most excited for is the Brighton Fringe, as this will be my first time going and I’ve heard it has the same buzzing, spontaneous and creative energy as the Edinburgh Fringe!

My favourite line from the play is “she’s looking at the eight-inch dildo lying on my bed like a wounded soldier”.

I am a scriptwriter and aspiring author originally from Suffolk, now based in London.

Lessons from Teacher x is my debut play, which I first developed whilst studying writing for performance at Bath Spa University.

After being a part of INK festival 2023, I started collaborating with Rohan and Dorsetborn Theatre to develop the play further. Throughout this time, we’ve performed snippets in Cornwall, Dorset and London, in various festivals such as Dorchester Arts’ The Scripts the Thing. Alongside this, I have been developing two novels in my spare time which I’d one day love to publish.

Venue most excited for:

Although I’m so excited to experience the play in all the different venues, I especially can’t wait to see it in Lighthouse, Poole. This venue really means a lot as it’s where we developed so many ideas, first showed an hours worth of developments, and this is where we began working with Barbara (our Cam). To see the play as it is now in this venue is going to feel so magical.

Favourite line from the play:

‘Sitting by her mum’s hospital bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about he groaned. It was so… beast like, primal, abhorrent…’

Award winning lighting designer Sherry Coenen works across the UK and US. She has a BFA in Lighting Design from the University of Miami and is a member of APLD.

Theatre includes: XXXMas Carol (Wales Millennium Centre), Spitlip’s Operation Mincemeat (New Diorama Theatre, Southwark Playhouse and Riverside Studios – nominated for Knights of Illumination award 2019), Frankenstein (Beatbox Academy at BAC, Knights of Illumination winner 2019), I Want My Hat Back Trilogy  (Little Angel Theatre – Offie TYA Design winner 2023), Izindava (UK Tour), Brigitte Aphrodite’s Parakeet (Paines Plough Roundabout, Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe), Christopher Brett Bailey’s This is How We Die (UK Tour), The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch),  Skin Tight (Park90), CELL (UK Tour), Conquest of the South Pole (Arcola), These Trees are Made of Blood (Arcola), Brrr! (UK Tour), 5 Guys Chillin’ (Kings Head Theatre), Anton Chekhov (Hampstead Theatre).

My Favourite venue:

*I don’t know all the venues yet so its hard to pick a fave… but Lighthouse is closest to me”

My Lesson for everyone:

“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it”

A keen theatre-goer who is passionate about seeing new stories on stage, Sophie is excited to be working as an Associate Producer on this production. Previously, she worked as Assistant Producer on FORT for Dorsetborn.

Layla is a Designer, working across Stage and Screen. She trained at Central St Martins and since graduating has worked as an Art Director for BBC Studios. She was awarded the MGC Futures Award (2024), and part of Polka Theatre ‘Catapult Programme (2024) and an Associate Artist of Jermyn Street Theatre (2020). Layla is an Associate Designer for Dorsetborn and is excited to return for her fourth project with the company.

Theatre includes: Last Rose of Summer (MAST Studios), Sophia (Eastern Angles), Fort, A Shipwreck Story, Georgia & the Iceberg (Dorsetborn), The Misbehaving Letters (Polka), Right of Way (Salthouse Arts), Regeneration (Brockley Jack)

Recent Screen includes: Casualty (BBC Studios), Away with the Fairies, Dancing with Dracula, Wink (BBC New Creatives) & I’m not in Love

What venue are you looking forward to the most?

I’m always excited to return to venues with our new shows like Lighthouse, and Dorchester Arts, it always feel a bit of a homecoming. But I am really excited for us to tour to the Eastern Angles for the first time.

What’s your favourite line from the play?

“I make sure to go to a lady who really knows her stuff.  Ann Summers”

Ed grew up in Dorset, and studied Music at Oxford University, and then trained as a Composer and Sound Designer at the Bournemouth Media School, part of Bournemouth University. After teaching there, he moved into theatre work, and has since worked on productions in the West End, nationally, and internationally.

He previously worked with DorsetBorn on Georgia And The Iceberg.

Recent work includes: The Box of Delights (RSC); Inside No.9, A View From The Bridge, Killer Joe, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The Best Man (West End); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Force Majeure (Donmar Warehouse); Only An Octave Apart, The Box of Delights, A Christmas Carol, The Child in the Snow (Wilton’s Music Hall); Notes from a Small Island, Othello, Visitors (Watermill); Baddies The Musical, Breaking the Ice, Hannah, Medea, The Minotaur, Caucasian Chalk Circle, My Father Odysseus (Unicorn); The Rat Trap, After Miss Julie (Park Theatre)

Favourite Line: “You can’t hit people because they’re a dickhead.”