Afia Abusham is an Actress, Musician & Poet who completed her Acting training at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, NYC & furthered her musical training at Associated Studios.

Through poetry she explores her experiences of the world, reflecting on her Sudanese heritage & using her musical background to further her storytelling with the use of rhythm & melody.

Credits include: Dirty Boy (Feature Film), Lighter Shades of Blue (Short), Cacoethes (Short), The Flowers of Srebrenica (Legal Aliens), Estella (Theatre6), Uncle Vanya (Harold Pinter Theatre), Anansi the Spider (Unicorn Theatre), Babylon Beyond Borders (Bush Theatre), Apple Tree House (CBBC), Macbeth (Classical Theatre of Harlem).

Bethany O’Halloran is an Irish/English actress who recently, graduated from The Oxford School of Drama. Upon graduating, she has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a production called, North Star, as part of their 37 Plays project. She recently, finished performing in a production of, Romeo and Juliet, at The New Wolsey Theatre and Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmunds where she played the role of Tybalt and the Nurse.

She is to perform in an upcoming production of Twelfth Night at this years Verona Shakespeare Festival and is attached to an upcoming production of one of Tennessee Williams plays that will show in London and New York in 2025.

Short film credits include recently filmed, The Sacrifice, directed by George Morgan and her feature film credits include BBC Films, Zero. Radio credits include, The Rat, for INK Festival and being BBC’s Carlton Hobbs Finalist in 2022.

Actor and Co-Artistic Director of CultureClash Theatre, Cassandra read Law at the Glasgow University School of Law and worked as an immigration and human rights lawyer before undertaking the MA Acting Degree at Guildford School of Acting in 2015.

Cassandra's professional theatre credits include Kayla in The Oxford Playhouse’s Home In Time For Christmas, Pinocchio and Sylvia Green (respectively) in Greenwich Theatre’s Summer repertory season of Pinocchio and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Guest Participant in Christopher Green’s immersive R&D of The Playground (Alexandra Palace), Sharon Slaughter in Hell, Yes I’m Tough Enough ( Park Theatre), Modern Moll Frith, in Moll & The Future Kings, (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) News Reporter in One Hundred Trillion, (Southwark Playhouse), and many more.

In between tutoring the untutored and bringing up four children, Catherine’s long career of snapping up any potentially type-casting rôles from the Equity casting pool, is now rising to a satisfying and appropriate crescendo recently.

While recently stamping her personality on such rôles as Truvy in ‘Steel Magnolias’, Martha in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ and Lady Macbeth in ‘Macbeth’, Catherine is about to start rehearsing for Paulina in ‘A Winter’s Tale’ with a combination of determination and enjoyment, which she hopes will be shared by the Hotbed audience.

Eric has been around for decades, producing solid work at most turns, well out of publicity's glare. His quirky style, attention to detail, and joyous working attitude have garnered quiet fans throughout the industries, helping him reinvigorate some seriously challenging roles.

Last autumn, he could be found at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, attending the death of Diana Princess of Wales as ambassador to France in The Crown (the day before our Queen's state funeral, extras, cast and crew reconstructed the day after Diana's death; eerily surreal for the many involved). This May, he attempted to sell nuclear secrets to Iran in a project which remains under wraps. So he is delighted, this month, to balance out that yang catalysing the tension between the twin yin imperatives of caring both for our offspring and the entire planetary ecosystem, in Menagerie’s ALBATROSS.

Hannah’s recent credits as a performer and collaborator include Carneskys Showomxn Sideshow Spectacular (Brighton Festival), As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe), Caroline Horton’s Zoombird (Coventry City of Culture), The Mysteries (Manchester Royal Exchange), The Letters Project, The Unknown Island (The Gate), Islands (Bush Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare’s Globe), Cadaver Exquis (Kassy’s – European Tour), England (with Tim Crouch) touring to New York, The Melbourne Arts and The Hong Kong Festivals, among others.

Hannah is co-founder of award winning theatre collective SHUNT; she has co-devised and appeared in all their shows and projects include including: The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face, Tropicana (with the National Theatre), Dance Bear Dance and The SHUNT Lounge community arts platform project.

Vanessa Ackerman trained as an actor at LAMDA . She has worked with companies such as the RSC, the Royal Court, and the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith among others .

Her play Love, No Country was performed in July 2021, directed by Patrick Morris, as part of Menagerie Theatre Company’s Hotbed Festival. Other plays include Three Glorious Days and The Many Lives of Clara M. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Amethyst Review, Marble Poetry, Anthropocene, Barren Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Propel, Icarus, Cerasus and the Cephalo Press Anthology Borders and Belonging. She was a 22/23 Mercury Theatre Playwright and her chapbook Small Rebellions was a winner of the 2023 Dreich Classic Chapbook Competition.

Susanna trained in Acting at Drama Centre London. Some recent actor/writer projects include:

Intervention Snacks (Short film and TV Pilot) The Neighbourhood Watch ( R&D Park Theatre) Alice from HR, Art from the Heart (Southwark Playhouse). Theatre: Everyone’s a Playwright (Alexandra Palace Theatre) The Queens Speech (Southwark Playhouse) Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Open Bar Theatre, UK Tour) The Gin Chronicles: A Scottish adventure (Pleasance Theatre & Edinburgh Fringe) Flycatcher (The Hope Theatre) The Gin Chronicles At Sea (Old Joint Stock Theatre & UK Tour) Arial in The Tempest (Bread And Roses Theatre) Sasha in Ivanov (Boris Schukin Theatre, Moscow).

Caroline trained at Bretton Hall and has been an associate artist with Menagerie for over twenty years. Recent theatre credits include: Splinter (Colchester Mercury), Bliss (Finborough Theatre); The Summer Before Everything (Oxford Playhouse); Pictures of You (Soho Theatre); Caroline is passionate about developing new writing and creating work through exploring new methodologies around devising.