Mary, Queen of Thots by Katrina Smith-Jackson Directed by Beverly Andrews
		Wednesday 10 - Saturday 20 July, 2024 At the Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington

One of five plays performed together as part of Ain't I A Woman? - a theatrical initiative examining the intersection of race and gender; written, directed and produced by black women.

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Photography by Pau Ros

Cast List Mary : Megan-Madaleine Freeman

Production Team Director : Beverly Andrews Assistant Director : Sara Amanda

	Megan Madaleine Freeman is an actress based in London. Since training online at the Identity School of Acting during the lockdown, she has appeared primarily on stage in various productions across the capital, showcasing black women in a distinctive array of colours, from Yasmine Dankwah’s spoken word play Rite to Party to Freda Tuor’s workshop Black Sands. Ain’t I A Woman? will be her third appearance at the Tower Theatre, following on from her roles as Sarah Forbes Bonetta in The Gift and Susan in Seize The Day. She is very excited to bring incredibly written play Mary, Queen of Thots to the stage in what will be her first solo performance. She has a BA in World Literature from the University of Kent.			Beverly Andrews is a playwright, director, documentary filmmaker and the current immersive artist in residence at Britten Pears Arts (home of the Aldeburgh classical music festival), through the European Network of Opera Academies. An alumnus of two Sundance Institute’s film directors courses, she recently co-directed the Arts Council funded workshop presentation of her musical The Coloured Valentino. Her plays have been produced internationally, from the UK, US, India to Bhutan, earning her various accolades including: most anticipated play for Annawon’s Song at the 2020 Vault Festival; recipient of the Roland Rees Playwright’s bursary; and runner up (twice!) of the Alfred Fagon award. She won three international awards for I am Going to Make a Miracle (a documentary about the Arcola Theatre which she wrote and directed and was bought by Sky Arts). Sophia, a play which she wrote and produced, depicting the life of Asian suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, will appear at this year’s Dhaka International Film festival celebrating the work of female filmmakers.
	Katrina Smith-Jackson started her career as a script researcher on EastEnders. She has worked as script writer on the Sky Atlantic show Riviera, on Hackney Wick for Bad Wolf and Channel 4, on several episodes of Hollyoaks, BBC children’s show JoJo and Gran Gran and on Waterloo Road. She recently developed the pilot for an original TV series for BBC Studios and Channel 4 based on her Screen Nation award nominated web series Shrink, a psychological thriller which examines the stigma of mental illness within the Black community. Winner of the TriForce Creative Network’s WriterSlam for her original series Tilbury Rush, (influenced by Katrina’s Jamaican heritage), her latest feature script, Queerly Beloved, was shortlisted for the Greenacre Productions and TriForce Creative Network Script Search initiative. She currently lectures at MetFilm School and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and has been selected on the Soho Writers Lab cohort for 2023/24.