Chris Parham (Director)
Chris is a teacher, actor and director from London. His theatre work in Tokyo includes Trofimov in TIP’s The Cherry Orchard; Will in Writing William, Trevor in The Last Christmas and Miller in Crossroads Country for New Worlds Theatre; and Gus in The Dumb Waiter and Joey in The Homecoming for Black Stripe Theater. He has directed four plays in the last two years including Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and Brecht’s Schweyk in the Second World War. His next acting job is an ensemble role in Anjin San directed by Gregory Doran at the Galaxy Theatre. Chris is a CSSD and Rose Bruford graduate.
Tim Harris (Roote)
At Ueno Gakuen University, Timothy Harris has produced, directed and acted in a number of Shakespeare plays, including the first performance in Japan of Edward III. He has appeared on NHK television and in a number of plays produced locally, including Black Stripe’s The Homecoming, in which he played Max, and in 2009 he appeared in the role of General Douglas MacArthur in NHK’s documentary drama about Shirasu Jiro. In April, 2007, he directed a production in Tokyo of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Mutsumi Hatano and Satoshi Chubachi among the singers. He has also written on a variety of literary topics for a number of leading newspapers and periodicals both in Japan and overseas.
Kimberley Tierney (Sound and Music design)
Kimberly Tierney is a director and producer whose career has focused on the development of new works for the stage. She was the resident assistant director at the Wilma Theater from 2001 to 2003, with notable works developed during her residency including Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman, Doug Wright’s Pulitzer winning I Am My Own Wife, and Polly Pen & Laurence Klavan’s original musical Embarrassments. Kimberly then went on to develop and produce the 2005 and 2006 First Person Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art with Vicki Solot. She has worked as a freelance director with the Kitchen Theater, Brat Productions, UNCUT Productions, the Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival, The Virginia Opera Association, and the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, NY.
Kevin Hand (Gibbs)
Kevin trained at Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre and worked as an actor in England for seven years. He performed with various repertory companies in England and in several TV dramas and then took a long break and came to Japan. He has appeared in a number of TV commercials in Japan and after his break from theatre he started doing and running workshops again. This is the second play he will have appeared in in three weeks. He recently appeared as Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost with the Japanese theatre company Biotop as part of the Ikebukuro theatre festival.
Walter Roberts (Tubb)
Walter is a founding member of Black Stripe Theater having directed its inaugural productions of The Dumb Waiter and Victoria Station as well as last summer’s production of The Homecoming. He also appeared as Shelly “The Machine” Levine in BST’s production of Glengarry Glen Ross and in Chris Parham’s TIP production of Death of a Salesman in the role of Willy Loman. He has worked as an actor in national tours in Japan and the United States, most recently as cellist in Ken Ogata’s one-man production of Cyrano De Bergerac. Walter will be appearing in the film Nodame Cantabile which will open in Japanese theatres in December. Walter is a graduate of The Goodman School of Drama.
Elena Yankova (Miss Cutts)
Elena is happy to utilize her Master’s degree in Performing Arts in her search for balance between the submissive and dominant sides of human nature in the exciting company of the talented men from the cast and crew of The Hothouse. She wishes to dedicate the results of this search to Erich Fromm and The Clown, Sadistic Circus and all the members of the Kink society in Tokyo.
Ian Martin (Lush)
Ian was born in Scotland but has been in Japan for over twenty years now, including a spell of ten years as a child. Currently working as a translator, he has been involved in a number of productions with TIP and Black Stripe Theater over the past four years, most recently as both the red-socked Nazi brute Bullinger and his inebriated brother in TIP’s Schweyk in the Second World War. This is his third outing in a Pinter production with Black Stripe, and he has found the role of Lush perhaps the most challenging (and bruising) to date.
Roger Huw Jones (Lobb)
Roger Huw Jones hails from wonderful Wales, and has been on stage in a variety of plays from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. In his spare time he pretends to teach in Tokyo in front of large numbers of bemused university students. His alter ego treads the boards as often as auditions allow, and it finds solace in the only thing truly worth pursuing: Art.
Jon Reimer (Costume)
Jon Reimer was born, raised, and educated in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He holds degrees from Muhlenberg College in Theatre Arts (Directing and Design) and Religion (Asian Studies). At university, he also served as Presidential Assistant to the Department of Theatre and Dance – which was ranked third in the U.S. by the Princeton Review for Undergraduate Theatre. He came to Japan on the JET Programme and currently works in Tokyo as a full-time copywriter for the Japanese commercial arts company, Chef House. He is a Tokyo International Players board member and will looks forward to directing their upcoming musical, Pippin, this spring.
Yuko Ono (Set)
Yuko graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama with an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at London University in 2006. She has a great deal of experience working for in Japanese theatre in the U.K. as a set maker, stage manager, and scenographer. Yuko has a keen interest in Japanese traditional art and has found this project extremely rewarding as it has challenged her perception of theatre design.
Ben Nazer (Flyer and Programme)
Ben is an Elementary School ALT, and helped design ‘The Hothouse’ flyer. Ben is helping behind the scenes because he enjoys hanging around with artistic types and trying to be cool. The last time he worked with the director, Chris Parham, he was on-stage in Schweyk in the Second World War. He feels that being relegated to ‘the person helping out’ is a definite step in the right direction!
Gareth Berrick (Lamb)
Gareth comes from Britain and has been living in Japan for seven years since deciding that being a croupier wasn’t a good idea. He is relatively fresh on the drama scene in Tokyo, and although he has had experience at Glyndebourne and in a number of smaller projects, this will be his first performance in a decade! When he’s not busy with Black Stripe, he likes to surf, travel, write and occasionally record short stories for ‘Trans Pacific Radio.com’. He also has a wonderful singing voice…
Kimberly Stafford (assistant)
Born and raised in the quaint town of Newton in Vermont, Kimberly has played the trumpet since she was nine and was involved in theatre all throughout high school. In 2009, she travelled to China, where she performed with thirty students in an original musical Joe Meets Jazz, which they created in order to teach and bridge the gap between Asian and American youth. Midway through a course in Asian Studies at Colorado University, she made her way to Japan and entered Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University and then Temple University. Now, in her final semester of her Journalism major, she finds herself back in the theatre.