Our Team

Creative Producer - Darren Pritchard
Darren has had a long and distinguished career so far: Artistic Director, Company Fierce. Winner Arts Council North West Art 06 Award; frequent Quarantine collaborator, commercial TV choreographer; House of Suarez Vogue Ball project manager and choreographer; BAC/Sage Gateshead 21st Century Leader; Susan and Darren, Best Production Dublin Festival [performer, co deviser and producer Company Fierce/Quarantine]. He’s recently worked on movement for Keisha Thompson’s I Wish I Had A Moustache [Contact Flying Solo, Black Gold Arts Festival and touring] Chanje Kunda’s Amsterdam [Southbank Africa Utopia Festival, Contact Flying Solo, Black Gold Arts Festival and touring] Director/Deviser Alaska by Cheryl Martin [Contact Flying Solo, Domestic Festival, A Nation’s Theatre, Black Gold Arts Festival, And What? Queer Festival and touring]. Director/Deviser, Who Wants To Live Forever? by Cheryl Martin [PUSH Festival, HOME, January 2017 and now touring]. Director/Deviser, Rent Party co-produced by Sheffield Theatres Dec 2017 In July 2017, Darren was assistant choreographer for Manchester International Festival's opening show, 'What Is the City but the People

Creative Producer - Jayne Compton
Jayne is an independent producer and dramataurg who has worked with some of the UK's most experimental theatre-makers, performers and musicians. She has produced touring theatre to major venues and festivals both in the UK and across Europe. Jayne has a long-standing career in programming festivals, venues, live art, music, dance, and theatre.

Director Emeritus - Cheryl Martin
We congratulate Cheryl on her new role as Artistic Director at Red Ladder Theatre in Leeds.
Cheryl was a former Associate Director, New Writing/New Work at Manchester’s Contact Theatre and had loads of fun as Guest Curator for homotopia 2018. A Manchester Evening News Theatre Award winner as both writer [musical Heart and Soul, Oldham Coliseum Theatre] and director [Iron by Rona Munro, Contact], Cheryl’s solo stage show Alaska featured in 2016’s A Nation’s Theatre, & 2019’s Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe & London’s Wellcome Festival of Minds and Bodies. Her first poetry collection Alaska was longlisted for the 2015 Polari Prize.
Winner of an Unlimited Wellcome Collection Partnership Award for her film One Woman, she directed The Walk: A Sleeping Child for 2021’s Manchester International Festival, which launched the journey of the giant puppet Little Amal. She had a wild time directing Dominoes and Dahlias (+ Oware!) for the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2022 - still touring! - and won Best Age-Friendly Outreach in the Fantastic for Families Awards 2023.
She’s also proud of directing This Town by Rory Aaron, Contact Theatre & Derby Playhouse 2023, which won an award to go to The Pleasance for the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. And her first Red Ladder show, Sanctuary, will tour nationally in Autumn 2024.

Social Media - Fortune Jordan from Ghetto Fabulous. Fortune is a graduate from LIPA, a world leading provider of university-level performing and creative arts training.

Social Media - mandla
mandla is a poet and wordsmith who recently curated Outspoken, Queer Contact's annual poetry and spoken word event, having previously been a member of Re:Con, our Young Programming and Producing team.

Adam Lowe Chair
Adam is an award-winning writer, publisher and creative producer from Leeds, who now lives in Manchester. He is UK LGBT History Month Poet Laureate and was the Olympic poet for Yorkshire in 2012. He currently teaches at the University of Leeds (on the MA in Writing for Performance & Publication) and is a tutor for The Poetry School.

Yvonne Hepburn-Foster
Yvonne’s experience spans corporate, cultural, voluntary and higher education sectors – from large global corporations to small charities. She is currently a fundraising research specialist after 10+ years in fundraising. She has significant experience in trust and foundation fundraising, developing fundraising plans and strategies, managing board services, and is currently Chair of 20 Stories High. Her senior management experience includes organisational strategy, board development, developing new business partnerships, and funding relationships. For three years Yvonne travelled the UK, Brussels the Netherlands and Germany as a CRM database trainer and configuration specialist. For over 15 years she has worked in organisations that empower young people through providing opportunities for discovery, development, learning and sharing (Contact Theatre, OnSide Youth Zones, 20 Stories High and the University of Manchester.)

Heena Patel
Heena is a writer, community archivist, workshop facilitator and cycling instructor. She is one of the organisers of Over Here Zine Fest, an event showcasing self-published work by people of colour.

Oskar Marchock
Oskar has been involved as a performer, technician or advocate for theatre, film and dance since the 90's. Starting as a member of Ealing Young Peoples Theatre he had an opportunity to explore and train in a number of disciplines with teachers he would not of had access to. He has worked and trained in film making through ACAN a community film making project mainly focused in producing arts/performance films and then later taught other young people as a volunteer. Oskar continues to support and encourage arts projects which provide performers and communities with a space to imagine and explore beyond the boundaries that contain them.