Conviction Autumn 2026 rehearsed reading – director and cast

Director

P Burton Morgan

P Burton-Morgan (they/them) read PPE at Oxford before becoming Artistic Director and Founder of touring theatre company Metta Theatre in 2005. Credits as writer and director include Explaining Being Pan to Nan (Exeter Northcott & UK tour), Sherlock Holmes and The PoisonWood (Watermill), The Rhythmics (Southwark Playhouse), In The Willows (Exeter Northcott & UK tour) for which they won the WGGB Musical Theatre Bookwriting award 2020, Little Mermaid (Theatre By The Lake & UK tour), Jungle Book (Theatre Royal Windsor, UK and Int. tours), Roles (V&A), Alice (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds & UK tour), Sexing The Cherry (Southbank Centre, Purcell Room), The Man With the Flower in His Mouth (Greenwich Theatre & UK tour), Waiting (Southbank Centre, Purcell Room, starring Juliet Stevenson), Blood Wedding (Southwark Playhouse) and The Elephant’s Child (Trafalgar Studios & Arcola Theatre).

In 2018, P was opera artist-in-residence at the V&A and Metta was Associate company at Exeter Northcott from 2016-2019.

Freelance directing credits include Hasbian (Clapham Omnibus), Cosi fan tutte (Wild Arts, UK tour) , Forgiveness (Bath Ustinov & UK tour), Madam Butterfly (Belgrade, Coventry & UK tour), Comedy of Errors (Exeter Northcott Theatre), As You Like It and A Midsummer Nights Dream (Wirksworth Festival), Gotcha (Riverside Studios), La Boheme (Palestine National Theatre & tour) and J’attendrais (English Touring Opera).

P is also a poet and novelist. Their poetry has been published in Propel Magazine, anthologized by Arachne Press, and The Chimes. Pamphlets include Solitary Animal Mother (50 Foot Press) and Explaining Being Pan to Nan (Mutti Press), and they won the 2024 Ledbury poetry slam. They have written three verse dramas and a spoken-word narration for Handel’s Messiah (Theatre Royal Drury Lane).

They are an autistic artist passionate about big ideas and deep thinking, representing diversity, and queer joy in particular. They live in rural Somerset with their two children. O: A QUEER ODYSSEY is their debut novel.

Cast

Headshot of Marianne Oldham. She is a white woman with blonde hair in a loose plait and blue eyes.

Marianne Oldham

Marianne Oldham is an Associate Artist at Shakespeare’s Globe, where her recent work includes Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and King Lear. Her theatre work spans major UK venues and companies, including the Old Vic, Bristol Old Vic, Sheffield Crucible, Hampstead Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, ETT, and Cheek by Jowl.

 Marianne won the South African Naledi Award for Best Actress for The Girl in the Yellow Dress, for which she was also nominated for the Edinburgh Stage Awards for Best Actress. She was nominated for Best Actor by the UK Theatre Awards for The Years Between at the Royal & Derngate.

Television includes Grantchester, The Midwich Cuckoos, Endeavour, A Very English Scandal, Father Brown, Foyle’s War, The Musketeers, The Crimson Field, WPC 56 and Life in Squares.

Film includes Finding Your Feet and Absolutely Anything.

Headshot of Kim Ismay, a middle-aged white woman with brown eyes and light brown shoulder-length hair. She is wearing an orange-brown ribbed jumper and is smiling.

Kim Ismay

Stage Credits include: Mrs Bateman in American Psycho (Almeida Theatre); Lea in Fanny (Kings Head Theatre, Watermill Theatre); Joan in Anne Boleyn: The Musical (Hever Castle); Barbara in Come Dine With Me (MT Fest/Edinburgh Fringe); Debs in Elf The Musical (Dominion Theatre); Frances in Kidnapped (National Theatre of Scotland); Her award-winning one woman show About Bill (The Other Palace); Madame Morrible in Wicked (Apollo Victoria, International and UK Tour); Tanya in Mamma Mia! (Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Novello Theatres); Lysette in The Silver Gym, Dotty Otley in Noises Off, Katisha in The Hot Mikado and Fiona in How The Other Half Loves (all Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch); Maxine in Stepping Out (Derby Playhouse); Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (UK tour); Miss Dinsmore/Dora Bailey in Singin’ In The Rain (West Yorkshire Playhouse/UK Tour); Flo Manero in Saturday Night Fever (UK Tour); Miss Bonnie in Acorn Antiques (UK tour); May Belfort in Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre); Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show (Frankfurt English Theatre); Kiss Me Kate, Wizard of Oz and Comedy of Errors (all RSC).

Television Credits include: Claudia in Not Going Out (BBC), Eastenders (BBC), Ida Hill in The Bill (Talkback Thames), Maxine in Bob Martin (Granada) and Suzie in London’s Burning (London Weekend Television).

Film Credits include: Professor in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Universal Pictures).

A headshot of Shobna Gulati, a middle-aged brown non-binary person with long dark grey hair. They have a mole above the left side of their lips and strong, manicured dark eyebrows. The background is dark grey and they are wearing an olive green shirt.

Kurt Kansley

Kurt is a seasoned British and Australian actor. He was born in Cape Town South Africa and immigrated to Australia with his family as a child. Kurt trained in Dramatic Arts and Music at Monash University and The Melba Conservatorium in Melbourne Australia.

Kurt’s theatrical credits in the UK include; Moulin Rouge (Toulouse Lautrec, World Tour), Pretty Woman (Alfredo, Savoy Theatre, West End), High Society (Uncle Willy, The Mill), But I’m a Cheerleader! (Mike, Turbine Theatre), Heathers (Ram’s Dad/Big Bud Dean/Coach Ripper; UK and Ireland tour), Closer to Heaven (Vic, Turbine Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Ensemble, u/s Marley, The Dominion Theatre, West End), Fanny and Stella (Lord Arthur Clinton, The Garden Theatre), The Nutcracker (Drosselmyer and Mother Ginger, New Theatre Royal), Wirework (Koos Malgas, Tristan Bates Theatre), Bernstein’s Mass (Tenor Soloist, Southbank Centre), Guys and Dolls (Harry the Horse, The Royal Exchange), Miss Saigon (Shultz, West End), Exposure (Bob, West End), The Lion King (West End), Elegies (Doug, West End), Ragtime (Coalhouse, Regents Park and The Landor), Sweet Bird of Youth (Jacky, Chichester and The Old Vic), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Tom Snout, Regents Park), The Love Girl and The Innocent (Kolodoy, Southwark Playhouse), Hair (Berger, European tour), The 12 Tenors, Rock Around the Clock and Robinson Crusoe (Friday, Panto).

Kurt’s theatrical credits in Australia include; Happy End (The Governor, Victorian Opera), Ragtime (Coalhouse, Production Company – nominated Best Actor in a musical, 2020 Green Room Awards), Evita (Che, Opera Australia – nominated Best Actor in a musical, 2019 Green Room Awards), Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair (Leroy, Production Company), The Lion King (Australian tour), RENT (Australian tour), The Grand Hotel, Godspell and Show Boat (Australian tour).

In workshop Kurt’s credits include Power Play, Sherlock Holmes, Mulan and The Last of the Mohicans.

Kurt co-writes in the writing duo Kansley & Lidert (https://kansleyandlidert.com). Together they write original book, music and lyrics for new musical theatre projects in the UK, USA, Singapore and Australia. Some of Kansley & Lidert’s shows include; The Songs I’ll Never Sing, Confessions, Has#ed Out, Autumn Rhythm, Beam Me Up, Fable and Threads.

Headshot of Mark Carlisle. He is an older white man balding on top with dark grey hair to the back and sides of his head. He has defined eyebrows and wears a brown jacket over a lilac shirt.

Mark Carlisle

Theatre includes: Indian Ink (Hampstead Theatre); Our 1972 (Riverside Studios); The Threepenny Opera (Ovo Theatre); The Tempest (Shakespeare in the Squares); The Lady Vanishes (Bill Kenwright); Glengarry Glen Ross (Playhouse Theatre); Peter Pan (Northcott Theatre); Once (Phoenix Theatre); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Duchess Theatre & Chichester); The Arabian Nights (Manchester Library Theatre); Cinderella (Citizens Theatre Glasgow); The Happy Prince (Sherman Theatre Cardiff); Arabian Nights (Derby Playhouse); The Jungle Book (Birmingham Stage Company); Hubble Bubble (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); Cyrano de Bergerac & Love’s Labour’s Lost (Oxford Shakespeare Company); West Side Story (Pola Jones); The Herbal Bed (RSC); The Crucible (Sheffield Crucible); The Innocents (Greenwich Theatre); Carmen 1936 (Northern Stage Company); Peter and the Captain (BAC)

TV : Kennedy; Doctors; The Crown; Hard Sun; Casualty; Emmerdale; Red Dwarf.

Film: To Fire You Come At Last