BIOGRAPHIES
CLARE DUFFY
Clare is a founding member of Unlimited, freelance playwright and in the final year of her doctoral research in playwriting at Glasgow University. In March 2011 Clare wrote and directed ‘Money…the game show’ for the Arches and Traverse Theatre, as a winner of the Platform 18 Arches New Directors Award. Her next show, ANA, will open in Montreal in November 2011 and tour Scotland in 2012. Clare co-wrote ANA with Francophone playwright Pierre-Yves Lemieux for director Serge Denoncourt, with Stella Quines (Edinburgh) and Imago Theatre (Montreal). She is currently commissioned by Magnetic North (Edinburgh) to write ‘Some Other Stars’ about a man with ‘locked-in syndrome’. Clare’s first full-length play, Crossings was produced and published in 2005 by Sgript Cymru. It won a Pearson award and a year residency at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. She has also written drama for Radio Four.
JON SPOONER
Jon is a director, writer, performer, founder member and the artistic director of Unlimited. For Unlimited he has directed and performed in Static, Neutrino (both awarded Fringe Firsts for "innovation in theatre and an outstanding production"), Could It Be Magic? (with Sheffield Theatres), Tangle (with The Corn Exchange, Newbury), The Ethics of Progress (with Oxford Playhouse) and The Moon The Moon (with Curve, Leicester). Also for Unlimited and Sheffield Theatres he has directed Safety by Chris Thorpe and Zero Degrees & Drifting (nominated for Best Fringe Production in the MEN Theatre awards). Most recently for Unlimited he has co-written Mission To Mars, The Ethics of Progress and The Moon The Moon with Chris and Clare.
In recent years Jon's work has focussed on communicating science with an emphasis on inspiring children and young people, particularly in quantum and astro physics. Partners have included Institute of Physics, European Astronaut Centre and the Science & Technology Facilities Council. With Chris and Clare he is a co-founder and director of the Unlimited Space Agency.
Jon is often invited to speak at conferences/events on themes of Leadership, Creativity and Inspiration - most recent engagements include the 2011 Children's Media Conference on "New Frontiers in Storytelling" and the 2011 International Astronautical Conference in Cape Town where he delivered a paper on "Inspiring Children in Space & Science Through Art and Play".
Jon has worked as a visiting lecturer in colleges and universities throughout the UK and run workshops with students, theatre professionals, journalists, soldiers and passers by across the world. He is an associate of the Quantum Information Group at the University of Leeds, on the advisory committee for the Children's Media Conference and the father of two small boys.
CHRIS THORPE
Chris is a writer and performer from Manchester and a founder member of Unlimited. For Unlimited he has performed in all but two productions since 1997 and written Static (awarded a Fringe First and subsequently recorded for BBC Radio 4) and Safety (which has also been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Lisbon and Tokyo).
Recently for Unlimited he has co-written The Ethics of Progress, The Moon The Moon and Mission to Mars with Jon and Clare. He has written for the National Theatre and was writer in residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse 06-07. Chris also writes drama for BBC Radio 4 - his new Friday Night Play Rio Story will be broadcast in Autumn 2011 and he is working on a new script about the Khmer Rouge Tribunal to follow that.
He works closely as a writer and performer with Sheffield's Third Angel both here and abroad, currently with their shows Presumption and What I Heard About The World, a co-production with Sheffield Crucible, Lisbon's mala voadora and PAZZ Festival in Oldenburg that's touring the UK and internationally. He translates new work, mainly from the Balkans, has a close working relationship with Serbian playwright Ugljesa Satinac and has trans;ated work for the Belarus Free Theatre.
Chris is proud to be a selector for the National Student Drama Festival and has just written a new verse version of Robin Hood for their Ensemble which will open at Latitude Festival 2011. He also writes screenplays and performs solo pieces. The solo pieces will (hopefully soon) be collected into an anthology provisionally titled Eating Wasps. His next new solo piece, There Has (Possibly) Been An Incident will be made for the Royal Exchange in Manchester and will be shown as a work in progress in October 2011.
He also works with companies such as Slung Low, RashDash and Soup Collective, for whom he's just written and recorded a text piece about the effects of war on ordinary citizens called The Bomb On Mutannabbi Street Is Still Exploding. The piece was for The Big Picture Show at the Imperial War Museum North, where it has been permanently installed in the main exhibition space.
He plays in a band called Pig Village.