Melissa-Kelly Franklin

Playwright

Melissa-Kelly’s short film, “Portrait”, inspired by Poe's short story The Oval Portrait and pre-raphaelite muse Elizabeth Siddal, screened in official selection at Wollongong Film Festival and Feel the Reel International Film Festival, and was highly commended by Experimental Forum for ‘vision and contribution to cinema’. She was nominated for Best Director at the Largo Film Awards for her short film, “Embrace Me”, and was recently invited to contribute both films to the international short film streaming platform Sofy.tv as part of Switzerland’s Largo Film Talent Program.

Melissa-Kelly graduated with first class honours in Advanced Arts from the University of Sydney, with majors in English Literature and History.  She followed her academic study with training in screen acting at NIDA and classical acting at LAMDA, all of which have been formative in shaping her writing and directing style. Her recently completed short, darkly comic romance “Only the Lonely” is soon to be released on the international festival circuit. She has several other projects in development, including upcoming short exploring women’s reproductive rights, “The Quickening”, Australian Gothic period short “Wild Flower” and LGBT French Language short “The Vow”. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Bathway Theatre in Greenwich, UK.

Sólveig Eva Magnúsdóttir

Director

Sólveig is a director, actress and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. She works in theatre and film under the stage name Eva Solveig through representation of Henderson Hogan, Creative Artists Iceland, Bicoastal Management and S+C Management. She is currently developing an interview series with a plethora of artists for an independent magazine “Grit” as well as an illustrated dark comic series on a space pig who suffers from separation anxiety after blasting her piglets into outer space. Her most recent illustration exhibit “Consumption and Healing” focused on the female experience of sex and bodily autonomy and exhibited with UN Women in Reykjavik and is currently at Freehold in Brooklyn until March 2020. Her directorial debut was with Spindrift’s productions Þríleikur and Carroll: Berserkur’s Scratch Performance at London’s Dreyton Arms Theatre prior to its run at Tjarnarbio. Sólveig is a vegan, humanitarian and an activist passionate about continuing the discussion on climate change and women’s rights through storytelling.

Bergdís Júlía Jóhannsdóttir

Actress: Young Woman

Bergdís had done various commercials and short films along with being on stage in Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark with the theatre group Blaue Frau who received fantastic reviews for their performance “35 jag och några skådespelare”. She performed with the children's theatre group Lotta all over Iceland in the summer 2018 and is still performing with them on smaller performances and entertainments. She is the Icelandic voice of Flora in the animated television series Winx Club available on Stod 2 and Netflix.

Bergdís has also passion in directing, producing and teaching and has worked with numerous groups of all ages as a director and a teacher. She produced the puppet performance “Own Two Feet” for the theatre group Miðnætti which received the Icelandic stage awards, Gríman, nomination in two categories.

Anna Korolainen Crevier

Producer

Anna Korolainen Crevier is a Finnish actress FIA and a theatremaker based in Helsinki.

She has worked and studied across Europe in the UK, France, Iceland and Estonia and is a co-artistic director of a Nordic theatre company Spindrift Theater.

Anna works with theatre, movement and music as a performer, director and a teacher.

Anna will be producing this piece with emphasis on music, casting Young Man and a choreographer alongside the other Spindrift founders, fundraising and further touring.

Pekka Koivisto

Composer

Pekka created the original composition for the production Carroll: Berserkur with Spindrift which features in our workshop videos.

Pekka completed his study in Music Pedagogy (BA) at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Music Theory and Composition (BA) at Sibelius Akatemia, and Music Theory and Composition (Master of Music) at University of the Arts Helsinki.