Japan Tour Committee

Nicholas Morrell
Tour Manager

Nicholas Morrell is a choral scholar at Clare College, where he is in his second year reading for a degree in music.

Formerly a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, Nicholas gained a major music scholarship to Downside School, Bath, and then transferred to the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, London, to complete his sixth form studies. During his gap year, Nicholas worked at St. Philip's School, Kensington, where he taught music; he also produced and directed a school musical and directed the school jazz band.

Nick takes a keen interest in cultural exchange, and has hosted visiting performers from abroad whilst they are in the UK. He has also been responsible for the organisation of numerous concerts and shows in his role as secretary for Clare College Music Society.

Nicholas has established his own a-capella barbershop quartet at Clare College, 'Close Stave' (closestave@googlemail.com) and is also a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He is looking forward to visiting Japan for the first time.

Seiko K Matsui
Tour Manager

Seiko was educated in Yokohama and in Tokyo, graduated from Tokyo University in 2005 with a high class BA in History and currently studying English Law at Cambridge University. In her BA dissertation, she studied regulations against theatres in London in 1590s when Shakespeare was most successful. Seiko has also experience in teaching English to high school students for a year in her university days in Tokyo.

Her experience in theatre includes producing a play, KIRU by Hideki Noda, organising a class of 53 people to take part in Bunsan Gekijo (Lit III Theatre), the biggest yearly event in Tokyo University. After joining a couple of productions in Cambridge, she set up a society called Japanese Players which produces plays written by Japanese in Japanese with English subtitles. The works are characterised as experimental using interactive visual resources and both English and Japanese actors, and have been warmly received and anticipated in and around Cambridge.

Alex Middleton
College Liaison

Alex has a wealth of experience of Pembroke Players' touring theatre ventures, having served on the committees for the 2005 German Tour, the 2007 Japan Tour, and now the 2008 Japan Tour. He has also featured in four Pembroke pantomimes, as well as having taken parts in other Cambridge productions. A first-year history PhD student, he is in his fifth year at Pembroke. He was there when the Japan Tour was first conceived, and believes very strongly in its value.
Email Alex

Katherine McDonald
Pembroke Players President

Katherine is a second-year Classicist at Pembroke College. She has been on the Pembroke Players committee for two years, first as secretary and now as president, and acts as the liason between the Japan Tour committee and the main society.

Katherine has been involved in many plays in her two years in Cambridge, including the European premier of See What I Wanna See, The Seagull, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Return to the Forbidden Planet, and Fame. She has also produced two plays: Shakespeare's As You Like It, performed in the Emmanuel college gardens and, more recently, the British premier of Come Back to the 5&Dime, Jimmy Dean, which was a great critical success.

Her other interests include international film, comedy and education. She has worked in several schools and currently runs a volunteering project called Homework Help, which sends assistants into local schools to support after-school teaching.

James Lewis
Director

James is a 1st year English student and is taking full advantage of the theatrical opportunities that Cambridge has to offer. Last November he and Lauren co-directed Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit and, more recently, he directed Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane. James has a keen interest in travelling, last year he spent eight months living in rural Tanzania, where he taught English to primary school children. He also enjoys reading and watching football.

Hannah Baker
Ex-officio

Hannah was President of the Pembroke Players when last year's Japan Tour set off on its travels and when this year's Japan Tour began its first stages of planning. Now the Pembroke Players Secretary, she is liasing between the society and the Japan Tour committee. Her role as Access officer at Pembroke College includes organisation involving the tour's trip to Pembroke House in September. With six years spent at a theatre group and a year and a half with the prestigious Players, she is no stranger to the drama scene and can't wait to see this year's play. It will no doubt build on the phenomenal success of the 'Romeo and Juliet' Japan tour in 2007.

Rebecca Pitt
Publicity

Rebecca splits her theatrical efforts between publicity and acting. In Cambridge she has publicised a number of plays, including All the Ordinary Angels (ADC), The Cement Garden (FallOut Theatre), After the End (FallOutTheatre) and The Fall of the House of Usher (ADC). She has never been to Japan, but she has been on tour three times: twice in Europe, playing Bianca in Taming of the Shrew and a Witch in Macbeth (ETG); and once in America, playing Viola in Twelfth Night (CAST). She is also a keen artist and runs her own portrait business (www.rebeccapitt.com). Rebecca will be graduating from Cambridge this summer, and hopes to be an artist, a designer, an actor, a theatre publicist, a mum and a baker.