ME YOU US THEM Comes to Reform Radio

Melting Pan Productions in partnership with Terra Nova Productions has announced theatre-to-film project Me You Us Them to conclude Terra Nova's 15th Birthday celebrations. Melting Pan Productions Me You Us Them comes as a personal response piece to the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Me You Us Them explores real stories of racism, identity and sense of belonging in Northern Ireland and will be released for an online run from 12 October – 12 November. These accounts of racial experience in Northern Ireland resonate strongly now, as we face the continued rise of racism and fascism locally, and across our post pandemic world.

Based on the original stage play by Andrea Montgomery, Me You Us Them is based on hours of off-the-record conversations with people across Northern Ireland about race and modern relationships. The play sits at the centre of Irish relationship-driven drama. The creative team, led by mixed-race actor-director-producer Melissa Dean, supported by Andrea Montgomery, discovered new ways of sharing theatre on film, as they took ownership of sound scope and production elements.  Terra Nova and Melting Pan believe this is crucial to the transformation of our industry.

Actress and Producer Melissa Dean, whose mother is from Belfast and father from Guyana, said today, ‘It is important for the voices of Northern Irish citizens dealing with race and racism to be heard in the hope that people recognise their own ignorant thinking, wake up to stories they recognise in their own lives and then educate themselves. How are things ever going to change otherwise? The piece has continued relevance. Andrea's incredible hard work at Terra Nova Productions, and the voices of Northern Irish citizens, both need a larger audience. I hope this film helps with that.'

Andrea Montgomery, writer and Artistic Director of Terra Nova Productions said, ‘Melissa approached me in 2020 to consider reviving the piece and what has made the project work for me has been Melissa's leadership and her exciting mixed race creative team exploring how a play could work on film, and still feel theatrical; and then delivering that!'

Adapted from the original play by: Andrea Montgomery; Created by: Andrea Montgomery and Melissa Dean; Assistant Producer: Josh Shultz; Assistant Producer: Amy McFarlane; Director of Photography: David Angeline; Gaffer: Euan Wallace; Focus Puller: Euan Wallace; Sound: Sam King; Set and Costume Design: Erin C Guan; Set assistant: Kelly Loi; Editor: David Angeline and Melissa Dean; Sound design: ALTOSOUNDS; Sound Master: Emmanuel Rumhungwe.

Cast: Elizabeth Ayodele (Constance), Chris Mohan (Ryan, Kyle, Samuel), Melissa Dean (Janice, Keeva), and Aaron Teoh (Howard Kwong). Chris Mohan and Melissa Dean (Kylie and Carol)

In the piece, characters from various cultures in Northern Ireland are brought to life, including voices and experience from Nigeria, rural Armagh, Belfast, China, Jamaica and Donegal.  Informed by conversations with real people from across Northern Ireland, the piece was curated through Terra Nova's ethical intercultural practice.  The voices are by turns angry, funny, hopeful and heartfelt, and remain extraordinarily different from what we see on Northern Ireland's main stages.  In launching this theatre-to-film adaptation, Terra Nova and Melting Pan aim to make the stories accessible to a wider audience.

Melissa Dean graduated from The Oxford School of Drama in 2010 and leads Melting Pan Productions. Her theatre credits include 5 Minutes of Heaven, (Illusion Theatre, Minneapolis, US), INK Young Writers Festival, Peter Pan (Hull Truck Theatre), Small World (The Courtyard Theatre), Arrivals 2 (Northern Ireland Tour), BAREtruth: Theatre Uncut (Southwark Playhouse & The Pleasance Theatre, London), After The Fall (The Theatre Chipping Norton & The Hampstead Theatre), Terror Tales (Dry Write at The Hampstead Theatre) and Sleeping Beauty (Mercury Theatre). Her television credits include The Investigation, Doctors, Line of Duty: Series 3, EastEnders; and for film Ember, and Cut From Cloth. She has a radio show A Safe Space To ARTiculate at Reform Radio, monthly and is one of the leading voices on The Guardian Newspaper's podcasts. Her producing credits include Little Stitches and The M & M Sketches.

 

Andrea Montgomery has directed well over 60 productions across the globe, and has worked in locations as diverse as Macau, Hong Kong, Greenland, Iran, Canada, across the UK and Ireland. For Terra Nova she has written The Trumpet & The King (Currently Touring), Me You Us Them (Shaftesbury Theatre), Mi Mundo (The Crecent Arts Centre), adapted The Belfast Tempest (Belfast Docks) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Queen's Hall, Belfast), co-written The Ulster Kama Sutra (Grand Opera House, Belfast), written All At Once I Saw A Crowd (Belfast) and co-written It's Not All Rain & Potatoes (Grand Opera House, Belfast). 

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