National Theatre Wales Confirms Professional and Community Cast for WE'RE STILL HERE

A combination of professional actors - including a local steelworker - and a community cast from Port Talbot will be performing in National Theatre Wales & Common Wealth's We're Still Here. This new production tackles one of the biggest symbols of Wales' industrial past and present; the Port Talbot steelworks.

Inspired by conversations with steelworkers, union members and the wider community, We're Still Here by Rachel Trezise will be the first theatrical response to one of the biggest recent news stories in Wales - which resonates with steel towns the world over - and will feature evocative soundscapes and visual feats in the atmospheric setting of a vast warehouse.

A cast of five professional actors - one of whom is a Port Talbot steelworker - will include Sam Coombes, Ioan Hefin, Jason May, Simon Nehan and Siôn Tudor Owen.

Sam Coombes is a steelworker from Port Talbot, and has been employed by Tata Steel since 2007. He lives in Taibach, with his wife Joanne and their two sons Max and Evan. Sam has always supported local fundraising events by singing and acting, yet caught the bug for theatre through the Taibach RFC annual pantomime. Over the last 12 years, he has played various roles, most recently Robin Hood in the 2016 production. This will be Sam's first professional role.

Ioan Hefin's theatre credits include: The Woman In Black (Torch Theatre), Matthew's Passion (Sherman Cymru), Aladdin (RCT), Y Storm (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) and Brassed Off (Clwyd Theatr Cymru). His television credits include: Hinterland, Belonging and Ordinary Lies 2 (BBC) and Parch (S4C). His film credits include: Apostle (Severn Screen) and Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiars (Tim Burton Productions). His radio credits include: T Llew Jones Short Story Adaptation (BBC Radio Cymru), Aiden Melberg (BBC Radio Cymru): The Tempest / Y Storm (BBC Radio 3), Bisgits A Balaclafas, Wythnos I'w Chofio, Blaentafod, Achos Tarw Scotch, Sgidie Bach Llandeilo and Rhydeglwys (BBC Radio Cymru).

Jason May's theatre credits include Spangled (Mercury Theatre Company) and The Get Together (Sherman Cymru). His television credits include: Britannia (Sky & Amazon), A Poet In New York (Modern TV for BBC Four), Da Vinci's Demons (Starz), Stella (Tidy Productions for Sky), Caerdydd (S4C), Torchwood, Belonging, Holby City and The Bench (BBC). His film credits include: Watcher In The Woods (Heartbreak Films), The Lighthouse (Davy Jones Ltd), Petroleum Spirit (Mirror Entertainment), Berserkers and City Spirit (Tornado Films), Once Chance (The Weinstein Company), The Darkest Day (Lindisfarne Films), Devil's Bridge (Dogs Of Annwn), Made in Dagenham (Number 9 Films) and A Bit Of Tom Jones? (Tred Films).

Simon Nehan trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. He was an Associate Artist at Terry Hands' Clwyd Theatr Cymru where his credits include Under Milk Wood, Bruised, Macbeth and Memory. Recent theatre credits: include Blasted! (The Other Room) and This Incredible Life (Canoe Theatre Company). His television credits include The Windsors (Channel 4), Ordinary Lies, Cuffs, Merlin, Atlantis, and Doctors (BBC), Talking to the Dead (Sky Living) and Birdsong (Working Title/BBC). His film Credits include Me and Orson Welles (CinemaNX), Made in Dagenham (Number 9 Films), Svengali (Working Title) and The Cleansing (Tornado Films).

Siôn Tudor Owen trained at Guildhall. His theatre credits include: five seasons with the RSC, Mozart in the first national tour of Amadeus and MEN best actor nomination for Scweyk at Manchester Library Theatre. He played Mr Evans in Carrie's War (National tour and West End). Other stage credits include On the Black Hill, Under Milk Wood and Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Clwyd Theatr Cymru/Made in Wales), West Side Story (World tour), A Chorus of Disapproval, White Christmas (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Mr Boo in Little Voice at Scarborough. His television credits include: The Bill, Doctor Who, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Touch of Frost, Midsomer Murders, Grange Hill, Jackanory, Casualty, Doctors and Holby City. His film credits include: Highlander, Twin Town, Staggered, Hamlet, Submarine, Aberdeen and The Girl from the Song and Moose Limbs, both about to be released.

Performing alongside the five professionals will be four teenagers from Port Talbot - Callum Bailey, Isabelle Coombs, Dylan John, Joseph Reynolds - as well as a community cast (whose names and performance schedule are to be confirmed).

Six years after National Theatre Wales staged its iconic The Passion in Port Talbot on Easter weekend 2011, the company is proud to return to the town this September, with multi-award-winning theatre company Common Wealth, to stage this brand new production.

Port Talbot steelworks, one of the last heavy industries in Wales, where generations of steelworkers carry their craft. Standing shoulder to shoulder, sharing their space. These are the leaders, workers, fathers and sons. "It gives you a funny feeling, right here in your solar plexus, when people come together to speak up for themselves."

Common Wealth make award-winning site-specific theatre events that encompass electronic sound, new writing, visual design and verbatim. Their work is political and contemporary - based in the present day, the here and now. It is relevant and addresses concerns of our times. Common Wealth seek out places to stage their work that are right at the heart of a community; a residential house, a boxing gym, places where people who might not go to the theatre might come to instead. They see their plays as campaigns, as a way of bringing people together and making change feel possible.

Writer Rachel Trezise was born in Rhondda in south Wales, where she still lives. She studied at Glamorgan and Limerick Universities. Her novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl won a place on the Orange Futures List in 2002. Harpers & Queen magazine voted her New Face of Literature, 2003. In 2006, her first short fiction collection Fresh Apples won the Dylan Thomas Prize. She was writer in residence at the University of Texas, Austin in 2007. Her most recent novel is Sixteen Shades of Crazy. Her second collection of stories, Cosmic Latte, won the Edge Hill Readers' Award in 2014. Her debut play, Tonypandemonium, was produced by National Theatre Wales in 2013, and performed at Treorchy's Park & Dare Theatre.

For more information visit www.nationaltheatrewales.org/were-still-here.

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