Matilda Ibini is an award-winning bionic playwright and screenwriter. Her work has been staged at Shakespeare's Globe, Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, Arcola Theatre, Hackney Showroom and VAULT Festival.

Sami Ibrahim is a writer from London. His plays include: Multiple Casualty Incident (The Yard Theatre, London, 2024); A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain (Paines Plough / Rose Theatre, Kingston / Gate Theatre, London, 2022); two Palestinians go dogging (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2022; winner of the inaugural Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award in 2019); Metamorphoses, co-written with Laura Lomas and Sabrina Mahfouz, after Ovid (Shakespeare's Globe, 2021); Wind Bit Bitter, Bit Bit Bit Her (2018 VAULT Festival, London); Iron Dome Fog Dome (The Yard, London, 2017) and Force of Trump (Brockley Jack).

He has worked at the Almeida Theatre as a member of their Creative Board, developing and producing From the Ground Up, a piece of immersive theatre.

(Author photo by Ali Wright)

Born in Norway in 1828, Ibsen began his writing career with romantic history plays influenced by Shakespeare and Schiller. In 1851 he was appointed writer-in-residence at the newly established Norwegian Theatre in Bergen with a contract to write a play a year for five years, following which he was made Artistic Director of the Norwegian Theatre in what is now Oslo. In the 1860s he moved abroad to concentrate wholly on writing. He began with two mighty verse dramas, Brand and Peer Gynt, and in the 1870s and 1880s wrote the sequence of realistic ‘problem’ plays for which he is best known, among them A Doll’s House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler and Rosmersholm. His last four plays, The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken, dating from his return to Norway in the 1890s, are increasingly overlaid with symbolism. Illness forced him to retire in 1900, and he died in 1906 after a series of crippling strokes.

Natalie Ibu is a director, producer, curator and facilitator of ideas and change. In 2020, she became the Artistic Director and Joint Chief Executive of Northern Stage in Newcastle. Previously, she was the artistic director and CEO of tiata fahodzi – the only Black-led theatre company in the UK with a sole focus on new work.

Robert Icke is a writer and director. His recent productions include Judas, Children of Nora and Oedipus at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam; Player Kings (West End and UK tour); Enemy of the People (Park Avenue Armory); Animal Farm (UK tour); Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart); and The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory, Adelaide Festival, Almeida, West End and Burgtheater, Vienna).

His work while Associate Director at the Almeida (2013-19) included adapting and directing The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (also West End and UK tour), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (also West End and Park Avenue Armory) and 1984 (co-created with Duncan Macmillan, also Broadway, West End, UK and international tours). As a director, his productions included Hamlet (also West End, BBC2 and Park Avenue Armory), The Fever and Mr Burns. 

His awards include two Evening Standard Awards for Best Director, the Critics' Circle Award, the Kurt Hübner Award for his debut production in Germany, and the Olivier Award for Best Director for Oresteia, of which he is the youngest-ever winner. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

James Ijames is an American playwright, director, actor, and educator. He was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Fat Ham. His other awards include a Pew Fellowship, the F. Otto Haas Award for Emerging Artist, the Terrence McNally New Play Award, a Whiting Award, a Kesselring Prize, and a Steinberg Prize. His other plays include The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington and White.

Rhianna Ilube is a playwright and events curator.

Her debut play Samuel Takes a Break... in Male Dungeon No. 5 After a Long but Generally Successful Day of Tours (Yard Theatre, London, 2024) was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting, and Highly Commended for the Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award.

She was previously Associate Director at Coney, and her other theatre work includes WE ARE HERE TO MAKE CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!! (Royal Court) and 1884 (Coney).

Vicky Ireland was Artistic Director of Polka Theatre for children and works as a freelance theatre director.