Cast Set For World Premiere of NINA at Battersea Arts Centre

Battersea Arts Centre has announced casting for the world premiere of NINA, the debut play written by celebrated director Caroline Williams (You Do Not Have to Say Anything - The Yard, Now is the Time to Say Nothing - The Young Vic), co-directed with award-winning artist Deborah Pearson (The Future Show - International Tour, Inside Bitch - Royal Court). Inspired by Chekhov's The Seagull, NINA is a meta-theatrical fever dream on coercion, power and the quest for creative expression. The BAC production runs from 6 to 24 October with press night on 8 October 2026 and launches the London venue's experimental, boundary-pushing autumn season celebrating extraordinary new work from exceptional artists.

The full cast includes Maya Bartley O'Dea (Expendable - Royal Court, Punk Rock - Stratford East) as NINA 01, Samantha Begeman (Brief Play About Rage - Omnibus Theatre, Motorway - Edinburgh Festival) as NINA 02, Nina Bowers (English Kings Killing Foreigners - Soho Theatre, As You Like It - Shakespeare's Globe) as NINA 03, Gemma Barnett  (A Hundred Words for Snow - Trafalgar Studios, Revenge: After the Levoyah - Edinburgh Festival) as NINA 04, Joseph Payne (Macbeth - Shakespeare's Globe, Showtrial - BBC) as MAN 01 and Rowan Polonski (How The Other Half Loves - Old Vic, Double Feature - Hampstead Theatre) as MAN 02.

A series of actresses audition to play Nina in The Seagull for a charismatic, yet sinister director. His methods are unorthodox, annihilating, and very effective. Using imaginative stagecraft to explore the tension between female strength and survival, NINA subverts a familiar gender narrative in a way that is in turn humorous, playful and unsettling.

Caroline Williams, Writer and Co-Director, said: “Meryl Streep once said 'women have been speaking the language of men all their lives. Women speak men, but men don't speak women, they don't dream in it.' This play, through the prism of The Seagull, is an attempt to stage my version of that dream. Excluding the more surreal elements, everything that happens in NINA has happened to me or someone I know. In that sense, it is a deeply personal work, in which I've tried to find a theatrical language for what being a woman really feels like. The setting is a theatre, and the subject is the dynamic between an actress and her director, but it could be set in any place where a woman is pushed beyond what she can safely hold.”

Deborah Pearson, Co-Director, said: 'I first read a draft of Caroline's play during the pandemic and I thought it was one of the most exciting pieces of new writing that I had encountered in a long time. The text has such a clear form that is playful and theatrical, exploring questions around control and authority that remain depressingly relevant. It is rare to come across a piece of new writing and be able to envision it as a text for performance so clearly. Caroline has written something moving and troubling and true. I'm honoured to help bring it to the stage.

'At times human beings crave authority figures and that craving can lead us to some very dark places and to some very dark people. Caroline has explored that desire to be in charge or to let someone else take charge with startling and unsettling precision.'

Pelin Başaran,  Battersea Arts Centre Creative Director said: “NINA, for me, speaks to something we experience far beyond theatre: how easily we can find ourselves living in the shadow of 'genius', trying to keep doing our work while holding on to our dignity. And none of us stands completely outside these systems; we are part of them too. What drew me to NINA is the way Caroline explores questions of power, coercion and creative freedom through a theatrical language that is bold, surreal and unsettling. I'm incredibly proud that BAC is producing this ambitious new work, bringing together the distinctive artistic voices of Caroline and Deborah alongside such an exciting cast. NINA sets the tone for the season ahead: work that takes risks, experiments with form and isn't afraid to ask difficult questions”

NINA is brought to the stage by Writer Caroline Williams, Co-directors Deborah Pearson and Caroline Williams, Producer Kate Yedigaroff, Dramaturg Christopher Brett Bailey, Video Design Daniel Denton, Associate Video Jacob Krumpolc, Lighting Design Marty Langthorne, Composition/Sound Design AJ Turner, Movement Laura Dannequin, Casting Director Nadine Rennie CDG, Sound Associate Alexander Comana, Artist Wellbeing and Associate Director Linzy Na Nakorn, Set and Costume Designer Tomás Palmer and Associate Designer Set and Costume Victoria Maytom.

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