Vicky IRELAND, Workshop Leader

Ginni MANNING, Workshop Leader

Kim Peter KOVAC, Workshop Leader

Ginni Manning (England/UK) is a playwright, writer, theatremaker, and creative facilitator from Liverpool. She began her career as a participant in the 'Everyman Playwright Development Programme'. Her work has since been performed at national and international venues. She coordinated collaborative events between the networks at the ASSITEJ Festival in Denmark and at the AAG in Sweden in 2022; performed at the ASSITEJ 2017 Cradle of Creativity Festival and the 2021 Mirai Festival. She co-wrote Dipalo, the ASSITEJ SA award-winning play, with Lalu Mokoku, and is a member of the Leadership Team of Write Local. Play Global. (WLPG).

Vicky Ireland (England/UK) is a writer, director, producer, and qualified Drama Teacher for children and young people. She worked in the original Theatre-in-Education program at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry as an actor/teacher and then in theatre companies across the UK. As Artistic Director of Polka Theatre, London, she directed, produced, and commissioned new theatre writing for children. She was a member of the ASSITEJ International EC for 6 years, holding the role of Treasurer. With fellow theatre artist Daryl Beeton, she co-founded IIAN, where she is currently a board member.

Kim Peter Kovac (USA) commissioned & produced 100+ new plays as Artistic Director of the Kennedy Center's 'Theater for Young Audiences' programme, and is co-founding director of the Center's award-winning 'New Visions/New Voices' programme which assisted in the development of 125+ new plays from the US and 10 other countries. He was on the ASSITEJ International EC for 12 years, 6 of these as Vice President. He is an ASSITEJ Honorary Member and a Lifetime Fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

Stasia Dukic (Bosnia & Herzegovina) is an actress working in the UK who will be attending the festival and has offered her services to IIAN as a facilitator and translator.

Simone Spiteri was born in 1983 and is a playwright, performer and director. She trained for her Diploma in acting at the Malta Drama Centre between 1996 and 2004. She obtained her B.A. (Hons.) in Theatre Studies in 2004 and her M.A. in Theatre Studies in 2011, both at the University of Malta.

In 2004 she set up Dù Theatre, for which she is Artistic Director and in which she performs, directs and writes original pieces. Her work has been performed in Denmark, Egypt, Sicily, Spain and Macedonia. Two of her written works, Appuntamenti and Kjaroskur, won first prize in the National Francis Ebejer contest for playwriting in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Both Appuntamenti and Lacuna have been chosen as one of the 120 best plays for the European stage in the European Theatre Convention’s (ETC) bi-annual publication. Since 2012 she has been working with many young people and companies on worked aimed at a young audience. Her plays  Il-Ħajja Xejn Cool ta’ Teenager Jismu Julian (The Not so Cool Life of a teenager called Julian) and #babydaddy had successful runs in Malta and have also been translated into English. She also wrote and devised a mobile shadow puppet theatre show called Fly Flynn which aims at performances both within normal theatre spaces as well as hospital environments, especially on a one-to-one basis by a child’s bedside.

She is also a published author and has written several books for young people and is in the process of writing a new fiction series for early older pre-teen children. In 2014 she was one of the chosen International Playwright Observers to participate at New Visions/New Voices at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. Simone is passionate about all aspects of the performance arts and is fluent in Maltese, English and Italian.

Milena Depolo was born in 1981 in Belgrade. She graduated in Dramaturgy from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 2006. Since 2007, she is permanently employed at the Boško Buha Theatre, where she has collaborated with theatre directors of all generations. She is Vice-president of the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ Serbia, where she designs programs that affirm dramatic writing for children and young people.

Her plays and dramatizations have been performed at the Podgorica City Theatre, Boško Buha Theatre, Little Theatre ‘Duško Radović’, Puppet Theatre ‘Pinocchio’, Belgrade Drama Theatre, National Theatre ‘Toša Jovanović’ Zrenjanin, National Theatre Subotica, and the Youth Theatre Novi Sad. Milena also writes scripts for television shows and series.

Her awards include: Josip Kulundžić (FDU, 2004), Award for the best play for Cricket and Ant (Zvezdarište, 2012). The play They Have Suffered toured many festivals and won many awards during 2014 (BDP Annual Award, Audience Award of Sterija Theater, Step into Courage Award in Banja Luka, Best Play at the Festival in Mladenovac...). She also received the award for the best text at the 47th Meeting of Professional Puppet Theatres of Serbia for the text Circus Mario and Neta, as well as the Award for the best female achievement for the film When Love is Late at the BaNeFF festival in Stockholm. For the play Kurt Quo Vadis? based on the story of Erlend Lu, she won the awards for the best text at the Zvezdarište Festival in 2018 and at the Kotor Children's Theatre Festival in 2019.