HOMEPAGEABOUT USPRODUCTIONSREVIEWSSUPPORTCONTACT USEDUCATIONLINKS

About Us

Jonathan Race

Artistic Director

Jonathan trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He has worked as an actor in numerous theatre roles, in the West End and across the UK. Roles include Peter in the original cast of the highly acclaimed production of The Railway Children, Harris in Three Men in a Boat, Reverend Hale in The Crucible, Tempest in Forty Years On, Richard II in Two Planks and a Passion, Larry in My Family and other animals, the Trumpeter in The Trumpeter’s Tale, Ratty in The Wind In The Willows, and the Agent in Patient No.1, all for York Theatre Royal; the title role in the premier of Augustus Carp Esq. by Himself, the Jongleur in Dario Fo’s Mistero Buffo, Galileo in Science Friction and Barabbas in The Narrow Road, all for Riding Lights Theatre Company; Hamlet in Hamlet and Wilfred Owen in Not About Heroes, Corn Exchange, Newbury; Ralph Clark, Our Country’s Good, Watermill Theatre; the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, New Vic Theatre; Evil Eric in Mother Goose and the Beast in Beauty and The Beast for Nottingham Playhouse. Other roles include Malcolm in Macbeth, Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps, Peter in The Diary of Anne Frank, Detective Trotter in The Mousetrap, Williams in Possible Worlds, Danny in City Lights, Dymotron in The Night Before Christmas, the Predators and the Gruffalo in The Gruffalo, and Rupert in Rupert Brooke. Screen roles include Emmerdale and acclaimed feature film Weekend.

The Useful Donkey Theatre Company was founded by Jonathan to produce simple, yet powerful and entertaining theatre.

Gail Kemp

Artistic Associate

Gail started acting at the age of thirteen with the BAFTA award-winning Central Television Workshop in Nottingham. Soon after joining Gail appeared in the hit children’s comedy series Palace Hill as Binky Spoon. A number of television roles followed including Resnick alongside Tom Wilkinson, Peak Practice, and the award winning Coping With…

After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art screen roles continued in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Ready when You Are Mr. McGill, A Thing Called Love, The Rotters’ Club, Harry Batt, Primeval, Holby City, Jack Dee’s Lead Balloon, The Legend of Dick and Dom, Little Howard’s Big Question, Sugartown, Emmerdale and numerous commercials including the award winning John Smiths commercial with Peter Kay.

Theatre roles include Viola in Twelfth Night, Marion in Science Friction, a female Polonius in Hamlet, and a number of roles including Medea in Franca Rame’s Female Parts.

Antony Dunn

Artistic Associate

Antony Dunn is an English poet and dramatist. He attended Oxford University where he won the Newdigate Prize in 1995 and received a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award in 2000. He has published three collections of poems, Pilots and Navigators (Oxford University Press 1998), Flying Fish (Carcanet OxfordPoets 2002) and Bugs (Carcanet OxfordPoets 2009).

Antony lives in Leeds, where he works as Head of Communications at Yorkshire Dance, as well as Artistic Associate for Useful Donkey. He is Assistant Director of the Bridlington Poetry Festival and was appointed Poet in Residence to the Ilkley Literature Festival 2010.

Antony is a regular tutor for The Poetry School and the Arvon Foundation. He has worked on a number of translation projects with poets from Holland, Hungary, China and Israel, and was Poet in Residence at the University of York for 2006. His writing for film and theatre includes Dog Blue, Goose Chase, Shepherds’ Delight, Timewarp 2000 and a screen adaption of Albert Camus’ stageplay, Cross Purpose. In 2006 he contributed lyrics to Mark Ravenhill’s pantomime, Dick Whittington and His Cat at The Barbican, London.

Love Poetry from Antony’s collection Bugs is included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2010.

“I’m really enjoying Antony Dunn’s new collection Bugs. I’ve been a fan of Antony’s careful and precise verse for years”.
Ian McMillan
“An often unique voice… subtle, thought-provoking and enormously readable”.
Poetry Review
For more information visit www.antonydunn.org and www.poetryschool.com

Vicki Hackett

Artistic Associate

Vicki trained at Rose Bruford College of Speech & Drama and since leaving her theatre credits include Care and Clotched at West Yorkshire Playhouse; Chameleon at Sheffield Crucible; Augustus Carp Esq. By Himself, Mistero Buffo, The Passion and Walkout for Riding Lights Theatre Company and Pinnochio and Nineteen Seventy Seven at York Theatre Royal.

Screen credits include a role in Paddy Considine’s directorial debut Tyrannosaur; Always and Everyone III; Kiszko; The M Word; Sky Horses and presenting GMTV’s The Review. Vicki also presented Living Icons: Tyndale, a film by the BBC. Vicki has also been immortalised in plasticine as Matilda the Performing Cow in the Aardman Animations series of Creature Comforts -The Circus, for ITV.

Radio credits include Bumbleman, The Sign of the Fish and Jonah for BBC; and Around the World in Eighty Days and Treasure Island for CN Productions.

Vicki has worked for Sheffield Crucible and West Yorkshire Playhouse as a workshop leader for schools, and for Pilot Theatre Company’s tours of Bloodtide, Lord of The Flies and East is East. She has also worked as Director for a number of musical theatre projects for the National Centre for Early Music and the Three Choirs Festival, Worcester.

Andy Pilliner

Artistic Associate

As well as being Useful Donkey’s first ever Stage Manager, Andy is also a freelance Lighting Designer and Technician. He has worked and designed for a range of different theatre companies with design credits including CSI York and Don’t Worry Be Happy, for York Theatre Royal; Cigarettes & Chocolate, Pinteresque and On The Shore of the Wide World, for Old Bomb Theatre Company; The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Pilgrimage for Riding Lights Theatre Company; and The York Mystery Plays.

Andy has also worked in various production roles, including Stage Manager for Rupert Brooke; regular Stage Electrician for the ever-popular York Theatre Royal pantomime; Stage Electrician for the highly acclaimed York Theatre Royal production of The Railway Children; and Lighting Technician in film projects for both Riding Lights Theatre Company and The National Railway Museum.