Our People
We couldn't do this without lots of people being involved. It all happens thanks to our story ministers.
Staff
Lucy Macnab, Co-Director
Lucy has a background in participation, writer development and teaching and learning. Her work is about finding ways to help people tell their stories: in print, performance, digitally, through collaboration. Most recently, Lucy was Participation Producer at Southbank Centre, where among many projects she made a Global Poetry System, a children’s production of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and an oral history of the Royal Festival Hall.
Ben Payne, Co-Director
Ben Payne is a writer, director and dramaturg, specialising in new writing for theatre. He was previously Literary Manager and Associate Director at Birmingham Repertory Theatre where he established Transmissions, the company’s ground-breaking young playwrights’ scheme and programmed the work of The Door, the Rep’s new writing theatre.
Jenneba Sie-Jalloh, Creative Learning Manager
Jenneba has always worked with and for children and young people. She has been a consultant and arts project manager for twelve years (and before then was teacher/ head of drama in a secondary school in Peckham). She has worked with organisations including Apples and Snakes and Creative Partnerships and was Education Manager for Spread the Word. She has written all her life and has just completed her first novel. Jenneba believes in the power of writing. She says, “It has both saved and fed me – not financially unfortunately!” She is also an eternal optimist.
Lorna Hosler, General Manager
Lorna’s experience in arts management includes participatory education projects for children, young people and adults at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, RADA and Central School of Speech and Drama. Most recently Lorna worked at Trinity Laban Conservatoire where she managed a post-graduate contemporary dance company that toured to international festivals and to venues throughout the UK. Prior to joining the field of creative learning, Lorna worked in film and television production.
Helen Innes, Monster Supplies Coordinator
Helen Innes is half of our Monster Supplies Intern team. Having always maintained in her previous role as assistant manager of Paperchase that no customer request is too outlandish or unusual, she is delighted to be working to meet the exacting specifications of the Hoxton monster demographic. Previous triumphs include convincing Paperchase head office that the best way to train employees to give great customer service was for them to spend a day playing games and painting pictures, and dressing up as a zookeeper to push around an opera singer on wheels in a parade with giant red giraffes.
Lorna Khoo, Monster Supplies Coordinator
Our intern Lorna completes the California duo that runs the Monster Shop, and together puts the “fresh” in Zombie Fresh Mints. After leaving behind the San Francisco start-up world, she finds comfort in the fact that unpredictable weather is also the English go-to topic of conversation. When not munching on Impacted Earwax bars, Lorna enjoys scouring the far corners of London for the latest foodie finds and getting herself into precarious yoga poses.
Gem Ahmet, Creative Learning Coordinator
Our intern Gem is an actor, writer, quizmaster and a great fan of adventure! When she’s not driving across the globe or prancing in front of a camera, Gem has worked on projects with young people in both formal education and the arts. She is currently helping young people at MoS to write and develop games and adventures as part of an ongoing adventure tourism project.