The untold story of the female monsters of The Odyssey.
“For us Femme Fatale is less of an archetype, more of a mission statement”
Welcome to the Monstrous Cabaret Club, a place to drown more than your sorrows, where the acts are unreal and the voices to die for! Whether you’re strapping in for the Sirens or caught between Scylla and Charybdis, you’re in for a night you’ll never survive forget!
Once the pre-eminent killers of the mythical age, who even Gods would turn to for their dirty work, they’ve long given up their licence to kill. Now they run a private club hidden somewhere between Mount Olympus and the Underworld.
They used to kill, but now they cabaret:
- SIREN, the woman-bird with the notorious voice
- SCYLLA the rock star with her outrageous costumes
- And last but not least the shapeshifting CHARYBDIS aka “Whirlpool”, the hostess of the grotesque, your MC with no clemency.
But the glamorous routine of their cabaret life is about to be shattered. A desperate and determined woman comes to them for help in taking down her abusive husband before he returns from a ten year war. These fabulous creatures are now faced with a deadly dilemma: sacrifice the safety of the shadows or come out into the light and help a stranger in her hour of need?
As the stakes ratchet up, we move from cabaret to tragedy.
Collide (“clearly a company to keep an eye on”, The Guardian) invites you to an epic new show about revenge and sisterhood. An ensemble of three brings you the never before told story of the female monsters of The Odyssey, blending humour and darkness, myth and modernity and Collide’s signature dream-like aesthetic.
Post Show Q&A: The Making of Fabulous Creatures – Thursday 13th June
A post-show discussion with the cast and members of the creative on the process behind making the show.
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Running time
85 minutes -
Age guidance
14+ -
Content warnings
"A unique fusion of ancient myth and modern elements...presented in a way you'd never expect. Go and see this unmissable show!"– Stage to Page
"The most informative lesson on mythology, combined with a genuine enjoyable set of songs from three stand-out performers, this is certainly something different, and it’s hard not to recommend a tentative visit to the... Monstrous Cabaret"– All That Dazzles
"Fabulous Creatures is slick, funny, and beautifully told and sung"– Everything Theatre
"I, for one, am a big fan of Fabulous Creatures. If you want a night of fun, laughs and showing the power of sisterhood then this is definitely for you!"– Theatre & Tonic
"Weird and wonderful ‘play with songs'... A provoking look at how the patriarchy dominates women's lives and decisions"– Lou Reviews
"Fun, frisky and freaky, all in the best ways possible. An engaging piece of original theatre"– West End Wardrobe ️
Production photos
The Company
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Hannah van der Westhuysen
Charybdis
Hannah van der Westhuysen
Charybdis
Hannah is best known for playing the lead role of ’Stella’ in Fate: The Winx Club Saga for Netflix. Most recently, they can be seen playing a recurring role in Paramount’s Sexy Beast and hit Warner Bros production The Sandman for Netflix. Their film roles include ‘Becca’ in The Bay of Silence and ‘Clelia’ in Lamborghini.
Last summer Hannah led in Salty Irnia as part of the Paines Plough collection at Summerhall, Edinburgh. This follows their acclaimed performance at the previous Edinburgh Fringe in Autopilot.
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Jazz Jenkins
Siren
Jazz Jenkins
Siren
Jazz Jenkins is a native New Yorker and relocated to London to train at LAMDA where she graduated in 2023. Fabulous Creatures marks her UK professional stage debut.
Theatre whilst training includes: The House That Will Not Stand (Agnes), RENT (Joanne), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (The Singer) and The Seagull (Nina). -
Kate Newman
Scylla/Clytemnestra
Kate Newman
Scylla/Clytemnestra
Kate is a classically trained actor, neo-burlesque performer, writer, producer and the creator and host of Like A Virgin Cabaret. She trained at The Drama Centre and The Cheek of It School of Burlesque. Her burlesque alter ego Have Your Kate and Eat It has performed at The Barbican, Battersea Arts Centre and The Hippodrome Casino. She is currently working on Dance, then her debut short film, in which she plays the role of Iris. Her TV credits include Alder (ITV) and Smothered (Sky Comedy).
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Collide Theatre
Producer
Collide Theatre
Producer
Collide is a female-led international theatre company based in London. Founded in 2015 by director Emily Louizou, Collide has collaborated with more than 50 international artists coming from all disciplines. Over the past decade Collide has created 9 dance-theatre productions, ranging from site-specific promenade performances to black box theatre shows. Their mission is to experiment with non-traditional forms (adapting poems, myths, stories, novels), blending text with movement and music. In 2019, Collide was selected to as one of the ten most promising companies to watch by the New Diorama. Their production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis was featured in the Incoming Festival 2019 which showcased the UK’s most “explosive” work from emerging artists! In 2022 Collide presented a new expressionist production of Georg Kaiser’s The Coral at the Finborough Theatre (directed by Emily Louizou), with the Guardian hailing them as “clearly a company to keep an eye on”. In 2023 they partnered with the Omnibus Theatre and presented a new adaptation of the myth of Daphne and Apollo (The Woman Who Turned Into A Tree) . https://www.collidetheatre.com/
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Emily Louizou
Director and Co-writer
Emily Louizou
Director and Co-writer
Emily Louizou is a London-based theatre and opera director. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Collide. She trained on the MFA Theatre Directing programme at Birkbeck, University of London. Prior to this, she completed her Bachelors Degree in English Literature at University College London (UCL). Her recent credits include: The Woman Who Turned Into A Tree (Omnibus Theatre, London), Symptoms of Weightlessness (Little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus, Greece), The Coral (Finborough Theatre), Labor (Poreia Theatre, Athens), Metamorphosis (New Diorama & HOME), Love of the Fireflies (HOME), Hamletmachine (site-specific), 4.48 Psychosis (site-specific). Emily has also directed productions in East15, Rose Bruford, Arts Ed, UAL and other drama schools. In addition to her directing work, Emily has worked as a resident assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and at HOME in Manchester.
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Quentin Beroud
Co-writer
Quentin Beroud
Co-writer
Quentin is a writer and director for stage and screen, with a particular interest in European theatre and the tragic-comic. His translation and adaptation of Mariveaux’s farce The Game of Love and Chance (★★★★★ HackneyGazette) was Arcola’s first major production to open their new Outside Space post-Covid. His history with the Arcola goes back a long way, having worked there as Writer, Director, Associate and Assistant director. He is therefore well-versed in the coffee run to Cafe Oto next door.
As writer & adaptor: The Game of Love & Chance (Arcola Theatre). As Dramaturg: The Coral (Finborough Theatre). As Director: The Statesman (Arcola, Reading starring Alex MacQueen); Richard II (Houses of Parliament & Arcola); Verge of Strife (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh). As Associate Director: The Game of Love & Chance; The Daughter-In-Law (Both Arcola); Into the Numbers (Finborough Theatre); Girl From Nowhere (The Other Palace). As Assistant Director: Richard III (Arcola & Teatro-Salon Cervantes, Alcalà, Spain).
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Elizabeth Filippouli
Executive Producer
Elizabeth Filippouli
Executive Producer
Elizabeth Filippouli is a writer and executive with a career across media and social entrepreneurship. As a journalist she has worked at Al Jazeera English, CNN International and in Greek media and among the personalities she has interviewed are: Ted Turner, James Rubin, Deepak Chopra, Santiago Calatrava, Alberto Juantorena, Chris Cramer, Al Gore, Susan Sarandon, Lord Robertson, Christiane Amanpour, Peter Arnett, King Constantine of Greece, Lord Sebastian Coe.
She is also the Founder of the non-profits Global Thinkers Forum and Athena40, supporting women and youth through mentoring and public conversations.
In 2023 she adapted and produced Alexander the Great-Between Dreams and Imagination, a play deconstructing the idea of greatness in leadership, presented in the British Library for three sold-out performances. She works on artistic projects that offer new perspectives on established ideas.
Filippouli’s book ‘From Women to the World-Letters for a New Century’ was published by Bloomsbury in July 2021. It brings together the voices of diverse women in a collection that features Booker-prize nominated Elif Shafak, activist June Sarpong OBE, journalist Mariane Pearl, entrepreneur Annabel Karmel MBE, economist Vicky Pryce, film director Shamim Sarif, actress/activist Yasmine Al Massri, businesswoman Anousheh Ansari and others drawing attention to gender equality, homelessness, war, LGBTQ+ rights, mental health and other pressing social issues.
Her studies include MA on Journalism & Media, from City University London, MBA Strategy & Innovation from Oxford’s Said Business School and Masters of Liberal Arts in Creative Writing, Harvard University.
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Ioli Filippakopoulou
Movement & Choreography
Ioli Filippakopoulou
Movement & Choreography
Ioli Filippakopoulou is a Greek performer, movement director and teacher based in London. Ioli has been collaborating with Emily Louizou and Collide Theatre since 2015. Recent movement directing credits include: Symptoms of Weightlessness (Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, Greece), Paradise Now (Bush Theatre), The Coral (Finborough Theatre), Trojan Women (LAMDA), Julius Caesar (LAMDA), Ms Julie (ThePlace), Timon of Athens (RSC), Metamorphosis (HOME, New Diorama), Medea Material (UAL).Ioli is currently an Associate Movement Teacher at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (AMDA) and a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD).
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Costi Levy
Assistant Director
Costi Levy
Assistant Director
Costi Levy is a director and writer working across the UK, Spain and Argentina. Costi makes interdisciplinary theatre, bringing text, movement and music together to start conversations about social issues and global challenges. Recent directing credits include The Tempest (Oxford Playhouse, 2023), Hands and Flowers (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, selected for National Student Drama Festival, 2022) A Deed Without A Name (online, 20221), Still Life (online, 2020), A Doll’s House (Burton Taylor Studio, 2019), HOME (2018) and Not Our Kind of People (2017). Costi studied Philosophy and Spanish at Oxford University, and trained at Teatro Estudio El Cuervo (Buenos Aires), La Casa Invisible (Malaga) and through the National Theatre’s ‘Getting started: directing’ programme.
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Ismini Papaioannou
Costume and Set Designer
Ismini Papaioannou
Costume and Set Designer
Ismini is a London-based scenographer and architect from Athens, who specializes in set and costume design for theatre and film. Currently pursuing an MFA in Scenography at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with the A. G. Leventis Foundation Scholarship, she also holds an MA in Architecture from the National Technical University of Athens.
Her artistic practice challenges boundaries related to identity, gender roles, and social constructions. She explores feminine bodies at the intersection of costume and space, in a non-naturalistic way, through material manipulation, prosthetics, and movement. She has collaborated with the Young Vic, JW3, and Hoxton Hall, for the UK Festival of Performance Design 2023. Recent theatre design works include O Sonho Europeu/The European Dream, in Lisbon, and As You Like It in London, directed by Marcos Barbosa and Neil Bartlett respectively.
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David Doyle
Lighting Designer
David Doyle
Lighting Designer
David is an award-winning lighting designer working across the UK and Ireland. Recent Credits include Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz (Royal Court Theatre), The Last Show Before We Die (The Yard Theatre), SAP (Atticist and Ellie Keel Productions), and we were promised honey! (YESYESNONO). He was nominated for an Offie for Best Lighting Design for EAST at King’s Head Theatre. David also works as a producer and is currently the Executive Producer of Jermyn Street Theatre.
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Mariza Kapsabeli
Photography
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George Turner
Development Officer
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Glerren Bangalan
Assistant Producer
Glerren Bangalan
Assistant Producer
Glerren Bangalan is a Filipino writer and producer currently taking up an MFA in Creative Producing at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. As a storyteller, she specialises in stories that explore sex and gender positivity, and relationship dynamics. As a producer, she specialises in geek-centric events. She’s one of the producers of Deus Sex Machina, Manila’s leading (read: only) comedic erotica live-reading performance group and GeekFight!, Manila’s longest-running independent quiz event.
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Anastasiya Sosis
Assistant Producer
Anastasiya Sosis
Assistant Producer
Asya is an international theatre practitioner, born in Ukraine and currently based in the UK. She graduated in 2022 from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with an MA in Creative Producing. Her first directorial and producing work was Cockroaches, an adaptation and translation from Russian of Mikhail Bulgakov’s play Flight about the hardships of finding your place in the world as a refugee of civil war, inspired by her own experiences with the Russian invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014. The show participated in the Camden Fringe (2016), the Edinburgh Fringe (2017) and had a limited run at the Etcetera theatre in London in 2018. Since then, Asya has directed and produced international shows both in Ukraine and the UK, her latest being Hanoch Levin’s The Rubber Merchants in 2021-2022 at Old Red Lion theatre, a musical tragic farce about chances not taken, that was nominated for an Offie Award for the Best Ensemble.
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Irene Skylakaki
Composer & Sound Design
Irene Skylakaki
Composer & Sound Design
Irene is a musician and songwriter, originally from Athens, Greece. To date, she has released five studio albums: Wrong Direction (2012), Before Dawn (2014), Matterless (2018), Souvenir (2020) and Hydra (2022). During the past four years Irene has also written music for TV and theatre, most notably collaborating with director Emily Louizou on Labor (Poreia Theatre, Athens, 2022) and Symptoms of Weightlessness (Little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus, Greece, 2023).
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Ibraheem Hamirani
Stage Manager
Ibraheem Hamirani
Stage Manager
Ibraheem grew up in Oman and is a London-based Stage Manager. He is a graduate in Stage Management from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. His credits include La Bohème (OperaUpClose), Scoring A Century (British Youth Opera), The Tempest (Wildcard’s productions), An Inspector Calls (PW Productions), Bad Roads (Fourth Monkey Productions), Duck (Katy Galloway Production), Rumble In The Jungle (Rematch), Don’t Destroy Me (2’sCompany Theatre). He is extremely excited and eager to be a part of this production.
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Ugne Garcia Velickaite
Assistant Designer
Ugne Garcia Velickaite
Assistant Designer
Ugne is currently training on the BA Costume Design at Wimbledon College of Arts.
She loves to take an experimental route with her work, playing around with texture, movement and surface decoration. Given general themes/prompts, she enjoys going for unexpected interpretations, going deeper with the research and creating detailed characterisation through costume.
After finishing her BA, Ugne aspires to work in the Film and Theatre industry, with the dream role of a Costume Designer and Supervisor.
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Jessica Weaver
Research Assistant
Jessica Weaver
Research Assistant
Originally from France, Jessica is currently completing a joint honours degree in English Literature and Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research over the last three years has focused on intercultural performance practices and multiform theatre – working with a collaborative approach and with emphasis placed on socio-political context, she has experience in directing and devising, as well as in practice-based research. She always looks for new ways to marry a narrative rooted in research with the creative vision, incorporating elements of movement, music and poetry.
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Anna Wood
Sound Associate
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Teck Kroll
Make Up Artist
This production is supported by
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Athena40
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The Hellenic Centre
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Embassy of Greece in London
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Cetuem London
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Knock.inc
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Medical Prime
Special thanks to Sinéad O’Keeffe for lending her voice as Clytemnestra’s mother.