Who We Are

Tracy Cooper

Chair

Tracy Cooper is the Chief Revenue Officer for JW3, the only Jewish Cultural Centre of its kind in the UK. As CRO she drives the reimagining of JW3’s approach to growth and financial sustainability.  Prior to JW3, Tracy was Chief Executive of artsdepot, the award-winning arts centre in North London, for over a decade.  Tracy has over 25 years’ experience in the third sector including six years as Head of Programming, Corporate Business & Marketing at The Royal Albert Hall, as well as fundraising roles at Marie Curie Cancer Care, Cancer Research Campaign and Jewish Care. In recognition of her leadership role in the arts Tracy was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Cultural Strategy Group 2008-2016 and was also an inaugural winner of ‘Power Part Timer Top 50’.

Felix Cross MBE

Felix Cross worked as a guitarist in rock and jazz bands, songwriter, stand-up comedian and music teacher before moving into music theatre. In 1996 he was appointed Artistic Director of Black Theatre Co-op, which became Nitro. Music theatre for which he has written book, music and lyrics includes Blues For Railton (Albany Empire); Glory! (Temba/Derby Playhouse – winner 1988 LWT Plays On Stage); Mass Carib (Albany Empire/South Bank/national no1 tour/Trafalgar Square/Greenwich & Docklands Festival) and Passports To The Promised Land (NITRO/Sheffield Theatres). He has written music and lyrics or books for many musicals, and music for plays for, amongst others, Albany Empire, Nottingham Playhouse, Tricycle Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Tamasha, Talawa, National Theatre, Out of Joint, and for all 23 of Agatha Christie’s plays. He also has extensive credits as a director. In 2012 he was awarded an MBE for services to music theatre.

Ameena Hamid

Ameena Hamid is an award-winning London based creative producer, festival curator and facilitator Ameena Hamid. She is the company director and creative producer at Ameena Hamid Productions. Ameena was named Best Producer at the Black British Theatre Awards 2022 and was heralded as “a true role model to the future generations” by Official London Theatre. Ameena was one of The Stage 25 2022, and one of The Stage 100 in 2023.

At just 22, Ameena is the youngest producer and general manager currently working and, having cut her teeth on Death Drop (Garrick Theatre) as an Associate Producer in 2020, the youngest ever female producer on the West End.

She worked as Theatre Producer at Soho Theatre and is on the Board of the League of Independent Producers. Ameena is supported by the Stage One Bursary scheme, having been part of their Bridge the Gap Programme. Ameena was an EdFringe and British Council Emerging Producer in 2019 and part of the Creative Freelances Shaping London’s Recovery Advisory Group.

Ameena holds a BSc in Social Anthropology with First Class Honours from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2022)

Pravesh Kumar MBE

Pravesh Kumar is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of award winning Rifco Theatre Company, he was awarded an MBE in the Queens Honours list 2022 for Service to Theatre. He started the company in 2000 to make a different kind of theatre for a community that could not see themselves represented on English stages.  He has been at the forefront of bringing new British South Asian audiences into theatres in their thousands, often for the first time by making entertaining and accessible theatre.

Pravesh has a background in film and worked in the commercial Indian film industry often called Bollywood for many years. His theatrical directorial debut was in 2000 with a UK tour of Bollywood – Yet Another Love Story. He has gone on to achieve critical acclaim for Rifco’s productions: Dishoom!, Pyar Actually, Miss Meena & the Masala Queens, Laila The Musical, Britain’s Got Bhangra, Happy Birthday Sunita, It Ain’t All Bollywood, There’s Something About Simmy, Airport 2000, Meri Christmas, Where’s My Desi Soulmate?, The Deranged Marriage and Break The Floorboards. 

His short film, Gods on Mountains was nominated for the Satyajit Ray Short Film Award. His short film The Deranged Marriage was selected for the BAFTA accredited BUFF festival in 2019. Most recently Pravesh wrote the book for the acclaimed rap musical, Mushy: Lyrically Speaking.  Pravesh is currently writing an ambitious new main stage musical and in post-production on his debut feature film Little English. He leads on the Rifco Associates programme finding new British South Asian voices of the future.

Katy Lipson

Katy Lipson is the Company Director of Aria Entertainment. In 2017, she was awarded the Best Producer award by the Off-West End Awards and she is a recipient of the Stage One Bursary and Start Up Award. In 2018 and 2019 she made The Stage 100 with Joe Houston and William Whelton for their work at Hope Mill Theatre, which also won Fringe Theatre Of The Year in THE STAGE awards. Most notable credits include the UK Tour of The Addams Family and the 50th Anniversary production of HAIR at the London Vaults which won the award for Best Off-West End Production at the 2018 Whatsonstage Awards. She also produced the London transfer of new musical The Toxic Avenger at The Arts Theatre. Some other recent productions include: Unexpected Joy (Southwark Playhouse and York Theatre, Off-Broadway); It’s Only Life (Union Theatre); Putting it Together; The Return of the Soldier, Aspects of Love, Spring Awakening, Little Women, Pippin, The ToyBoy Diaries, Yank!, Parade and Hair (Hope Mill Theatre); the London transfers of Pippin (Southwark Playhouse), Yank! (Charing Cross Theatre); tick, tick…BOOM! (Park Theatre); Promises, Promises and The Toxic Avenger (Southwark Playhouse); See What I Wanna See and The Return Of The Soldier (Jermyn Street Theatre); Bar Mitzvah Boy (Upstairs at the Gatehouse); The Adventures of Pinocchio, Lizzie and The Who’s Tommy (Greenwich Theatre); The House of Mirrors & Hearts, (Arcola Theatre) and Marry Me A Little, Jerry’s Girls and Forever Plaid (St. James Studio).

Other projects include: Aspects of Love (Southwark Playhouse); Rags; Mame and The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit (Hope Mill Theatre) and the UK Tour of Hair. She has produced 6 festivals of new musical theatre under the banner of FROM PAGE TO STAGE which has supported over 100 new musicals to date.

Fiona Mallin-Robinson

Fiona Mallin-Robinson has over two decades’ experience within the arts and not-for-profit sector, spanning organisations both large and small in the UK and abroad. She was Marketing & Development Director at English National Ballet (2000-2006) and National Events Manager at Opera Australia, Sydney (1997-2000). Since 2006 she has worked as an independent consultant, specializing in strategic planning and income generation for charities and arts organisations. Her clients have included: ADAD (Association for Dance of the African Diaspora), Phoenix Cinema, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Scene & Heard and Woburn Abbey & Gardens. Fiona is an Arts Adviser for John Lyon’s Charity, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and on the Board of Trustees for Primary Shakespeare Company.

Tim Sawers

Tim Sawers is currently embarking on his third career.  Having spent 20 years in the oil & gas industry and then 20 years in theatre, he has embarked on a portfolio career that encompasses charity work, restaurants, websites, classical choral singing and many other small projects.  With respect to musical theatre, he was part of the team, led by Carol Metcalfe, that started the Bridewell Theatre in 1993 with the desire to focus on musical theatre, in particular supporting new musical theatre writing in the UK.  He was the Executive Director there for many years and produced a number of in-house musical theatre productions including a number of World and European premieres including Songs for a New World, Hello Again and Floyd Collins.

Raj Shah

Raj Shah is a commercial lawyer, whose day-to-day work involves drafting and negotiating a wide range of commercial contracts for clients, many of whom operate in the arts, media and culture sectors. He additionally advises clients on data protection, technology, and intellectual property issues. Outside of the law, Raj works as an independent literary and cultural researcher and scholar, and has contributed articles and studies to various peer-reviewed publications, including the UK’s only international academic journal dedicated to musical theatre. Raj is honoured to be part of MTN and to help support its fostering of exciting new work.

Sharon D Clarke

Sharon D Clarke, MBE is a three time Oliver Award winner – for Best Actress in a Play for Death of a Salesman, for Best Actress in a Musical for Caroline Or Change and for Best Supporting Actress for The Amen Corner at the National Theatre. Sharon appeared at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in Porgy and Bess, and on the West End, her appearances have included We Will Rock You, Ghost, Once on this Island, Guys and Dolls, Mama I want to Sing, Rent, The Lion King, Chicago, Hairspray, Soho Cinders, The Life and Blues in the Night. Sharon has achieved acclaimed chart success as a singer and has also worked as a Musical Director, Recording and Voice-Over Artist and Radio DJ. Sharon has worked extensively in television, including performances in Doctor Who, Waking The Dead, Soldier Soldier, Between The Lines and a long run as ‘Lola Griffin’ in Holby City.

Howard Goodall

Howard Goodall is one of Britain’s best-known composers of choral music, stage musicals, TV and film scores and is also a distinguished music historian and broadcaster. He has composed some of the best-known TV theme tunes of the last 40 years. His choral music has been commissioned to mark many national and international ceremonies and memorials.

Howard’s first West End musical, The Hired Man, based on Melvyn Bragg’s book, opened in the West End in 1984, when he was 24. It has since been performed all over the world and won many international awards. His other West End musicals include Girlfriends (1987), The Kissing-Dance (1998), the dreaming (2001), Love Story (2010), and in 2015-6, Bend it Like Beckham, adapted from Gurinder Chadha’s iconic 2002 film, which was seen by a quarter of a million people at the Phoenix Theatre and has since had Austrian and Canadian premières. Since its London opening, Love Story has been premièred in the USA, The Russian Federation, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, where it was produced in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Olympiad. Musicals currently in development include Stunners, with Joanne Harris, which was premièred at London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2019.

For the past 30 years he has written and presented his own TV documentary series on the theory and history of music. His books been translated and published in over 20 countries. For his TV series he has been honoured with a BAFTA, an RTS Judges’ Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting and over a dozen other international broadcast awards. He was England’s first National Ambassador for Singing and Classic fm’s Composer-in-Residence from 2009 to 2016. He was appointed CBE in 2011 for services to music education.

Barbara Whitman

Barbara Whitman made her Broadway debut producing A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, and Sanaa Lathan. Other Broadway credits include Good Night, Oscar starring Sean Hayes, A Strange Loop (Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Best Musical; Pulitzer Prize) Diana – The Musical, Burn This starring Adam Driver and Keri Russell, Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk Award, Best Play Revival), 1984, The Glass Menagerie starring Sally Fields, War Paint starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, The Humans (Tony Award, Best Play), Oh, Hello starring Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, Fully Committed starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Fun Home (Tony Award, Best Musical), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Best Musical Revival), Of Mice and Men starring James Franco, If/Then starring Idina Menzel, Hands on a Hardbody, Red (Tony and Drama Desk Awards, Best Play), Next to Normal (Pulitzer Prize), Hamlet starring Jude Law, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda, Mary Stuart, Legally Blonde – The Musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,  and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. US National tours include Fun Home, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, If/Then, Murder for Two, Next to Normal, Legally Blonde – The Musical, …Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Frost/Nixon. Upcoming productions include A Strange Loop at the Barbican Theatre (Summer 2023).