Battersea Arts Centre has announced casting for the world premiere of NINA, a new play written by acclaimed director Caroline Williams and co-directed with award-winning artist Deborah Pearson.
Inspired by Chekhov’s The Seagull, NINA runs at Battersea Arts Centre from 6 to 24 October 2026, with a press night on 8 October, opening the venue’s autumn season of experimental new work.
The play follows a series of actresses auditioning for the role of Nina in The Seagull under the guidance of a charismatic but increasingly unsettling director. Through imaginative stagecraft and a shifting theatrical reality, the production examines coercion, authority and the pursuit of artistic expression.
The cast includes Maya Bartley O’Dea as NINA 01, Samantha Begeman as NINA 02, Nina Bowers as NINA 03, Gemma Barnett as NINA 04, Joseph Payne as MAN 01 and Rowan Polonski as MAN 02.
Williams said: “Meryl Streep once said ‘women have been speaking the language of men all their lives. Women speak men, but men don’t speak women, they don’t dream in it.’ This play, through the prism of The Seagull, is an attempt to stage my version of that dream. Excluding the more surreal elements, everything that happens in NINA has happened to me or someone I know. In that sense, it is a deeply personal work, in which I’ve tried to find a theatrical language for what being a woman really feels like. The setting is a theatre, and the subject is the dynamic between an actress and her director, but it could be set in any place where a woman is pushed beyond what she can safely hold.”
Pearson said: “I first read a draft of Caroline’s play during the pandemic and I thought it was one of the most exciting pieces of new writing that I had encountered in a long time. The text has such a clear form that is playful and theatrical, exploring questions around control and authority that remain depressingly relevant. It is rare to come across a piece of new writing and be able to envision it as a text for performance so clearly. Caroline has written something moving and troubling and true. I’m honoured to help bring it to the stage.
“At times human beings crave authority figures and that craving can lead us to some very dark places and to some very dark people. Caroline has explored that desire to be in charge or to let someone else take charge with startling and unsettling precision.”
BAC Creative Director Pelin Başaran said: “NINA, for me, speaks to something we experience far beyond theatre: how easily we can find ourselves living in the shadow of ‘genius’, trying to keep doing our work while holding on to our dignity. And none of us stands completely outside these systems; we are part of them too. What drew me to NINA is the way Caroline explores questions of power, coercion and creative freedom through a theatrical language that is bold, surreal and unsettling. I’m incredibly proud that BAC is producing this ambitious new work, bringing together the distinctive artistic voices of Caroline and Deborah alongside such an exciting cast. NINA sets the tone for the season ahead: work that takes risks, experiments with form and isn’t afraid to ask difficult questions.”
The creative team includes producer Kate Yedigaroff, dramaturg Christopher Brett Bailey, video designer Daniel Denton, lighting designer Marty Langthorne, composer and sound designer AJ Turner, movement director Laura Dannequin, casting director Nadine Rennie CDG, artist wellbeing and associate director Linzy Na Nakorn, and set and costume designer Tomás Palmer.
NINA will be performed on a Pay What You Can basis, with a recommended ticket price of £16.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
