WHO WE ARE

Emma King-Farlow - Company Founder, Producer & Artistic Director

Emma has always been passionate about all forms of storytelling.  A member of the Society of Authors, the National Association of Writers in Education and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, her first children's book, Uncle Alonzo's Beard, was published in 2007.  Whilst waiting for publication, however, she decided that the time was right to return again to her second love, the theatre.  The result of this decision was the founding of Shadow Road Productions.

During her years at school and university Emma directed a variety of productions, but it was her first post-university play, C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, that proved to be the most challenging.  With a cast of fifteen (ranging in age from 19 up to 60-something, each with markedly individual, sometimes clashing, personalities) playing twenty-seven different characters, and almost all the action - from sailing and slave markets, to sleeping and sword-fights - taking place in many diverse and fantastical locations, she certainly had her work cut out for her!

Although the theatre captured Emma's heart early on, she has also been interested in film-making for a long time.  She was responsible for founding Durham University's film making society, Silver Screen, and during her year as President, managed to attract a number of respected professionals from both London and the North East to visit the city and instruct the members.  Having previously studied at the Raindance independent film school in Soho, she later took a two month intensive course in film-making with The New York Film Academy in London, which culminated in the writing, directing and editing of the short film Absolution.  Most recently, this was followed up with some supplementary weekend classes run by the Documentary Filmmakers Group, of which she is also a member.

Emma's own experience onstage, combined with the many examinations that she has taken in both acting and singing, and the additional drama training that she has enjoyed, have all resulted in a good understanding of and empathy with the various actors whom she has directed and occasionally written for.  The work that she has done backstage on a range of theatrical productions and crewing for other film students, has also given her a healthy respect for all members of her own crew and the desire to forge a strongly bonded team, both on each individual production and, more generally, among the members of Shadow Road Productions as a whole.

Find out more about Emma by visiting her website or blog, or by following her on Twitter.
 

Melanie Browne - Director & Stage Manager

Melanie has been involved with the theatre in one way or another ever since she was a little girl.  While trying to decide which area to specialise in, she tried her hand at everything from acting and stage management to hair & make-up.  Funny, then, that it was a simple request for her to work as assistant director on a university project that made up her mind for her - she had barely even started before her passion for directing was born.

After university Melanie moved to London to work.  She soon found, however, that her new job left her little time for the theatre.  Needless to say, she decided that some changes were urgently required.  (It was, of course, the job and not the theatre that was given the elbow!)  Since making those changes, Melanie has directed two plays at the Putney Arts Theatre - David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Timberlake Weterbaker's Our Country's Good - as well as working on a number of other productions in a wide variety of different roles.

For the past year she has spent a little time away from the theatre, choosing instead to explore the world of film.  She has recently emerged from a one-year part-time course with the Metropolitan Film School, having completed Sequences, a ten-minute short film that she was required to write, direct and edit herself.  She now intends to pursue her new interest in directing for film and television, whilst also continuing to devote a large amount of time to her oldest and best love, the theatre.