Actors LAB 2024/2025!
The Actors LAB is a professional development strand of 20 Stories High, specially designed to give culturally diverse, working-class actors a foot in the door with a paid opportunity to showcase their talents as well as take original experimental work out to young audiences.
Our actors this year are…
Elspeth Mhairi Todd
Elspeth Mhairi is a Neurodivergent actor, dancer and writer from Bath, Somerset with a permanent base in both Liverpool and Perth, Scotland. She is passionate about using movement in storytelling and utilising forms where speaking isn’t the main use of language. She has recently appeared in productions such as Space Invaders X Liar at The Unity Theatre, Echo of Nothing at The Shakespeare North and Be You Living or Be you Dead at The Everyman Theatre, she is creating her own play ‘Four’, which will be put on professionally in 2025.
When not performing, you’ll find Elspeth either walking her boarder terrier dog Oscar in the high lands or in her sports gear keeping up her skills as a retired England national gymnast.
Omar Hussein
Omar is a Liverpool-based performer who is delighted to be joining the latest incarnation of 20 Stories High’s Actor’s Lab. He completed his initial acting training
with Not Too Tame at Shakespeare North Playhouse last year, and supplemented that with this year’s Storyhouse Young Company in Chester 20 Stories High’s Actor’s Training Programme.
Recent credits include the Canterville Ghost with Magpie Theatre and At the End of Our Street with Moore Productions. When not on stage, Omar attends to his two dogs
and performs as an Elvis impersonator.
Ella Jane Allsopp
Ella Jane (she/her) is an actress from Liverpool. She started her training at Rare Studios Liverpool and has gone on to be apart of many different performances, performed in a range of theatres and spaces, and played a variety of characters. She has a passion for storytelling and bringing characters to life, in theatre and film and tv .The most recent work of hers includes playing ‘Sydney Vixen’ in short film ‘Passions Peril’, ‘Beatrice’ in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ performed in Shakespeare north playhouse and ‘Jenna’ in ‘Date Night’ performed in the Floral Pavillion New Brighton.
When she is not performing, Ella leads creative sessions for SEN(D) children and young people, teaching them art, acting, baking, and all things creative! She is currently learning BSL/Makaton, and finds it easiest to learn through song. Having a hearing impairment herself and being neurodiverse, she wants all theatre to be as accessible and inclusive as possible. She hopes to direct her own play one day, to be able to bring underrepresented voices to the forefront, and bring light to topics that aren’t often
spoken about.
Bene Sebuyange
Bene is a versatile actor, writer, spoken word poet, facilitator, and designer from the
Northwest. She’s performed in a variety of notable venues across the country,
including The Royal Festival Hall, Theatre503, and Everyman Theatre. Passionate
about amplifying voices that often go unheard, Bene uses storytelling to explore the
richness of diverse narratives.
Outside of her performances, she loves working with young people by leading curriculum-based drama workshops in schools around the Northwest.