About Us
Matthew Zajac
Artistic Director
Matthew is from Inverness. He studied Drama at Bristol University and has worked as an actor for 40 years, alongside producing and directing many new plays. In recent years, he has also become a writer. Theatre acting includes work at the Citizens Theatre Glasgow, Manchester Royal Exchange, Västerbottensteatern, Riksteatern & Profilteatern Sweden, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Everyman, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, the Lyric Hammersmith, Bush Theatre and the Young Vic. Screen acting in recent years includes feature films The Crucifixion (Xavier Gens), Valhalla Rising (Nicholas Winding Refn), And Violet (Paul Gray), A Lonely Place To Die (Julian Gilbey) and TV appearances in Happy Valley, The English, Shetland, State of Happiness, We Were The Lucky Ones & Still Game.
He appeared in and produced Dogstar’s award-winning 2022 Edinburgh Fringe production Nightlands. In 2018, he acted in and produced Dogstar’s climate change comedy by Morna Pearson, Let’s Inherit The Earth, co-produced with Sweden’s Profilteatern. In 2017, he wrote and appeared in Dogstar’s award-winning play about women’s experience of the Syrian war, The Sky Is Safe, directed by Ben Harrison. He also played the title role in Dogstar’s award-winning 2016 Scottish-Danish co-production Mungo Park-Travels in the Interior of Africa, directed by Martin Lyngbo. He directed Seven Ages (2001), The Seer (2006), ‘e Polish Quine (2007), Jacobite Country (2010), Sweetness (2011),The Baroness (2013) and The Stornoway Way (2019) for Dogstar and wrote and performed The Tailor of Inverness for the company, winning the 2009 Best Actor Award at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland, a Scotsman Fringe First, the Holden Street Theatres Award and the Stage Award for Best Solo Performer at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe.
The Tailor of Inverness went on to run for a month at the 2009 Adelaide Fringe Festival, winning nominations for Best Production and Best Performance. This production has now had 6 sell-out Scottish tours and has also toured to Denmark, Sweden (twice), Poland, Ukraine (twice), USA, Germany, Wales, England, Belgium and Ireland (twice), including selling out for 3 weeks at New York’s 2015 Brits Off Broadway Festival. For Dogstar, Matthew has also appeared in Seven Ages, Sweetness, Factor 9, The Captain’s Collection & The Heretic’s Tale.
He was a founder member of London-based Plain Clothes Productions, producing, acting and directing for the company’s six productions in the 1990s. These included the George Devine Award Winner Blue Night in the Heart of the West (1992). As Associate Director of Grey Coast Theatre Company 1994-98, he directed Camster and the Helmsdale Community play The Great Bunillidh Volcano and appeared in Songs of the Grey Coast & The Niss. Matthew has produced two films, The Beauty of the Common Tool (1st Prize at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival) and the digital feature Gordon Bennett. For Licketyspit early years theatre company, he directed remounts of Molly Whuppie(2003 & 2006); Wee Witches(2005 & 2007); The Christmas Quangle Wangle (2004).
Other acting work includes Creon in Antigone (TAG), Duke of Alba in Don Carlos (Citizens/EIF), Macbeth (Liverpool Playhouse), Joe Saul in Burning Bright (V.amp/Tramway), Long Rob in Sunset Song (Prime Productions),Mr Hansen in Further Than the Furthest Thing (Prime Productions), and screen appearances in The Planman, Taggart, Inspector George Gently (ITV), Fiona’s Story, Garrow’s Law, Single Father, Eve (BBC), High Times (STV), Low Winter Sun, Zastrozzi (C4), and the feature films Iona, Young Adam, Culloden 1746 (formerly Chasing the Deer) & Man To Man. His book, The Tailor of Inverness was published in 2013 by Sandstone Press. He recently completed a stage adaptation of James Robertson’s novel The Testament of Gideon Mack.
Jess Lusk
Producer
Jess studied English & Drama at Birmingham University and subsequently worked as a researcher and producer in television for a couple of years before becoming artistic co-ordinator at London’s Globe Theatre.
She worked with the Globe for the next 13 years as New Work Producer and, latterly, Literary Manager. Her long association with the Globe has featured many highlights and special projects, including the annual Sonnet Walk with Mark Rylance; the production of 37 short films to mark each of Shakespeare’s 37 plays, all screened over a weekend on 37 screens along London’s South Bank;
The Complete Walk event to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death; development of a new work centre at the Globe; and multiple high-profile events, including collaborations with Westminster Abbey, the British Council and the BBC, and new writing festivals which included writers Jeanette Winterson, Sandi Toksvig and Philippa Gregory. Jess now lives in the Highlands with her family.
Jack MacGregor
Associate Artist
Jack is a director, writer and filmmaker based in Inverness, Scotland. Concluding his formal training at the University of the Highlands & Islands with a First Class BA Honours in Drama & Performance and an MRes in Creative Practice (Playwriting), Jack is now an early-career artist trying to make it work.
Jack’s recent work as a playwright includes the Scottish climate play Tides (2020), documentary solo show Frame 34 (2019), and the Arctic drama Nightlands (2020). Over lockdown, with theatres shuttered, Jack began producing short films, including the series Chair Guy (2021), releasing them for free on digital platforms.
Seeking to advance popular and engaging work in theatre and film, Jack is determined to make stuff against the odds and create artistic resilience through exciting productions. His style is built on pragmatic collaboration, producing grassroots work using actors and artists local to the Highlands & Islands, portraying the many aspects of northern Scotland’s contested place in the 21st century.
Above all else, Jack values film and theatre as a means of sharing life’s experiences, for radical experiments that make us look at the world in new ways, an art that encourages understanding, exchange, and respect.
And because it’s really fun to make art.
Hamish MacDonald
Founder
Hamish, now retired from Dogstar, was the very first Scots Screiver for the National Library of Scotland (2016-17). A novelist, songwriter poet and playwright, Hamish was involved in touring productions as producer, writer and performer in the Highlands and Islands from the mid-1980s. He has written for BBC Scotland and the Comedy Unit, including sketches for Naked Video, Velvet Cabaret & the Daily Sketch.
He became a full-time writer in 1998. Published in poetry, short story and fiction, works includes acclaimed novel The Gravy Star (11:9 Publishing 2001), The Girnin’ Gates, a novella in Scots (ItchyCoo 2003) and his poetry collection in response to Wilson’s Ornithology, Burds in Scots (2019).
Plays include Factor 9, Redcoats, Turncoats & Petticoats, The Captain’s Collection, The Strathspey King, Seven Ages, The Heretic’s Tale, Singing Far Into The Night, Slainte Mhath Mr Capone. He was the inaugural Robert Burns Writing Fellow for Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association 2003-06.
He has also written two series for BBC Radio Scotland: an adaptation of The Captain’s Collection and the original radio version of The Strathspey King, both of which won awards at the Celtic Film & TV Festival (2000 & 2001).
Hamish also won the Scottish Poetry Slam Championship in 2022 and was runner-up in the World Slam Championship in Paris later that year.
Board Members
Stephanie Smart, Nick Fearne, Brian Spence, Duncan MacInnes, Keira Smith, Angela Cran
Collaborators
It takes a team to make a show – playwrights, actors, stage and production managers, designers, musicians, composers, choreographers, producers, photographers, graphic artists, directors and administrators. We have been lucky to work with so many talented people over the years. These include:
Playwrights
Hamish Macdonald, Ali Smith, Henry Adam, Matthew Zajac, Kevin Macneil, Thor Bjorn Krebs, Martin Lyngbo, Razan Madhoon, Jack Macgregor, George Gunn & Morna Pearson
Actors
Alyth Mccormack, Billy Riddoch, Douglas Russell, Viv Gee, Sarah Haworth, Irene Allen, Mairi Morrison, Annie Grace, Fraser Sievewright, Gabriel Quigley, Magdalena Kaleta, Hamish Wilson, Anne Kidd, Fiona Morrison, Lynne Verrall, Sean Hay, Roberta Taylor, Stewart Porter, Anders Budde Christensen, Kingsley Amadi, Dana Hajaj, Jan Karlsson, Tobias Morin, Lina Hognert, Chloe Ann Tylor, Rachel Kennedy, Ewan Donald, Romana Abercromby, Helen Mackay, Sara Shaarawi, Ashley Smith, Miriam Elwell-Sutton, Rebecca Wilkie, Tara Mcgirr, Naomi Stirrat & Matthew Zajac
Stage & Production Managers
Nils Den Hertog, Chariya Glasse-Davies, Alan Mackinnon, Jacqui Howard, John Spiers, Sholto Bruce, Cara Wiseman, David Ramsey, John Gordon, Brian Gorman, Derek Urquhart, Laura Edwards, Andrew Wilson, Katy Steele, Katie Stephen, Martin Ogland, John Wilkie, Jonny Reed, Bjarne Jorgensen & Eric Morel
Designers
Ali Maclaurin, Grant Anderson, Nihad Al Turk, Emily James, Palle Steen Christensen, Robin Peoples, David Ramsey, Dave Smith, Catherine Deverell, Peggy Jones, Andrew Wilson, John Wilkie, Kai Fischer, Kate Bonney, John Gordon, Jakob Rasmussen, Paul Claydon & Ulla Karlsson
Musicians & Composers
Jonny Hardie, Aidan O’rourke, Pippa Murphy, Bruce Macgregor, Mary Macmaster, Amy Geddes, Gavin Marwick, Ingrid Henderson, Alyth Mccormack, Annie Grace, Iain Macfarlane, Maggie Macinnes, Mary Ann Kennedy, Christine Hanson, Andy Thorburn, Marcus Aurelius Hjelmborg, Brian Mcalpine & Timothy Brinkhurst
Choreographers
Dawn Hartley, Hugh Nicol
Producers, Administrators, Publicists
Donna Macrae, Angela Cran, Catherine Macneil, Rachael Mill, Lara Mcdonald, Jakob Holm, Patrik Ågren, Katie Mackenzie, Michelle Mangan & Liz Smith
Photographers & Graphic Artists
Karen Sutherland, Emma Quinn, Colin Campbell, Leila Angus, Paul Campbell, Tim Morozzo, Joakim Lindquist, Andrew Wilson, Euan Myles, Laurence Winram
Directors
Ben Harrison, Alison Peebles, Robin Peoples, Matthew Zajac, Virginia Radcliffe, Jack Macgregor, Stephen Docherty & Martin Lyngbo