Ashgate Heritage Arts
Musicals and More!
Logo Design by Anna Hennessy
Meet The TeamArtistic Director
Martin Coslett Author & Playwright Mary Hennessy-Berrisford. |
Ashgate Heritage ArtsAshgate Heritage Arts CIC (AHA) is dedicated to making arts-heritage projects come alive. It puts essential community stories relevant to today’s world in front of people.
The company opens up the importance of heritage to new and wider audiences through workshops and performances. We ‘show’ (not 'tell') the importance of heritage. Visual and exciting, experiential performances make heritage - which many people consider a dry subject – come alive. People who think they don’t like history will find, through our arts projects, that they do enjoy it. Using the arts we enable people to appreciate that heritage permeates our lives and is 'now' (not 'then'). The company’s activities focus on providing benefits to communities through researching, creating and promoting dramatic projects rooted in local and national heritage and history. By involving community members, people are brought together for a common purpose to educate and entertain. The company also focusses on looking to the past for inspiration to cope with problems we face today. A new historical narrative is produced and with permanent memorabilia remains a lasting legacy for communities. |
Ashgate Heritage Arts
Artistic Director Musical dramatist, writer, producer and tutor. |
Martin CoslettMartin was born in Newport, South Wales He has had a close connection with Surrey having been to university in Guildford and his Magna Carta Musical was staged in the Electric Theatre. He has since lived in Dorking and Woking. In March 2018 Martin moved to Chesterfield.
Other musicals written by Martin include The Perfect City (which he also co-produced), Oswald and the Mystery of Comet Island, Mountains of the Moon and A Short History of Tractors (not) in Ukrainian based on the novel by Marina Lewycka. Martin is an experienced musical director, composer, teacher, tutor and coach and enjoys collaborative working, adapting stories into musicals for performance. He has lectured at the Song Stage and Screen conference in Guildford and workshopped some of his shows with the Royal Academy of Music and Central School of Speech and Drama graduating students. With his professional production team (currently Ashgate Heritage Arts), Martin staged a sold-out run of "Ferguson's Gang" at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Mill Theatre. |
Author and award-winning playwright.
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Mary Hennessy-BerrisfordMary is a playwright with an eclectic approach to creative writing. In addition to plays she writes poetry, short stories and has a novel half written. She has written, produced and directed a number of her own plays for which she was nominated twice for ‘Best Original Writer’ in the Buxton Festival Fringe and won the award another year.
Mary has recently staged two plays in the Buxton Festival Fringe. The first, ‘Autumn in Picardy’ is about two 1st WW condemned soldiers who become friends as they share a cell. The latest is ‘Argy Bargy’ - a humorous play about three young men discussing life. At the moment she is working on a play about the life of Mary of Magdala. Adapting Chris Nickson’s book The Crooked Spire and writing the libretto for the musical is a new direction for Mary and she is enjoying collaborative work she is engaged on with Peter and Martin. |
Ashgate Heritage Arts
Artistic Director Musical dramatist, writer, caller and saxophonist. |
Peter GrayPeter has written, and directed, two musicals for schools, Aliens in Class 6L and Mr Boltin and The Temple of Doom. He was one of the coordinators of the 2016 commemoration of the 750th Anniversary of the Battle of Chesterfield which led to a day’s pageant in the town centre.
In normal times, Peter can be found playing saxophone with Jig For a Kiss and calling for ceilidhs. He was the founder of Brampton Community Band. |