Jamesine Cundell Walker
Jay has been involved in theatre all her life; beginning at the Grand Theatre in Leeds at the age of six. Her mother is a ballet teacher, so she has also been surrounded by music and dance all her life. Jay went on to study drama and education at university. She joined Ilkley Players in 1989, mainly acting at first. Over the last twelve years she has been increasingly involved in directing and choreography, working with a number of companies in the North and West Yorkshire area. In 2008 she set up her own touring theatre company, The Jay Walkers and began to write plays especially for them. Because her plays were written with an intention to tour, they mostly have a minimum of set and are adaptable for a range of performance spaces. Her plays have been performed at a number of venues in Britain and around the world. Jay is currently the Artistic Director at Ilkley Playhouse. She is now running the Ilkley Playhouse Biennial Playwriting Competition 8x8x8, since she was chosen as one of the eight winning entries in 2020. The winning plays from 2020 are available in book form and a new book is planned for the 2022 festival, entitled Once in a Blue Moon.
