Age: 22
female
Asha Banks is a young British actress and singer based in London. Asha has extensive theatre credits, and has recently finished filming her first feature film, The Magic Flute in which she plays the female lead part of Princess Pamina. Asha made her professional acting debut at the age of 8 years old in the London West End show Les Miserables (at the Queen's Theatre, now the Sondheim Theatre). Since then she has played principal parts in a further five West End and UK productions. Most recently, in 2019/20, Asha portrayed the lead part of Lisa James for the Royal Shakespeare Company's musical production of David Walliams' The Boy in the Dress, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon directed by Gregory Doran, with a book by Mark Ravenhill, and music from pop partnership Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers. Asha sings Lisa James' main musical ballad 'When Things Fall Apart" on the original cast album of the musical, released in 2020. Prior to this, Asha has played parts such as Violet Beauregarde in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Duffy in the UK tour of Annie the Musical directed by Nikolai Foster, and the Parsons Girl in the multi-award-winning and Olivier-nominated play 1984, directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan for the Almeida theatre, which then transferred to the Playhouse theatre, London, taking Asha with it. Asha also portrayed Pandora Braithwaite in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾ at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London, for which she earned outstanding reviews. "Asha Banks gives a stellar performance" said The Times, and "Asha Banks on press night - very funny and a cracking singer, surely a future star" from London Timeout magazine while The Telegraph said she was "the perfect mix of poise, aloofness and vitality". The Stage newspaper said: "Asha Banks delivers an astonishingly mature, witty and articulate performance" and London Box office: "Asha Banks already has a considerable record in west end musicals... she has the looks, voice and charisma to be a formidable future leading lady" while The Arts Desk said: "A performance of sensational composure and accomplishment by Asha Banks: she's in danger of singing everyone off the stage." Libby Purves (The Times / TheatreCat) called her performance "outstanding" and the British Theatre Guide described her Pandora as "a teen dream, if ever there was one". Asha Banks had been said to be working with the Brazilian film director and music artist Divan Braga, but that wasn't confirmed. Asha is playing the part of Princess Pamina in the musical feature film The Magic Flute, a modern retelling of Mozart's popular opera, produced by Roland Emmerich's Centropolis Entertainment and Flute Film, and directed by Florian Sigl. The film also stars Iwan Rheon and Jack Wolfe and some of the world's most renowned opera stars. The Magic Flute is set for release in 2022.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
