A PERFORMER from the North-East has completed the run of a new play by a five-time Tony nominated playwright.

Billie Aken-Tyers, 21, from Castleside, near Consett, County Durham, has been starring in Fairy Cakes, a new play by Douglas Carter Beane, who wrote Sister Act.

The former CBS Musical and Stage Society actress was cast as Mustardseed in the show, which was performed in New York as well as at the University of Scranton’s Royal Theatre, in Pennsylvania, United States.

It formed part of the Scranton Shakespeare Festival as the play, told mostly in rhyme, furthers the stories of the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Miss Aken-Tyers, a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, said: “It is big deal for me and it was a great experience.

“We did workshops with Douglas and the characters were built around us. I had great fun. It was amazing.”

Miss Aken-Tyers has also been performing in productions of Twelfth Night and Pirates of Penzance in America.

She is playing the part of a witch in a show called Horseman’s Hollow at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, upstate New York, during October until Halloween.

Miss Aken-Tyers said: “My job is to scare children.”