I make bold, original and engaging theatre with people. All kinds of people.

From the Royal Shakespeare Company to the Common Lot – young and old, professional and amateur.

I use theatre skills to develop confidence, connect people and create great performance.

Based in Norwich, I work with theatre companies, community groups, schools, businesses and academics across East Anglia / the East of England as a producer, director, facilitator or performer.

Respond. Research. Realise.

About me

As a theatre maker I have worked in prisons, drug rehabilitation centres and with people of all ages in the community. My work spans the Royal Shakespeare Company to the award-winning collaborative community project Come Yew In! I have also developed and performed my own one man shows and story evenings in numerous settings, including a perennially popular Macbeth One Man.

For 14 years I worked in substance misuse as an outreach worker and training manager; designing and delivering training across the charitable, commercial and public sectors. After working in volunteer coordination with an international college I moved into museum development. I am the architect and coordinator of SHARE Museums East, a ground-breaking regional development programme that is helping museums to share their skills, resources and experience to mutual and lasting benefit.

I am now taking the successful principles behind the success of SHARE into making theatre with, for and about local communities.

I aim to:

• ensure the development of effective public engagement in the making of high quality theatre
• provide participants and audience with creative experiences that increase individual and collective well-being and foster positive collaboration and co-operation with others
• support cohesion and understanding in communities
• expand the audience that experiences theatre – especially with people and places of low cultural engagement
• create original work develop employment opportunities for writers and participatory artists working in the region
• support the growth and development of businesses in the region.

My approach

My approach is one of belief, inclusion and support. Without the need for great expense or experience together we find the heart and the skills to make bold, original, engaging theatre about the stories that matter to us most. My work stands on three tried and tested principles:

1. Everyone must benefit
2. Everyone has something to offer
3. We have what we need; and if we don’t, we can find it.

I make original theatre that supports well-being and social cohesion. I believe theatre has a responsibility to challenge conventional routes of access, and to develop its audience by actively seeking out new spaces, telling stories that resonate with our common humanity and adopting a style that is immediate, positive and empowering.

Collaborators

Dr John Alban, former county archivist – working together on Imagined Land

Dr Jeannette Baxter – research lead on Come Yew In!; working on new projects for the future; co-director, New Routes, Old Roots: Literatures of Migration and Exile; co-director, Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy; research convenor for English Literature, Anglia Ruskin University

Charlie Caine – musical theatre specialist

Mags Chalcraft – writer

The Common Lot – Norwich theatre collective

Duncan Joseph – theatre in education specialist

Karl Minns – writer and performer [Raining Diamonds, 1549] –

New Routes Integration – supporting integration of asylum seekers and refugees, partner for Come Yew In!

Giles Emery of Norvic Archaeology – working together on Imagined Land

Norfolk Archaeological Trust – lead partner on Imagined Land

Norwich Arts Centre – invaluable production support on 1549, Come Yew In! and Egg Café

Norwich City Council Events Department

Greg Powles – writer, performer, worked together on Blood on the Beach, Flintspiration, Lights Up

SyncNorwich – Norwich’s Tech and Startup Community. Promoting and enabling local tech business growth, making Norwich a truly thriving tech cluster in the UK.

Tin House – a Norwich-based community and participatory arts organisation engaging with groups and individuals

Writers Centre Norwich – Anguish, Imagined Land.