Profile
Producers play a pivotal role in the current ‘distributed’ cultural landscape, modelling ethical value-led leadership and connecting artists with audiences. I know that art changes lives and believe strongly in the importance of artistic practice to our shared sense of identity and well-being. I am particularly interested in collaborative interdisciplinary practice that makes an immediate impact on our lives and learning. I know that artists and makers have brilliant ideas that they can turn into sustainable businesses so for the last three years I have been instrumental in developing RCSSD’s Enterprise Award and in 2020 became Project Lead for StART Enterprise at Central, a £900K knowledge exchange project in partnership with Royal Northern College of Music and University of the Arts London funded by the UK Research and Innovation and Office for Students.
As a Course Leader of the Creative Producing Masters programme, working in partnership with the theatre and live performance industries inspires and informs my work. My work has led to awards from the British Council’s UK-Russia Creative Bridge programme to develop masterclasses in 2020 and 2021 and I’m currently developing an Applied Theatre Producers Network with DAS Amsterdam, Kibii Foundation and Watershed Bristol.
The MA/MFA Creative Producing course is now in its tenth year and I am enormously proud of the achievements of all our graduates. They shape performance industries and show that there’s no one way to be a producer eg: Sarah Mc Briar with AVA Festival, and Chris Foxon with Papatango, Khai Ramli with Rumah and Kamari Romeo with Black History School. I am passionate about the transformative power of learning and that universities can and do contribute to the artistic vigour of all arts forms, so I’m very proud to have written and delivered new undergraduate programs to Higher Education including the first Circus and Puppetry degrees and graduates from these courses now lead the profession in their field.
My research and knowledge exchange activity stems from collaboration and partnership development and I have a long track record of working with professional organisations to develop their interface with universities. In 2011 I was one of the founding team setting up the Centre for Creative Collaboration (C4CC), a University of London initiative to bring together leading researchers from London’s universities together with creative industry freelancers, small businesses, and students (2011-2014) which supported spin out companies like Pavegen. I am fascinated by the way in which festivals can act as learning spaces and produced the educational component of the Prague Quadrennial, the world’s largest festival of performance design and space (Scenofest 2011 and SpaceLab 2015), for each creating workshops for over 1500 students from over 70 countries.
Areas of Expertise
Collaborative Practices and pedagogies
Creative Producing Practices
Entrepreneurial approaches to theatre-making
Audience development
Scenography
Cultural Placemaking
Pedagogies of cultural enterprise
Key Publications
2020. ‘From the producer’s perspective: Kayza Rose’ Studies in Theatre and Performance Special Issue Volume 40, 2020 - Issue 3: Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion 275-279
2020. ‘From the producer’s perspective: Yamin Choudury Studies in Theatre and Performance Special Issue Volume 40, 2020 - Issue 3: Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion 315-319
2020. ‘From the producer’s perspective: Paul Warwick’ Studies in Theatre and Performance Special Issue Volume 40, 2020 - Issue 3: Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion 328-333
External Practice
2019. Project Team ‘Incubate Propagate Network’ An Arts and Humanities Research Council Funded Project, Facilitating greater socio-economic diversity within artist development structures in theatre and performance. Three workshops were convened to facilitate dialogue between arts funders and policy makers, theatre and cultural policy academics, theatre makers and independent and building-based theatre producers. Central to these dialogues was the primary research question of the project: how might we collectively overcome challenges and identify opportunities that might facilitate greater socio-economic diversity within artist development structures in the fields of theatre and performance?
2015. Artistic Director for SpaceLab, Prague Quadrennial in 2015
2014. Conference Director ‘Social Enterprise and the Creative Producer, Theaterschool Amsterdam and Fondspodium, NL
2012. Curator ‘Objects of Emotion’ a programme of Puppetry and Science-related events with ‘in conversations’ and a one-day symposium at the Wellcome Trust
2011. Artistic Leader Scenofest, Prague Quadrennial in 2011
2011. Project Director Puppetry and Architecture ‘Jeudi’ Centre de Pompidou, FR.
2010. Conference Director for ‘Theatre Applications’ an international conference on performance with a purpose.
Register of Interest
Nothing to declare.
