Creative Associates are supported by company seedbed funds to develop ideas for new activities, sometimes in association with partners. With support from Trustees, good ideas are given further support of a project development director and thus innovative ideas are wrestled into clearly defined projects which can attract support from other stakeholders.
I have always loved the Theatre. I truly can’t remember a time when it wasn’t an important part of my life. At first it was just acting. It came easily to me, learning lines and choreography. I can still remember certain dance routines from playing The Artful Dodger as a boy. I remember too, even younger, sitting in the wings watching my mum in Siddons Old Time Music Hall, learning the songs, the gags, the patter. The roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd…. I must have been the only 5 year old who could sing all the words to ‘Any Old Iron’.
At university I studied Drama and Theatre Studies and started to direct and design shows. I enjoyed the intellectual aspects of theatre and even flirted for a while with Brecht and Artaud, but my first love has always been pure entertainment. The double act, the bawdy song, the comic monologue, the fun. I don’t really have much time for theatre that takes itself too seriously and even when playing serious roles I always have an urge to pull out a rubber chicken. ‘Make ‘em laugh’ is what I say, and anyone who says different is selling something.
As Brecht said, “If you aint having fun, you aint got a show”
I originally came to The Common Players as an actor - in "Taylor's Tractor" (2002) and "Stormy Weather" (2005).
I’ve now written three plays for The Common Players (is that called a Triptych? A Triumvirate? Trilogy sounds good – yes, let’s go with that) as part of the "Cider with Roadies" project. They are called "The Big Squeeze" (2007) "Worm Food" (2008) and "Heathen Harvest" (2008).
I grew up in a place called Lovaton in South West Devon. Although I now live in the North, I like to keep one foot in the Westcountry via my association with The Common Players. Why? Because I genuinely believe that it does communities good to sit in a field and watch actors shouting at each other.
Home is Driffield, East Yorkshire, where I live with my wife Rebecca and son Ronnie. Along with our friend Lizi, we run a Community Theatre Company called Raised Eyebrow. I spend too much time in the car - although I now have a cup holder, which helps.
I continue to write, direct and act in projects for Raised Eyebrow, The Common Players, Solent Peoples Theatre, Oddsocks Productions and other companies too, as well as on a freelance basis.
I first became involved with the Common Players as playwright for the Tracks and Traces project and I was really pleased to be asked to become a Creative Associate. Most of my freelance work is about engaging young people and communities with their environment and history through theatre arts and site-specifics, so the Players are the perfect partners.
I have been working in theatre for years now as a bit of a jack of all trades: writer, actor, musician, workshop leader, stage-sweeper, director and stage manager.
I have worked with quite a few companies including the Eden Project, Welfare State International, English Touring Theatre, Tiebreak, Blind Ditch, and Wimbledon Theatre, I also work every year at the Glastonbury Festival, where I am lead stage manager for the Blazing Saddle dance and fire stage.
In 2003, after many years on the road as an actor and a spell as a secondary school drama teacher, I studied for an MA in Cultural Performance at Bristol University Drama Department and worked with Welfare State International on carnival, lantern making, music and performance installations.
In 2005, I went freelance and set up the Means of Production community arts collective, a group of artists which produces socially engaged participatory arts projects involving communities of all types.
MOP work aims to encourage practical engagement with the arts by people of all ages and backgrounds, often linked to a calendar of festivity. Many MOP projects seek to draw out or re-imagine community histories or locations through site-specific festival work or the creation of contemporary myths. You can find more info about MOP by clicking here.
My lovely wife Lucy makes the best cakes in the world and I have a daughter Tilly whose favourite animal is a monkey.
I reckon I’ve come full circle in the last 20 years since my first work in community theatre, and I am very excited by future possibilities working with the Common Players Creative Associates.
I set up Common Players in 1989 with Simon Crane, inspired by two companies which had preceded it, Medium Fair and Fair Exchange set up by John Rudlin.
Walking from place to place wearing medieval bells and motley and doing a free show on the village green seemed as good a way as any to discover whether there were people outside dark theatre temples who might engage with live performance.
We found plenty, playing to over 10,000 people in Devon from all walks of life in our last major summer tour, Robin Hood.
I am always interested in making theatre which connects to people and connects people to what is REALLY going on in their lives where they live. I like making things that have never been made before, and trying out new ideas.
I believe interesting encounters can be set up wherever there are interested and enthusiastic people - activities that help people grow and learn and understand things about being who they are today. Limitations are usually just the weather and finances.
I do other things now as well as being a Creative Associate of Common Players. I help train people to develop their leadership and communication skills in businesses through role play, and I direct theatre for other groups. Last year I directed Like a Buoy for Red Spider in Lewdown www.likeabuoy.co.uk and Fallen in Londons’ South Bank centre for Musica Secreta. www.musica-secreta.com/fallen
I am a graduate of Exeter Art College and a freelance artist. I am also an Early Years Professional, working creatively with young people. I first met the Common Players in the autumn of 1999 when I found myself helping to load costumes and set into a large green pantechnicon driven by an energetic chap who ran the company, after a show in my local community hall.
After only a short time I found myself designing and making the set and costumes for Taylor’s Tractor and the Trailer Factor (2002) and then the costumes for Mrs Macbeth’s Hostile Bid (2003). It was my chance to help create a different world for people to engage in.
I was very excited to be asked to become a Creative Associate. The opportunity to come up with new and inspirational ideas with a group of like-minded creative people and then the potential of seeing our ideas reach fruition with the help of the long established and experienced overview of the Common Players seemed too good to be true. Only a year down the line since the Associates first met, I am working on our “Come Play” project, talking with partners, seeing it through the initial Big Lottery Fund first round and then on to the final application stage.
I have spied on Common Players from afar from when I was at university and applied drama became my passion and my career choice. I became very interested in theatre that thought about its audiences, that was inspired by it's audience and was creative about actively engaging and gaining participants.
I was thrilled to work on 'Bloody Ambition' for Common Players and even more thrilled to be asked to become a Creative Associate.
Graduating from Exeter University in 97 I was already set up as a freelancer working with youth at risk. I have worked in many organization for many years; the Atkinson Secure Unit , the Grenville Pupil Referral unit and with Devon Young Carers to name a few setting up and running projects.
I take placements for the Applied Drama undergraduate course at Exeter University as well as teaching on that course.
I find myself grounded in Exeter after a stint as Project Worker for the Borderlines Outreach Project at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle under Lyme and spending 2 years finding inspiration around Europe, Australia and South America.
Recently I have created lots of theatre for young people for Devon County Council and Aim Higher although more recently I have given birth to a beautiful little girl who joins my step kids Jade and Rich and our puppy dog Ruffs in our cosy abode we are constantly out growing.
