About me...
I’ve worked with stories all my life. As a child I read everything I could lay my hands on, wrote stories, made my own books and performed endless plays for my long-suffering family.
At university I studied English literature and art history, then set off to the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Germany's National Theatre, to learn how to put words and pictures together and make theatre.
Thankfully, my love of travel was beautifully suited to my love of touring theatre. I joined the English Shakespeare Company, and travelled the world with productions large and small. And thanks to the ESC, I was introduced to theatre for education and communities. I began an ongoing association with the Learning Department at the National Theatre in London which is still going strong after thirty years.
As a freelance director and theatre maker, I create shows and arts projects for children, young people and communities. I teach writing, and devising for performance. I collaborate with playwrights, edit scripts and help students of all ages with their own creative writing.
I've been an Associate Artist at Project Phakama, where I worked with refugees on the streets of Paris and Athens, created a show performed by toddlers in a giant bed; and built pop-up darkrooms and pinhole cameras for an award-winning storytelling and photography project.
In between, I've facilitated workshops at a museum in Finland, and for doctors at a hospital in Osaka, Japan. I've taught Storytelling for Medical Humanities at Bristol University, and drama to student teachers at LSBU. I spent 20 years as a visiting professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in London, teaching Storytelling, and Studies in Shakespeare. I also became a mediator, and began conflict coaching and mediating in my local community.
Today, I create writing, storytelling, and theatre projects for wounded veterans, in collaboration with The Drive Project. Recent work includes Stories of Service, a show by veterans performed at the British Museum. I am a proud member of the Routes for Women facilitation team, working with female refugees and asylum seekers. I also teach storytelling to business leaders worldwide.
I run retreats for artists of all disciplines at beautiful Casa Luna, a hilltop farmhouse in Piemonte, northern Italy.
