TouchedTheatre make high quality contemporary theatre with puppetry at its heart. The company is a collaboration between award-winning puppeteer Darren East (Offies 2015, former Associate Artist of Little Angel Theatre) and experienced dramaturg and producer Beccy Smith, alongside a host of brilliant associate artists in performance, puppetry, design and sound. Our work is most interested in the point where moving, original storytelling about the world we live in now meets the thrilling possibilities of puppetry.
TouchedTheatre are nationally recognised specialists in using puppetry, storytelling and film to work with young people and adults experiencing mental health difficulties. Go to Puppetry & Mental Health to see more.
TouchedTheatre are part of the Puppetry Development Consortium. We co-run Brighton Puppetry School and support local emerging and established puppetry artists through our regular Punched nights of new puppetry cabaret for adults.
Partners and key co-conspirators include:
Arts Council England, BBC Children in Need, Sussex NHS Partnership, The Spire, Brighton Artists Open Houses, Little Angel Theatre, Prema, ONCA, The Marlborough Theatre, The Nightingale Theatre, The Puppetry Development Consortium, Brighton & Hove Mental Wellbeing Innovation Fund.
Darren East
Artistic Director
Darren is a skilled puppeteer and puppet-maker and strong physical performer. As a performer he has toured extensively across the UK and abroad with the critically acclaimed company Unpacked, of which he was also a founder member. As a director he was awarded an Offie for his work on Puppet Opera Triple Bill for Third Hand and has been commissioned by Tete a Tete festival for new puppet opera. Darren is a founder member of TouchedTheatre and has directed and/or performed in all of their shows, as well as leading their participatory arts programme with looked-after children in Brighton and Hove, ArtAid. Darren also leads the performance strand of the programme for Brighton Puppetry School.
Beccy Smith
Artistic Director
Beccy is a trained dramaturg and writer for and on theatre. She founded TouchedTheatre in 2009 and has written and produced all of their shows. As a dramaturg she has developed critically acclaimed shows for Lost for Words Productions, Monkeyshine, Theatre Lark, The Empty Space (Laura Lindow), Belfast Children’s Festival, and Unpacked Theatre. As a producer she has developed and toured work for Hidden Track, Broken Leg Theatre, Wildspark and Stillpoint. She has been commissioned as a writer by New Perspectives Theatre and Northumberland Theatre Company. She is associate editor of Total Theatre magazine.
Associate Artists
Foz Foster
Sounds
https://jamesfozfoster.bandcamp.com/
Foz, the resident composer and sound designer at TouchedTheatre, is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead guitarist in the art-rock band, David Devant and his Spirit Wife, and in the 1983-5 incarnation of The Monochrome Set. He plays ukulele and other instruments as part of the double-act, Foster and Gilvan, and is also musical director of Sawchestra – a band of musical saw players who perform Foster’s compositions to accompany silent films.
Anna Newell
Associate Director
Anna has been making theatre adventures for people of all ages to watch and to take part in since 1989 – in theatres of all sizes, in a disused police station, in a shopping centre, on a barge, in a sonic lab, in a hydropool and in a secret apartment – in various cities in the UK and Ireland and also in the US, South Africa and Bosnia. She created the world’s first BabyDay, introduced theatre for children and young people with PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties) into Ireland and helped start baby theatre in South Africa. Anna was awarded the Tonic Theatre Award 2017 for ‘women who are changing the face of UK Theatre’ and shortlisted for the Ellen Stewart Award 2016 for theatre-makers whose work with/for young people has had a major social impact.
ANNIE BROOKS
Puppet Maker
https://www.anniebrooks.co.uk/
Annie is a performer, puppeteer and theatre maker based in Brighton. She is the artistic director of theatre company, Colossal Crumbs, which specializes in making highly visual theatre with puppets. She has designed and made puppets for Strangeface, Birmingham Stage Company, Whalley Range All Stars and Colossal Crumbs. Annie has performed most recently with Pins and Needles, Gomito, Whalley Range All Stars and Foul Play Productions.
Fagner Gastaldon
Performer
Fagner is originally from Brazil but settled in the UK. His passion for puppetry developed as a child in Brazil where puppetry is a commonplace art form considered to be for adults and children alike. Fagner founded his own company PuppetSoup in order to create unique and beautiful puppetry that inspires audiences. He has taught surgeons puppetry techniques as St Mary’s Hospital London and collaborated with the NHS to create ‘Fix Freddie!’ – an award winning show to engage communities with Health Care. He is a multi award winning puppeteer who is has created, devised and built all of PuppetSoup’s main work including the 5***** show ‘Land of the Dragon – Gwlad y ddraig’, ‘The Memory Keeper’ for the RSPB, ‘Fix Freddie!’ for the NHS, ‘Jack’ a new comedy for 2016 and he is currently working on ‘Arthur the Bear King’.
Ulysses Black
Performer
Ulysses Black is an award winning theatre maker with over ten years experience in puppetry and puppetry-direction. His passion for puppetry lies in the minutiae of technique to create the illusion of life. Along with Jack Stigner in 2007 he founded the immersive theatre company FoulPlay Productions with which he still works, and is a member of Annie Brooks’ puppetry company Colossal Crumbs. He holds both BA and MA in performance at distinction level.
Outside of puppetry, Ulysses Black is ritual performer and celebrant, turning his attentions to the methods and techniques present in the rituals of our lives, further writing lecturing and running workshops on the subject.