News Story
Make connections, start conversations
Our next house southeast theatre network Pitch Up event will be on Wednesday 20 May hosted by Old Fire Station, Oxford in Oxfordshire
Pitch Up brings together artists and companies and representatives from venues in our network to share their opportunities, connect and collaborate in front of an audience.
We will be joined by the following South East based venues to pitch their opportunities for partnership working: The Mill Arts Centre, Banbury, Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot, Pegasus, Oxford, Corn Exchange, and 101 Outdoor Arts, Newbury, Cidermill Theatre, Chipping Campden, The Theatre, Chipping Norton, The North Wall, Oxford and Oxford Playhouse.
The event attracted a diverse wealth of talented theatre-makers and we are now pleased to announce the 10 artists and companies who will be joining us to pitch their work:
Kook Ensemble
We are a circus and physical theatre company founded in 2023, creating visually inventive, non-verbal work rooted in the landscapes and communities we inhabit. Our practice centres on physical storytelling reaching broad audiences, including those less likely to engage with theatre.In 2024, we created our debut show Filibuster, co-created with Tom Gaskin, and toured it to seven partner venues through an Arts Council England-funded project. This process helped us refine our approach and build strong sector relationships.
Our second show, Sand, developed through the National Theatre’s Generate Programme, explores memory, dementia and coastal erosion. Following a 13-venue UK tour in 2025, Sand is now set to tour further, alongside wraparound workshops and community activity.
Pitching: Sand, and Macbeth
We are pitching our current touring production Sand and our next project, a new non-verbal adaptation of Macbeth.
Sand is a visually led contemporary circus-theatre work exploring memory, dementia and coastal erosion, designed for mid-scale venues. Alongside performances, we offer wraparound activity, including workshops and community engagement.
We are also seeking partners for early-stage collaboration on Macbeth, exploring how Shakespeare’s text can be translated into a physical, acrobatic language, engaging both traditional theatre audiences and those new to Shakespeare.
Dorsetborn
When first breaking into the industry, I often felt ashamed of coming from/living in Dorset, and that it wasn’t possible to pursue a creative career if I wasn’t based in London. In response, I created Dorsetborn to tell compelling stories in modern ways, discover new talent across the South, and inspire other emerging artists to become professional theatre-makers.
We’ve created three critically acclaimed new touring productions – ‘Georgia and the Iceberg’ – for young audiences, then two debut plays – ‘Fort’ and ‘Lessons from Teacher’, as well as digital projects in collaboration with National Trust and Poole Museum. Our work aims to be dialectic, poetic, and inclusive. We’ve embedded accessibility within previous projects through creative captioning, audio description, and touch tours.
We're not just for Dorset. The ambition is for Dorsetborn to playfully tour new work across the UK, telling stories that matter to communities who care.
Pitching: Lessons from Teacher
Who gets to see the real you? irl, Cam is a hopelessly romantic schoolteacher. online, she goes by Crystal – a notorious Only Fans creator, dominating deviant men for money. When she falls for a pupil’s dad, her separate lives begin to collide in ways both hilarious and haunting.
Lessons from Teacher is a new one-person play, performed by Barbara Smith (EastEnders). Written by Erin De Frias and directed and co-created by Rohan Gotobed, it’s a romcom-thriller for audiences aged 15+ across the UK, exploring the commodification of pleasure, sexuality, and how our private lives contradict our public ones.
Image © Layla Bradbeer
Caroline Horton & Co
I spend most of my time creating original solo and ensemble performances as lead artist in close collaboration with directors, producers, designers, musicians and other performers as Caroline Horton & Co.
The work is funny, strange and dark – often personal, often political. The shows have toured nationally and internationally.
You’re Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy (2010) was nominated for an Olivier Award. Subsequent work includes Mess (The Stage Award winner), Islands, Tranklements, Penelope RETOLD and Muckers. All of Me premiered in Edinburgh in 2019, where it won the Fringe Mental Health Award and a Stage Award, before transferring to The Yard and touring in 2022.
I also create audio work for the BBC, including Nana, Paris & Me, Pandora, Daphne & Apollo, Tracks and Home Front. In 2025, I received a DYCP grant to explore quiet, non-verbal practice and neurodivergent access, while developing new work and co-running The Mama Time Project.
Pitching: The Mama Time Project
The Mama Time Project began in 2023 in collaboration with The Mill, Banbury. We run creative wellbeing sessions for anyone who identifies as a mum, designed and facilitated by me and fellow artist Rachel Gildea. These sessions explore the realities of motherhood, offering space to share the amazing stuff, the boring stuff, the really hard stuff. We are also developing a co-created show about motherhood with a musician and a cast of mums from the sessions. Supported by Arts Council funding, we are delivering sessions across Oxfordshire and undertaking an R&D, with a work-in-progress sharing in Spring 2027.
Image © Jules Pottle
Lydia Idakula
I am, an award-winning producer, writer, and arts manager working across theatre, film, television, and festival programming. I have led and produced a wide range of productions and arts events, most notably as Artistic Director of the Lagos Theatre Festival, the largest multi-arts festival in West Africa.
I am also the founder of the Cambridge African Festival of Arts and the Taruwa Africa Centre, platforms dedicated to amplifying African and migrant narratives and fostering cross-cultural exchange.
As a Producer, I am developing bold and globally resonant work, including: Queen Idia the Musical, Benny and the Greycats with Maya Productions, Heartbeat the Musical with Garden Theatre, and Transit with Halfpace Theatre.
Driven by a commitment to collaboration, I am passionate about creating opportunities for underrepresented artists and sharing diverse, nuanced African stories with audiences worldwide.
Pitching: Queen Idia the Musical
I am developing Queen Idia the Musical, a vibrant Afrobeat and spoken word production that reclaims the story of a formidable 16th-century Nigerian queen. Inspired by the iconic ivory mask taken from the Benin Kingdom and now held in the British Museum, the work centres the woman behind the object, bringing her voice, power, and legacy to life.
The project is currently in development, with the next phase of R&D scheduled for August/September this year. I am seeking co-producers, venues, and partners to support its journey toward a full-scale production, international touring, and long-term cultural impact.
Creatives House
For artists in pursuit of excellence, Creatives House is a love-driven artist incubator. We host a collaborative creating, making and producing space to make productions of live performing and visual art experiences that express truth, justice and wisdom. Transforming the lives of Manchester’s audiences and beyond, one cultural adventure at a time.
Nickie Miles-Wildin and Grace Ng were previously joint Artistic Director and CEO of DaDaFest and continue their leadership partnership with Creatives House as Creative Director and Founder respectively. Both have been involved with disability arts in a variety of ways namely; Nickie was previously Graeae’s Associate Director and Head of New Writing, and Grace is currently Lowry’s Artist Development and Access Producer.
Adam Fenton is a writer and performer working in theatre and television. He was also the recipient of the Evening Standard's Future Theatre Award for Acting, given to the most exciting new voices in theatre.
Pitching: //TUNING IN//
//TUNING IN// follows Reagan as he pieces together a disastrous date whilst trying to control his impulses and battle his brain. It explores the destructive nature of disability prejudice, how neurodivergence frees and constrains us, and the damage we suffer by trying to fit in.
Creatives House presents this exciting new play written and performed by Adam Fenton, directed by Nickie Miles-Wildin. This powerful one-person production features creative captions and integrated audio description.
Aimed at audiences aged 16+, //TUNING IN// places a disabled narrative centre-stage with urgency and originality, offering a deeply personal, socially resonant and compelling theatrical experience.
Image © Creatives House
Out Of The Forest Theatre
Out Of The Forest Theatre is a multi-award-winning ensemble based theatre company “that wide-eyed creative children should dream of running away to join,” (Get Your Coats On). We take misremembered and forgotten stories from history, set them to folk music and use them as a lens to better understand today. Irreverently presented, knee-slapping, historical theatre with a modern revisionist twist.
Pitching: Bury The Hatchet
★★★★ “Murderously confident theatre from Out Of The Forest” - The Stage; Lyn Gardner
Andrew Borden and his wife Abby are found dead in Fall River, Massachusetts, August 1892. Their daughter Lizzie is the main suspect. Tried but acquitted of the crime, the story goes that she wielded the axe that killed them. “Part courtroom drama, part folk gig, part historical whodunnit. It plays with the edges of fact and legend, letting the audience feel complicit in the myth making.” - North West End ★★★★
★★★★★ “An inspired piece of theatre.” - Bouquets & Brickbats
Image © Alex Brenner
Gavin Maxwell
I’m an award-winning theatre-maker, performer and practitioner specialising in physical and devised theatre. I create bold, visually driven work across stage, film and community settings, with a strong focus on storytelling, collaboration and socially engaged practice.
For over eight years I’ve worked internationally with Frantic Assembly, co-directing their flagship outreach project Ignition (2019, 2022, 2025) and delivering workshops and residencies worldwide. I was Co-Artistic Director of GymJam Theatre (2019–2025), where we created playful, politically urgent work — including Anthropocene, co-produced with Oxford Playhouse, which won an OFFIE and streamed globally.
I collaborate extensively with companies including Vamos Theatre and the Beatbox Academy, contributing as a performer, facilitator, filmmaker and movement director on award-winning productions including Frankenstein and The Pied Piper.
As a neurodivergent artist (ADHD/ASD), I champion inclusive, imaginative storytelling that connects people and builds community beyond the stage.
Pitching: Football Manager
A new theatre work inspired by football-culture and management simulation games — an underdog story about control, obsession and second chances. At its centre is one man rebuilding his life through the game, surrounded by a live community-chorus formed in each location through non-competitive football sessions.
Part match, part memory, part system crash, the piece blends physical theatre, live-video and collective movement to create something urgent, funny and full of heart — Ted Lasso meets Dear England meets Shameless.
A show that can only exist with the people it meets, turning communities into the crowd, the pressure and the possibility.
Kid Carpet
Kid Carpet shows are not twee or patronising!
They talk to children through their own style of small-world-play, using familiar toys as player characters and brought to life with exciting music and video.They also simultaneously talk to parents on their own level, understanding what parents and carers are potentially dealing with and laughing at the difficulties and absurdities of the situations we find ourselves in, raising children in the modern world.
Kid Carpet (Ed Patrick) made a splash in the national press and radio in the early 2000s playing electro punk pop with children's toys as instruments.His theatre work carries on that DIY aesthetic.
Kid Carpet & The Noisy Animals have made and toured a number of shows throughout the UK.Inspired by 80s TV like The Young Ones, Bagpuss and The Muppet Show,Kid Carpet performances are unlike most work for young people.
Pitching: Jack and the Beanstalk (sort of)
A lo-fi, hi-tech, big-beat bonkers panto stuffed with songs, silliness and surprises.For all ages and families.Kid Carpet doesn't care for panto. The Noisy Animals absolutely love it.
So guess what they're doing? Yep. A panto. Now there's a beanstalk in the middle of everything, and nobody's quite sure what's going on.
Featuring Bear, Gorilla, Badger and Hedgehog, this is Jack & The Beanstalk like it's been thrown in a blender with a drum machine and dodgy celebrity lookalikes. Part Air Guitar workshop, part magical mess, this show is loud, proud and completely off its bean(stalk).
Image © Hannah Broadway
Grey Castle Productions
My name is Simon Castle and I'm the producer of Grey Castle Productions, a new-writing company from Banbury, dedicated to platforming queer stories.
Our debut production, ‘Is the WiFi Good in Hell?’ (Underbelly, 5* ) was a finalist for an Off West End Award, named a Playbill Pick of the Fringe and was selected for a creative roundtable with Secretary of State for Culture, Lisa Nandy.
Our play ‘lenny.’ (Omnibus Theatre) was nominated for 6 Fringe Theatre awards.
I'm developing a play ‘DYBBUK’ (artsdepot) with 2 of their artists in residence.
GCP also served as associate producer on ‘Dead Dad Show’ (Soho Theatre/UK Tour) and ‘ROT. HUSK. LOSER.’ (Park Theatre).
As a freelance producer, I've produced on ‘Positive’ (Southwark Playhouse); ‘All of Them, Dead’ (Pegasus Theatre/UK Tour) and Two Tribes’ R&D (Theatre Royal Stratford East/Leeds Playhouse).
Pitching: Father on High
Welcome to Duckmere, where the mallards have flip knives and the last vicar drove his campervan straight through the vicarage.
After Father Mark dies on a mania-induced pilgrimage, his widow Claire and son Alex are left picking through what’s left.
The New vicar Father Matthew wants Claire out and Alex, dragged home from university, is stuck fixing the van and trying not to bump into old-flame, Jay… who might know more about Father Mark than anyone’s saying…
Set around a broken campervan they can’t abandon and written by the son-of-a-preacherman, this semi-autobiographical play spills the afternoon-tea on village life.
Image © Patch Bell
Koro Productions
Koro Productions is a migrant-led charity specialising in immersive theatre projects that place audiences at the heart of the storytelling experience. We explore urgent contemporary stories - and the global histories that have shaped them - using interactivity and play as tools for reflection, connection and agency.
We collaborate with diverse artists to tell stories that reflect a range of lived experiences, and we design our work to be accessible, inclusive and engaging for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Whether in a theatre, public library, community venue or school hall, our shows invite audiences to see the world - and each other - in new ways.
Pitching: Checkpoint Universe
Checkpoint Universe is a new immersive theatre show exploring migration stories through space travel, by migrant-led company 27 degrees and co-produced by Koro.
Following an intergalactic climatic emergency, children from different planets face a call to leave their homes behind. With suitcases filled with objects from their planets, families must navigate a treacherous journey to planet Azuria. As they face playful challenges and unfamiliar customs, children explore how to feel at home somewhere new - without losing what makes them who they are. Through games, immersive theatre and puppetry, the show explores migration, identity, and community with imagination and care.
Images: Checkpoint Universe © Alex Brenner
Audience Tickets still available
As part of Pitch Up, we invite an open audience made up of theatre makers, arts professionals and representatives from other South East based venues eager to join us, connect and listen to the pitches of the day.
There are still a handful of tickets available for this in-person event at Old Fire Station and spaces are limited. Please book your free ticket in advance (a complementary vegetarian / vegan lunch and refreshments will be provided).
