Our next Pitch Up event will be on Tuesday 20 May hosted by Brighton Fringe.

Pitch Up brings together 10 artists and companies and around 10 representatives to share their opportunities, to connect and collaborate in front of an audience. Run by house southeast theatre network.

We are now pleased to announce the ten artists and companies who will join us to pitch their work alongside the following South East based venues: Chichester Festival Theatre, Stanley Arts, The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, The Nutshell, Ropetackle Arts Centre, caravan, Portsmouth Guildhall, The White Rock Hastings, Farnham Maltings, New Wolsey Theatre and Cambridge Junction

We are thrilled to be welcoming such a talented cohort of artists, companies and venues together in Brighton. Meet the artists and companies below:

Seemia Theatre CIC

Seemia Theatre CIC are an award-winning international ensemble of artists from Iran, Argentina and the UK, led by Director Sara Amini. Seemia translates as ‘casting a spell with words’ from ancient Persian. They believe in theatre as a tool to break barriers, and through socially engaged devised performances endeavour to bring communities together.

Pitching - Saria Callas

This sexy, camp, pop-filled tragicomedy unpacks aspirations of becoming a singer while growing up where it is forbidden for women to sing. Already abottle of red in, Sara reminisces about her experiences from childhood to womanhood.

Hopeful Monster

Hopeful Monster is an ensemble of three women working collaboratively to create playful visual theatre inspired by the natural world and informed by science. In evolutionary theory, a ‘hopeful monster’ is what you get when a sudden genetic mutation produces a radically new organism.

Pitching - Hopeful Monsters

A nonverbal puppetry show inspired by evolutionary theory for 5+. From simple organisms to complex beasts! The show is a playful illustration of the notion that all living things are made up of the same fundamental building blocks, (ready to tour).

Six Long Legs

A physical theatre show for 4+. Featuring dressing up, puppetry and playful anarchy the piece sets out to improve human-insect relationships and inspire interspecies empathy through science and learning. Both can be accompanied by a thematically linked, playful wraparound activity and are accessible to d/Deaf & Hard of Hearing audiences, (work in progress).

Maria in the Stars

Maria in the Stars is the first production by a collaboration of deaf, Deaf and hearing theatre makers passionate about inspiring family audiences, and who believe that integrating BSL creates storytelling that is more accessible, creatively dynamic and joyful for all children. Maria in the Stars had a UK tour (Canada Water Theatre/MAC Birmingham/Derby Theatre) in February 2025, using live video, creative captioning, projection mapping, visual vernacular and audience interaction to tell its story of a deaf female astronaut searching for life on Mars. The company are keen to continue to explore how we can use a multimedia form - including multimedia puppetry - to create work that is equally thrilling to deaf, Deaf and hearing audiences.

Pitching - Maria in the Stars

An interactive space adventure for ages 7-11, with integrated BSL and creative captions. Maria in the Stars follows deaf astronaut Maria, in a space race to win the Queen’s gold medal. With the help of her Grandma’s old exploration Rover, she finds something so exciting… they don’t have the sign language for it yet! The audience help Maria come up with a brand new sign for her discovery.

Alice Mary Cooper

Actor, writer, clown and theatre maker, Alice Mary Cooper is an English born, Australian raised artist. She grew up in Sydney on the land of the Wallumedegal People of the Eora Nation. Alice makes work for all ages, often with a focus on women’s stories, and is passionate about using her practice to create a more just and sustainable future, ideally making people smile in the process. She presents work in theatres, libraries, schools, museums, gardens, parks and online. She leads workshops and talks on creating a more sustainable theatre practice.

Her solo shows, Waves, The Bean Counter, and most recently The Bush, have been presented extensively including to Edinburgh International Children’s Festival and Auckland Arts Festival.

Pitching - The Bush

The Bush is a solo show, for ages 12+, about a group of ‘housewives’ who saved a bushland in 70’s Sydney and ushered in a global conservation movement. It’s an epic story, joyfully and humorously told, about citizen action and the power of community. It’s for unlikely activists and already proven a hit with a diverse audience from teenagers to their grandparents.

Figs in Wigs

Figs in Wigs are a UK based company who make genre-bending performance that sits somewhere just outside of live art, theatre, comedy, cabaret and dance.

Their creative process is completely democratic and non-hierarchical; collaboration sits as their greatest asset. Their core artistic team Ray Gammon, Suzanna Hurst, Sarah Moore, Rachel Porter & Alice Roots have been working together for 15 years, along with a vibrant and very talented network of treasured collaborators across tech, lighting, sound, set and producing.

Pitching - Big Finish

Big Finish is a wrecking ball of chaos, oscillating between giving up and smashing the house down. It’s about the end of the world, the death of theatre and the end of Figs in Wigs - maybe? A collective scream into the void - with jokes. A mashup of theatre, dance, TED talk and string quintet (untrained), Big Finish is a collage of ideas about endings, rebirth and regeneration. A studio show for ages 14+.

Astrology Bingo - A cosmic cabaret bingo night for astrology lovers, bingo wingers and their sceptic friends. All age ranges, performed at community halls, festivals, & studio spaces.

Justice in Motion

Justice in Motion make theatre. A powerful, thought-provoking, visual type of theatre. They tell stories about people who are victims of social injustice. Their exciting and engaging shows mix dance, theatre, parkour, aerial acrobatics, film and music; shining a light into some of the dark places you can’t normally see.

Working with academic, business and charity partners the company find out as much as they can about the people whose stories they tell, giving silent sufferers a voice.

Pitching - CODE

CODE, Justice in Motion's urban odyssey into county lines and knife crime, told through a spectacular blend of physical theatre, parkour and trials bike stunts with live rap and music. On an urban playground, skilled athletes and performers show what is happening to our young people exploited by organised drug crime gangs. See inside the county lines through up-close, dazzling, adrenaline-fuelled, audacious story-telling inspired by true case studies.

LegalAliens Theatre

LegalAliens is a migrant-led ensemble and Theatre of Sanctuary based in Tottenham, North London with a vision to radically reframe how migration is represented on stage, platforming migrants and refugees as artists, performers, creatives and communities.

Their work reclaims space for those excluded from mainstream narratives, giving space to the voices and bodies of those too often marginalised.

Pitching - The Flowers of Srebrenica

The Flowers of Srebrenica is an urgent piece, reimagining Aidan Hehir’s illustrated novel about his recent journey to the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial through a chorus of refugee women from Bosnia, Rwanda and Ukraine. They layer a poetic commentary and dark humour onto the narrative connecting 20th century European events to contemporary global crises. Is history bound to repeat itself?

Undone Theatre

Undone Theatre are a queer- and migrant-led company platforming marginalised stories through formal innovation. They create new work that challenges traditional forms of storytelling and the dominant narratives they embody. They’ve developed multidisciplinary projects, new shows and created space for diverse communities to gather and discuss personal and political questions.

Pitching - The Butterfly Project

Meet real-life partners Joey and Gabs. The true story of how a 1904 opera caused the breakdown of their relationship. 25 years later, their son Joey is thinking of ending things with his Italian boyfriend. Turning to his parents’ interracial relationship for guidance, a pattern emerges: the notes of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly underscore a century of Asian misrepresentation, orientalism and exoticisation.

Simon Lyshon

Simon Lyshon is an independent theatre maker specialising in contemporary devised work, immersive theatre and facilitation. Simon grew up in Chichester and was a part of the CFYT from age 11 to 18, before training on the Collaborative and Devised Theatre BA at Royal Central. Simon co-founded devised theatre company Engineer and has recently completed a specialised, year-long programme in experience design with Odyssey Works. Simon also works as a facilitator, teaching young people and community groups (currently for Central, The Barbican Centre, Young Film Academy and Moving Waves).

Pitching - The Miniature

The Miniature is an intimate storytelling experience for audiences of four. Sat inside a shed with a solo performer, audiences don headphones. The performer wears a live microphone which is mixed into a live triggered sound-score. Together they tell a story about a couple, a model house, and a question that threatens to turn a home into a pile of ashes.

Edie Edmundson

Edie Edmundson is a freelance puppeteer, puppetry director, performer and theatre maker. Trained at Curious School of Puppetry (2016), Edie has since worked for companies including Wise Children, Edinburgh Royal Lyceum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Birmingham Rep and Freckle Productions.

Their own work blends puppetry with clowning, storytelling, music and cabaret. Edie has performed solo show ‘The Pony Club at the End of the World’ at Beverley Puppet Festival, Shambala Festival and community spaces around London. This summer it will be coming to Beautiful Days Festival in Devon.

Pitching - The Whale's Tale

The Whale’s Tale is a new show for family audiences about whales, coastal communities, and protecting the oceans we all rely on. Through puppetry, original music and playful storytelling, the show asks what whales can tell us about ourselves, and inspires us to work together to save our seas.

The show is aimed at family audiences with children aged 5+. It is particularly aimed at people (young and old) who are Blind or Visually Impaired, using Integrated Audio Description and creative access elements. The show and associated workshop premiered at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth last October.