About Us
Out of the Bag Theatre makes theatre with and
for children, young people and the community.
About Us
Our Vision
Who
Theatre Craft
Collaborations with and work for other companies include: Hastings Contemporary; The White Rock Theatre; Barefoot Opera; The Bright Foundation; Trinity Youth Theatre Theatre, Tunbridge Wells; Culture Shift; 18Hours & Hastings Story Telling Festival; Artis Education; Half Moon Theatre; Young Vic; De La Warr Pavilion; Hastings Museum; the Jerwood Gallery; and Great Dixter House & Gardens.
Out of the Bag collaborates with other artists including:
Loulou Cousin, Artist: cardboard sets, props and terrific tigers.
Julian Humphries, Percussionist: sound designer and musician.
If you are interested in collaborating please get in touch!
For all children to be involved and inspired by theatre. To ignite imagination, expand horizons and show creative possibilities.
How
We provide opportunities for all to be involved in and experience theatre.
We work with local communities, artists and organisations: with a focus on Hastings and the surrounding areas.
We work in schools, nurseries and in community venues; running weekly groups that are welcoming and accessible.
We participate in events and festivals that reach into communities.
Out of the Bag Theatre was created by Rebecca Fifield - Theatre Maker, Director, Writer, Storyteller and Creative Practitioner - in Hackney in 2009 and has been based in Hastings and St Leonards since 2012.
Her Practice
Devising, writing and directing shows with and for children.
Storytelling: writing, adapting and performing regular story sessions.
Designing and delivering workshops.
Playful & Physical
Committment to theatre craft: skills and process with children and YP.
A craft developed through a physical practice rooted in a love of language: the rhythms, the space, the musicality of words, voice and body.
Props, puppets and set improvised and created from recycled materials.
Rebecca has a DBS enhanced disclosure and public liability insurance.
Background
Growing a love of words and worlds whilst living out books in the back garden. Eventually this turned into English Literature & Drama degrees: B.A. University of East Anglia; MA Directing at Goldsmiths. With the discovery of contemporary dance on a school trip to see Rambert, the possibilities of combining the words with the physical grew. A few years of Stage Managing (inc. with the Young Vic, Royal Court, Complicite, Shakespeares’ Globe, Chichester Festival Theatre) nurtured ideas of transforming space and creating new worlds through a collaborative and cross-disciplined practice.
Playful & Physical
Rebecca has a playful and physical approach to making theatre. Rooted in the tangible everyday world, the drama slips or springs deep into the imaginary. Fun and magic arise from the practical: a meeting of play and poetry.
A serious craft with a light touch! We keep it playful and spontaneous. We follow instinctual responses; but in surprising situations. We tell stories and create worlds to discover truth. We invent characters to find common ground and humanity. We play games and explore movement to find out what happens. The physical guides emotion; and emotion makes us physical. We might start with a text or script; or we might play to explore and write the script as we turn our ideas into performance.
Making, altering, playing: our craft never stops exploring and re-inventing.
At the moment it seems that the most fundamental element to our work and our play is theatre’s innate quality of being live. In our current world of screens and virtual contact it’s important that we share a physical space in real time.
Our work and play is a living entity and we want to share that with our fellow theatre-makers, the children, young people and all who we work with. Theatre is an art for the moment, not for keeping and preserving.
Our craft of making with children has evolved to make their experience a priority. So, for example, when the time spent with children is limited to an hour a week, there is always a focus on the play and process rather than rehearsing to perfection. Through having a go we build and develop everyone’s skills: ours too! Our practice benefits from all the new ideas children/YP bring to the space.
Our workshops and projects are about initiating journeys, play and narrative, then responding to our participants; to shape and craft their ideas and discoveries. It is a craft of playfulness and spontaneity!
Inclusive & Safe
Our theatre making is for everybody: shy or outgoing, confident or tentative. Our work is rooted in the ensemble where process and performance involves and values everybody.
Safety and safeguarding is a priority.
What & Where
Our work aims to turn the everyday into an alternative place: through words, body, music and, through a lot of recycling! Tubes, boxes and packaging come ‘out of the bag’ to re-invent spaces, to become puppets, props, percussion: in schools, community halls, nursery settings; and in alternative spaces such as woods, gardens and galleries. Sometimes, wonderfully, inside a theatre!
Collaborations
Into the Space
The Story Collector
Stories and Shows
Schools and Young People