Associate Artists
From playwrights, and performers, to directors, designers, and technicians, supporting and collaborating with the next generation of local, regional and international artists is one of the most important aspects of our work here at Forest Forge Theatre.
We’re always keen to develop innovative and creative partnerships, as well as providing professional development and mentoring opportunities for emerging theatre companies and creatives. These are our current associate companies and artists.
Bumblefly Theatre Company
Bumblefly Theatre Company is a local company run by Dom Phillips, creating fun, magical and mischievous storytelling theatre for families.
Touring an annual Christmas show to venues in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, is a collaboration between Forest Forge Theatre and Bumblefly. You may have been lucky enough to see The Frog Prince and Rumpelstiltskin. The 2019 collaboration was the wonderful Little Red Riding Hood.
Anna Harriott
Anna is an Actor, Voice Over Artist, and writer.
She is founder of Tall Tree Theatre, who make playful and magical rural touring shows for children and their adults.
Tall Tree Theatre combine live music and puppetry to bring their incredible, original tales to life. Their magical approach and clever language will draw you into a world of unexpected adventure where you never can be sure what’s around the next corner.
Clive Holland
Clive Holland has performed with Forest Forge many times, runs Mischievous Theatre CIC, based in Ramsgate, Kent, and recently co-produced Jack and the Beanstalk with Forest Forge and Bumblefly.
Mischievous creates ambitious, stimulating, provocative theatre that intrigues, challenges and delights. We play with form and style, we experiment, cross arts boundaries, surprise ourselves and our audience. We create work that makes us question ourselves and the world around us. We tell stories of the past, the present and the future and we do all this in the place where the world of the audience and the world of the performers meet.
Michele O’Brien
Forest Forge audiences will know Michele most recently from the 2018/19 production Rumplestiltskin and the 2019/20 production Little Red Riding Hood, collaborations between Forest Forge Theatre Company and Bumblefly Theatre Company. Her connections to Forest Forge go back to 2008 when she toured with our production of To the Marrow written by Sean Aita and directed by David Haworth.
Michele O’Brien is an experienced Drama Practitioner interested in working in the Early Years sector with story-telling. Michele is currently devising her new show The Ark and Dove at Forest Forge.
Pete Courtenay
He’s a Director, writer, immersive Story teller and teacher of Improv. For over twenty years he ran a Bournemouth based youth theatre, ‘Direct Theatre School’. He was a professional stage manager, business communications Role player and performer with a bizarre Events company for ten years.
He toured an original play he’d written to one of the remotest and highest permanently inhabited places in the world, the Spiti valley, in the Indian Himalayas in 2018.
Over the last six years he’s run his own performance improv company, ‘Direct Theatre Improv’, and started a brand new company ‘The Improvised Play Company’.
Sean Aita
Sean was Artistic Director and CEO of Forest Forge Theatre Company between 2003 and 2008 and is delighted to be asked to re-join the company as an Associate Artist.
Sean has directed professional theatre productions and immersive events across the UK, continental Europe and in Canada. He has delivered performance-focused workshops in London, Mexico City, Vancouver and Los Angeles. His plays have been toured extensively both in Britain and overseas. Sean was awarded the Check-Out Theatre Award for his original play Yallery Brown, co-produced with Forkbeard Fantasy at the Greenwich Theatre London. Sean also won the IVCA Clarion Award, Europe’s most prestigious CSR and Humanitarian Communications Award. Sean was appointed Associate Professor in Theatre at the Arts University Bournemouth in 2016 and is a member of the Trinity College London Drama Panel
David Haworth
David trained in Theatre Design at Rose Bruford College and Motley. In the 21 years he worked at Forest Forge, he designed over 70 professional productions. He also writes and directs. In the last five years he has written and directed the winter tours for Forest Forge and BumbleFly Theatre. Now living in Manchester he continues to work all over the country, favourite recent shows have included ‘The man who left is not the man who came home’ For Farnham Maltings, ‘Hidden’ For Forest Forge and ‘After Birth’ For the Royal Exchange Manchester. Last year David’s play ‘Winter Came’ was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for playwriting. He has had recent success with a series of monologues documenting the Covid 19 Lockdown, including ‘Not The End’ Produced by M6 Theatre Company.
Emerging Associate: George Attwill
George is an Actor, Director, Theatre-Maker and Musician. He graduated from the European Theatre Arts course at Rose Bruford College in 2020.
Before drama school George was a part of Forest Forge Youth Theatre; the ethos of which continues to be the backbone of his work to this day.
George’s practice is heavily inspired by European theatre pedagogies particularly those of Poland.
George is passionate about creating work that brings people together to share in fun and exciting experiences. His favourite theatre is anarchic, a bit madcap, and playful. It typically has really good storytelling as well as some great music. He believes there is a timeless magic to theatre, and that the best work is infused with heart and seeks to create the BEST encounter between audience and performer possible.
For updates on his many adventures visit: www.instagram.com/georgeattwill/
Frankenstein – “Wonderful production! So creative and there was a lot of love put into it, it really showed. Thanks for another cultural feast Forest Forge!”
