The Stage

Starcatchers appoint artists-in-residence to create theatre for toddlers

Published Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 11:23 by Thom Dibdin

Starcatchers, the theatre company which creates shows for babies and toddlers up to four years in Scotland, has announced the appointment of four new artists-in-residence to venues in Fife and Glasgow.

The year-long residencies will allow the artists to build relationships with audiences and art centre staff and are based on a similar two-year project at North Edinburgh Arts Centre (NEAC), Starcatchers project manager Rhona Matheson told The Stage.

“The four artists have varied experience and varied interests so we should have very different work,” Matheson said. “They have got the opportunity and funding to bring in other artists, so they are creating their own little hubs in each of these venues.

“They are based with the venues so it is about them being part of those art organisations, being embedded there so the practice becomes embedded.”

The news comes as one of the three productions to come out of the NEAC pilot, Andy Manley’s My House, returns from a successful tour to the New Victory Theater in New York.

While acknowledging the success and ongoing demand for the existing pieces, Matheson pointed up the financial issues associated with the reduced capacities needed for work with early years audiences.

She added: “There is an ongoing discussion which has just started. We certainly need to be pointing out why this work has got a reduced capacity and why it is very important that we keep to those numbers - although the costs of creating that work are the same as they would be for an audience of 150”.

Besides four new pieces of work, the project will develop research to help inform the agendas for other disciplines, such as health and education, of the effects of performance on young children.

The four artists and their residencies are Matt Addicott at Platform, Easterhouse Glasgow; Hazel Darwin Edwards at The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Fife; Sacha Kyle at Arts and Theatres Trust Fife Ltd (AttFife) in two of their venues at Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline and Lochgelly Centre, Lochgelly, Fife; and Katy Wilson at Tramway, Glasgow.

www.starcatchers.org.uk