Creation Theatre Launches The UK's First Full-Time PAYE Rep Company With Daughter Of Edward Woodward

The leading company for site-specific and digital theatre has announced their brand-new Rep Company. In response to the current climate, where the lack of job security for actors leads to poor mental health and wellbeing, Creation Theatre is offering a company of actors full-time PAYE contracts - which is very rarely seen for performers in the industry.

With no other UK theatre company offering such a radical solution to the financial insecurity of freelancing, Creation hopes to provide significantly increased stability for performers. Along with the mental health benefits of secure work, the company will gain increased employment rights, support returning to work after maternity leave or sickness, greater flexibility for holidays and compassionate leave, and the ability to live locally and not travel for work.

The company is comprised of Emily Woodward (Father Brown, BBC; The Last Ones, Jermyn Street Theatre; Mrs Warren's Profession, UK Tour), Anna Tolputt (A Small Light, Disney+; Spring Storm, National Theatre; Puss in Boots, Chipping Norton Theatre), Delvene Pitt (Little Crowns Storyhouse; Edie, Theatre503; Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales, UK Tour), Nicholas Osmond (Witness for the Prosecution, London County Hall; Sarah Jane Adventures, BBC; Henry V, Antic Disposition), Herb Cuanalo (From Rushmere With Love, Eastern Angles; Hound of the Baskervilles, Barn Theatre; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wiltons Music Hall), and Natasha Rickman (As You Like It, Guildford Shakespeare Company; The Talented Mr Ripley, Wiltons Music Hall; The Snow Queen, Creation Theatre).

With many acclaimed actors having cut their teeth in repertory theatre, this new company sees a return to a Rep legacy - in which some of the UK's greatest plays were written. Rep theatre represents a steady form of income, as well as the scope to offer a step change in the quality of work produced. Creation Theatre's Rep Company will take part in their Winter and Summer shows on an initial two-year contract.

The decision to move to a permanent Rep Company is informed by research from three leading UK universities. Creation have undertaken partnerships with: Gill Cowburn and Charlie Foster (MBE), who are currently studying the health and wellbeing implications on performers at University of Bristol; Heidi Ashton, whose research specialism at the University of Warwick is freelancers' pay and conditions; and Pascale Aebischer, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of Exeter.

Pascale Aebischer comments, Creation Theatre were trailblazers during the pandemic, when they found ways of working online that allowed the company to continue producing new work and employing performers when freelancers in the theatre industry were unable to access help through the furlough scheme. Now, following a first successful season of employing a repertory company of performers who helped them continue to innovate in digital theatre in 2021, they are once more showing the way in building back better with the wellbeing of their performers and tackling the climate emergency at heart. If there was such a thing as a "Hope Award", Creation Theatre would be the winners.

Creation Theatre's CEO Lucy Askew comments, Over the years we witnessed first-hand the negative impacts short term contracts and precarious freelance systems have on performers' mental health and wellbeing. The digs system is abysmal and full of horror stories, actors can't get mortgages, and many drop out of the industry after having children. Pressure to be 'nice' the whole time means people tolerate unacceptable conditions, and this can be particularly challenging for diversity and inclusion progress. At Creation we're drawing a line in the sand; this is a big, bold move but if we can't make the system better then we're not sure we'd want to be a part of the industry anymore.

Company member Emily Woodward comments, When Lucy first put a video out into the world mentioning the job role and the Rep company she was hoping to create, I immediately felt excited. I think what Creation are doing is pioneering and more theatre companies should follow suit. Rep companies were such a huge part of theatrical culture and it's such a shame that they have nearly all gone. My grandfather and father both started their acting careers in rep so it has always been talked about in our family. I have heard many stories of their various capers 'in rep' and it undoubtedly gave them a massive springboard into character acting and understanding character and creation. I started my career in a tight knit theatre company at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester where the same pool of actors were cast in numerous plays over quite a few years...Shakespeare, restoration, new writing, everything...and I think that kind of work can be just as important, if not more important, than drama school training. There's nothing like honing your craft on the job in amongst a 'family' of people you feel safe with. It's a beautiful thing. Bring back rep companies!

Creation Theatre are leaders in site specific and digital theatre. When the arts changed for ever in spring 2020, Creation used its 20+ years' experience performing in unusual locations across Oxford and turned the innovation, creativity and adaptability that it is known for to making live digital theatre.

Since then, Creation has collaborated with theatre companies and artists, games designers, software developers, AI specialists, universities, and of course its wonderful audiences, to create a brand-new kind of theatre.

Creation now produces a program of both site specific "analogue" productions which continue to push boundaries, and an online season of work continuing to establish "digital theatre" as a vibrant medium in its own right.

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