Team
Collaboration is integral to Tell Tale Hearts’ work. It is an important means for the artists to make connections, share their ideas/skills and explore the possibilities of exploiting cross art forms.
“Early childhood is a faraway place and theatre can be one of the many ways to try to reach it, because it is a ‘human’ language. It forces human beings to meet each other face-to-face, showing all kinds of diversities.”
Roberto Frabetti.
For a visual theatre show to work fluidly, the distinctions between the different contributing art forms must appear seamless.
Natasha Holmes - Director
Trained at Ecole d’ Philippe Gaulier and The City Lit, London. Natasha worked for 10 years as a performer & puppeteer in London working for many theatre companies & venues including; Theatre Rites, DNA, Little Angel Theatre, BAC and ACT based in Paris.
“To be able to ignite a child’s joy and imagination is a treasured experience, one I never take for granted and one that constantly inspires me to create more theatre. Children are the best possible audience an actor or director could hope for.”
Natasha Holmes - Director.
She co-founded Tell Tale Hearts in 1997 with Isabel Caballero and they toured internationally with the company, performing comic physical theatre shows for adults. In 2003 Natasha took over the role as sole artistic director of the company and changed the focus to an exclusively children’s theatre company, intent on raising the profile of theatre for early years. Since then the company has continued to chart unknown seas, embarking on fantastical journeys, always inviting the audience ‘on board’.
Louise Clark – Associate Director
“Young children are the most open-minded, life-loving people you will ever meet. They will travel with you on magical journeys through your imagination and theirs and they never fail to inspire and entertain! The theatre of Tell Tale Hearts allows children to be in their element, and to share it with their family and friends; an experience to be cherished.”
Louise Clark – Associate Director
Louise Clark has an MA in Drama and Theatre Education and a BA in Theatre and Performance both from the University of Warwick. Louise toured with Tell Tale Hearts in Beneath the Waves and A Story For All Seasons and is over the moon to be joining the company again. She has specialised in Early Years arts education since her MA dissertation research into The Place of the Drama Specialist in the Early Years. She believes high quality theatre experiences can play a pivotal role in the education and development of young children.
Louise has worked as an education associate for a number of well known theatre companies including Horse and Bamboo Theatre Company, Manchester Library Theatre, DARTS and RSC. Louise is also a member of staff for the International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) working with students from all nationalities at intensive four day festivals at venues around the world.
Sophia Lovell Smith - Theatre Designer
Sophia has extensive design experience with some of the UK's leading theatre companies including: Theatre by the Lake (Keswick), Graeae Theatre, Little Angel Puppet Theatre, Trestle, Unicorn Theatre, Theatre Rites, and Tam Tam Theatre.
"As a child I made dens and mud pies at the bottom of the garden, created miniature worlds with shells, seeds and flowers in a shoe box or a 'garden on a plate'. I still am having fun, only now they're called theatre sets with real people who like dressing up."
Sophia Lovell Smith - Theatre Designer.
Sophia has been up in Cumbria again with Keswick's Theatre by the Lake, having previously designed for the summer seasons back in 2002 and 2005, she has this time designed The Bogus Woman, The Lonesome West and The Caretaker.
She has also been artist in residence on three Creative Partnership London projects; Sheep shearing and felt making for Tudor Slippers, designing two nursery role play areas and a city woodland learning centre. And as a change from theatre she has been designing for Bennison Fabrics for their 2009 calendar.
Sophia's 2007 designs include Graeae Theatre's The Flower Girls (Hampstead Theatre), Trestle Theatre's Little India (Arts Theatre & tour), Unicorn Theatre's Jemima Puddleduck and Her Friends, Hot Mikado (Mountview Theatre school at Chelsea Theatre), The Last Line of Defence (PBAB 7 Farnham Maltings) and Handa's Surprise (The Little Angel Puppet Theatre) at Unicorn Theatre.
Sophia is delighted to be back with Tell Tale Hearts for Space Hoppers having previously designed A Story for All Seasons and Beneath The Waves.
Jo McFarlane - Designer
“I have loved working on several Tell Tale Hearts projects over the past years. I especially love the strong sense of collaboration amongst all members of the team and the opportunity to turn everyday objects into the building blocks of inviting theatrical worlds for young children. I strongly believe in leaving time and space to allow children's imaginations to blossom and for these young theatre goers to be allowed to fill in the gaps themselves.”
Jo McFarlane - Designer.
Jo McFarlane studied Theatre Design at Bretton Hall, University of Leeds. Since then she has worked for many companies including Lawrence Batley Theatre, Full Body and the Voice, Figment Theatre and Impact.
She also enjoys working on community projects and most recently was involved in the Huddersfield Carnival.
Jo has been working with Tell Tale Hearts for several years now as part of the design team on Beneath The Waves, as designer for Rumpelstiltskin, Suitcase Stories and in 2008 she created the stunning set, puppets and costume for the innovative Black Light Theatre project Arctic Antics.
Michael Szpakowski - Sound Designer/Composer
Artist, composer & educator. He has worked professionally in the arts since 1977. His music has been performed in Russia, the United States and all over the UK, at venues including the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank and Birmingham Symphony Hall, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the World Service.
"For me the beating heart of theatre is still the simple fact of the human being on stage; the body, the voice, and the immediacy of the human presence. Without that, nothing. The rest of us are there to support, to focus, maybe even to gild a bit, that fundamental magic. I guess that’s where my specialisms of music and video come in."...
..."Music’s been doing that thing since the birth of theatre, but the last twenty years have seen the sophistication & I hope, the subtlety too, of what we can do grow exponentially.
Video is a newcomer. Again if it’s used sensibly and doesn’t think it’s the guest of honour it can really help, and help in its own particular way, to heighten atmosphere, storytelling, humour, wonder. That’s what I try to do anyway."
Michael Szpakowski - Sound Designer/Composer.
His short videos have been screened in the US, Russia, Canada, China, Croatia, Turkey, Sweden, Finland and the West Bank and he has exhibited work in galleries in both the US and the UK. He is joint editor of the leading online video resource www.dvblog.org
Lars Jensen - Technical Production
Originally launched as a computer programmer, his voyage of discovery has taken him to many ports, notably those of theatre and boatbuilding.
“The taking part and sharing in a creative activity, surely ranks amongst the most satisfying and rewarding of experiences. I like to think our performances enable children to do exactly that.”
Lars Jensen - Technical Production.
He has worked for Horse & Bamboo, The Royal Court, Faulty Optic, Twisted I and The Faceless Company amongst many others and has now moored his barge ‘Simpol’ with the good folks of Tell Tale Hearts, where he keeps the ‘poop deck’ ship-shape. Lars is a skilled technical designer and inventive set builder who uses his talents in lighting design, electrical production and carpentry to create stunning performance environments.