A Little Cog production in association with ARC Stockton

Occupation - Announcing the Creative Team

Occupation by Pauline Heath is a new play produced by Little Cog Theatre Company in association with ARC Stockton. It is a brand new play looking at the real experiences of disabled people and their families in modern Britain. It's powerful and hard hitting content is matched by the humour and satire that writer Pauline sees in the world around us. The piece reveals human stories in the most adverse circumstances.

At the heart of a day celebrating the Spirit of Teesside, Occupation shares the real life experiences of disabled people near you and celebrates people coming together, in spite of everything.

In a world of sanctions, forced treatment, and divided communities, people are being pushed to the edge.

An ex-soldier, a lost youth, a professional and a parent take their places around a monument at a disability rally, and shine a light on how austerity has affected disabled people and their families and what it means for generations to come. They are being pushed onto the streets to make their voices heard. ‘Human rights’ are ridiculed and people who would never before have dreamed of attending a protest are now gathering to speak out.

We are very excited to have an original music score by North East musician and composer Keith Mills, comic silent movies pastiches, and four fantastic actors who are accompanied by a 12 strong chorus from local community groups, Occupation is going to be a real community event. We will be introducing our community cast soon.

We are delighted to introduce the creative team behind the show as we head into rehearsals on 3 September, ready for performances on 26 September. Tickets are available on ARC's website on a Pay What You Decide basis.

Lisette Auton - Movement Facilitator

Lisette Auton is a writer, theatre-maker, actor, spoken word performer and creative facilitator. She trained  in Theatre Acting: Devised Performance (BA Hons) at Bretton Hall where she specialised in working with  community groups. She has an MSc in Youth Work & Community Development from Teesside University as  well as a JNC Professional Qualification in Youth Work, and is a recent graduate of the Greater Tees Practitioner Training Programme held at ARC, Stockton. She believes passionately that the Arts should be open and accessible to all.

Charlie Fennell - Actor

Charlie has been a professional disabled actor for many years having graduated from Redroofs Theatre school. He has worked extensively in theatre and television with theatre credits including Mother Courage with Graeae Theatre Company, Marat Sade with Edinburgh Theatre Workshop, and several performances with Sign Dance Collective. Television credits include Casualty, The Bill and The Healer. Charlie also starred in BBC reality TV show Beyond Boundaries. He performed in both opening ceremonies for Olympic and Paralympic Games in London 2012. Charlie performed in the successful moved reading of Occupation.

Pauline Heath - Writer

Pauline has worked in theatre for many years. She trained with Graeae Theatre Company on their Missing Piece 3 actor training programme. She gained a Performing Arts Degree from Gateshead College. She performed in the touring production of Mother Courage with Graeae. Pauline was mentored by Caroline Bowditch to choreograph a piece of physical theatre ‘Hangin’ Around For A Man With A Pulse’ to open the month long disability arts Mimosa Festival in the North East. It led to cabaret and stand up performances. She performed in Theatre Workshop Edinburgh’s production of Marat Sade which toured Scotland. She also performed in the Paralympic Opening Ceremony directed by Jenny Sealey, and performed in the Great North Run Million Opening Ceremony directed by Bradley Hemmings. She has performed with many theatre and dance companies and recently performed in Erimus with South Paw Dance at the opening of the refurbished Middlesbrough Town Hall.
 
Pauline recently had a successful solo performance of her political satire Never-Neverland supported by both ARC Stockton and Little Cog. I received an Arts Council England Award to develop Occupation.

Patricia Jones - Actor

Patricia is a professional actor with extensive experience in stage, television, film and radio. Theatre credits include Cooking with Elvis for Live Theatre, Uncle Vanya with Greyscale, and And Then There Were None with United National Theatre Company. Television credits include Eastenders, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Byker Grove, and Doctors. Film acting includes Missing My Son with Orillo Films, Notice for Now Films and the feature film, The Habit of Beauty for Pinch Media.

Aileen Kelly - Set and Costume Design

Aileen is a Designer and Maker based in the North East.  She graduated from The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) with a 1st Class BA (Hons) Degree in Theatre and Performance Design in July 2017. Aileen specialises in both set and costume design.

Since graduating she has successfully worked in Theatre, Film, TV, Commercial and Events, across a range of skills including costume design, set design, prop making, sourcing and costume. Aileen has worked with well-known companies including Ballet Lorent, Southpaw Dance, UK City of Culture, BBC, Action To The Word, PUMA and Walk The Plank.​

Theatre Design credits include Costume & Set Designer on Walter and Wilfred at Alphabetti Theatre, Co-Costume & Set Designer on Women Beware Women at Camden People’s Theatre and Costume & Set Designer on Mary Barton at Sennheiser Studio Theatre. Film credits include Costume Trainee to Designer: Eve Salter on The Runaways feature film with Slakjaw Productions and Puma Commercial.

Andrew McLay - Actor

Andrew is professional actor, writer and director with more than twenty years experience on the stage, in television, and on radio. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Burmese Theater Workshop with whom he has devised and directed several productions including Let Me Out Of Hell, Beyond Nargis, Kisa Gotami, and Lady Of Burma. Andrew has performed with several prestigious theatre companies including Graeae, New Breed, Fittings, Theatre Resource and Edinburgh Theatre Workshop. Andrew performed with Little Cog in Another England in 2017 and 2018 at ARC. He has also toured internationally with Candoco Dance Company.
Television credits include Dangerfield (BBC1), The Unknown Soldier (ITV), The Bill (ITV), Desperados (BBC1) and Holby City (BBC1). Andrew has written for stage and radio and his BBC Radio 3 play Watch the Spider, adapted from his solo theatre play, was nominated for a Pia Europa Award for best European Radio Play.  ​

Coll Metcalfe - Actor

Coll is a regional actor who was recently involved with Periplum’s world premier of The Glass Ceiling; an outdoor performance at SIRF. She worked with Little Cog on ‘Lighthouse’ in March 2018.  This was performed in both spoken English and British Sign Language (BSL) which, as a deaf actor, Coll found to be a joy!
 
An actor of over 35 years, Coll has performed in many pieces including Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Synge’s Playboy of the Western World. Coll has recently begun to write poetry.  Most of Coll’s work is on the subject of deafness and disability and she finds humour in the subject, but adds an underlying message of awareness.  Coll’s delivery of poetry incorporates BSL and adds a visual dimension to her words. She is about to embark on a collaboration piece involving BSL, a didgeridoo and a whole lot of discussion.  Watch this space!

Keith Mills - Composer and Musical Director

Having been involved in the music industry for many years, Keith Mills is a musician, composer, producer, songwriter and sound engineer. He has written music for numerous stage plays, dance companies, Circus performers, short films and theatre companies, including a lavish outdoor production of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Keith engineered and produced for the BBC for 4 years as in-house sound engineer recording and producing music and audio plays for radio and TV.
 
Keith is currently writing the music for Ella Mesma Dance Company who will be showcasing their performance of Papyllon at the ICA Live Art Festival in Cape Town South Africa later this year.

Vici Wreford-Sinnott - Artistic Director

Vici is Artistic Director of Little Cog, a disabled-led theatre company. She is also Co-Founder of Cultural Shift at ARC Stockton, a strategic artistic platform for disabled artists, based in the North East of England. Vici is committed to rich, multi-layered theatre which brings a new aesthetic and engage audiences in new ways with previously untold or mis-told stories. She was Artistic Director of cirque des femmes, one of the first feminist theatre companies in North Eastern England, followed by directorship of Sycorax Theatre Company.
As writer/director Vici has created Moll Cutpurse, Deadly Devotchka, The Art of Not Getting Lost, Butterfly, Another England, Lighthouse, and other directing credits include Matryoshka by Alison Carr, Occupation and Never-Neverland by Pauline Heath, Iron Mistress by April de Angelis, and Lear’s Daughters by the Women’s Theatre Company.
Vici is Associate Artist at ARC Stockton, Artistic Directing Collaborator with Full Circle Theatre Company – an ensemble of learning disabled theatre makers and has a scholarship for a practice-based PhD in Disability Theatre at Teesside University.