PEOPLE
The Birth Project, by Katie Villa, is made up of a series of collaborations. Meet the team making it happen..
Katie Villa - Lead artist
Katie is a performer, theatre maker & director based in Exeter. As Artistic Director of Theatre Rush, Katie created & performed 'Flushed', an autobiographical show set in a bath tub & 'The Lost Tales', a project tailor made for rural audiences, celebrating local stories.
Collaborations include working with: Scratchworks Theatre as a Director/Dramaturg on HAGS; Sian Alex Keen as Dramaturg for ‘These Monsters Have Scales’; Rosie Race as Dramaturg for ‘Cycle’. Katie is a Kaleider Resident & recently collaborated on ‘Our Dancing Shadows’ a participatory VR performance.
Performance credits include: Vera in 'The Exeter Blitz Project'; Bird in AMINAL's 'Tortoise & Hare' & Helena in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Exeter Northcott. Katie has performed all over the country with "The Story Exchange' and she co-writes and directs Quirk Theatre's annual Christmas show. Katie has written about her birth experience for PNI.org & established Teddy Talks, a series of talks for parents and their babies under 1.
Laura mugridge - collaborator on Wild
Laura is an award winning theatremaker, comedian and writer. After performing stand up for six years, her first solo theatre show 'Running on Air,' performed to five people at once inside her 1978 VW campervan, won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe and went on to tour the UK and France. Collaborations include working with Ellie Harrison of The Grief Series, guest performer with Chris Goode & Co and Sh!t Theatre, dramaturg with Cardiff based company Likely Story and touring UK libraries with composer Tom Adams performing Bookish, a series of five mini- shows, each based on a different book. Laura is associate artist of Harrogate Theatre and of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. She also works as a birth and postnatal doula.
EMily williams - Producer
Emily is a freelance Producer, with recent clients including Ad Infinitum, Amy Shelton and Honeyscribe, Anne-Marie Culhane, David Lane, Katherine Hall, Libraries Unlimited, Molly Naylor, Raucous and The Paraorchestra and Friends.
Emily has built a reputation over the last 8 years around strategic and organisational development, fundraising, artist support, producer development and the producing of internationally renowned work often in non-traditional theatre spaces.
She is the former Executive Director of Situations, and founding member and Executive Producer at Kaleider and co-founder and co-director Wide Awake Devon (2010-2013).
Elaine Faulkner - technical manager
Elaine is an experienced production and stage manager based in Exeter. She has worked in the West End, on national tours and in the USA on various productions in many types of venue from no.1 theatres to rural primary schools. Elaine worked as the Production Manager for highly acclaimed touring theatre company Theatre Alibi and has been an integral member of the team delivering WOW Exeter for the past two years.
Elaine joined the team as Technical Manager for WILD, designing lighting & sound, managing venue tech relationships, keeping us sane & operating the show on tour.
(picture coming soon)
fi russell - Wild designer
Fi is an experienced Theatre set and costume designer, working with companies such as Le Navete Bete & Scratchworks Theatre Company in Exeter. Previous experience includes design for 20+ productions as resident designer at Eton College.
Fi has joined the team as set & prop designer for WILD, creating a tourable set that can adapt to theatre spaces and conferences nationwide.
(picture coming soon)