XpoNorth Podcast #019 - Sadie Dixon-Spain (The Walking Theatre Company)
What do you do if you feel like you’re trapped in a shed with your young children and pets living? How about starting a theatre company? Although Sadie Dixon-Spain’s Walking Theatre Company evolved long before the Covid-19 pandemic, there are references in its origins many of us can relate to. How do you entice children to go for walks in the countryside? By turning the activity into an interactive storytelling experience. Actor, director and entrepreneur Sadie Dixon-Spain speaks enthusiastically with Dougal Perman, himself a digital media producer and director who started out in theatre, about how theatre can respond to its environment, how storytelling involves its audience and what her company learned from adapting to online working during the pandemic, including what they will take forwards into the future.
These podcasts have been curated by XpoNorth to inspire you and highlight different ways that you can potentially create, generate new ideas, products, services and income during what is a very difficult period for most businesses and organisations.
Synopsis
Sadie Dixon-Spain is artistic director and founder of The Walking Theatre Company. Based in Argyll, Sadie founded The Walking Theatre Company based on a love of movement, storytelling, history and the environment. She talks to Dougal Perman about all of those things including her passion for and fascination with Scotland’s stories. They also discuss how Sadie grew her theatre company as a commercial concern without relying on funding, how the work her company makes responds to its situation and surroundings and what they did to innovate during the pandemic; especially in reference to their successful project for children called Zippedy Zoom Club and the company’s first film production Macbeth The Red.
Show Highlights:
- Commercial theatre
- Digital storytelling
- Site specific/responsive creative work
- Theatrical filmmaking
- Audience interaction
Date Recorded: 30 June 2021
Date Published: July or August 2021
Participants:
Interviewee: Sadie Dixon-Spain
Host: Dougal Perman: Dougal is director of content company Inner Ear, chair of the Scottish Music Industry Association and an advisor at XpoNorth Digital.
Resources:
https://thewalkingtheatrecompany.com
https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkingTheatreCompany
