Directing: Digital
ROMEO AND JULIET
Performed live over zoom for creation theatre.
Cast: Lola Boulter, Sebastian Capitan Viveros, Vera Chok, Kofi Dennis, Viss Elliot Safavi, Clare Humphrey, Andy Owens, Dharmesh Patel, Graeme Rose, Harmony Rose Bremner, Katy Stephens, Giles Stoakley, Annabelle Terry.
Creative Team: Ryan Dawson Laight, Matt Eaton, Molly Gill, Sinead Owens, Simon Pittman, Stuart Read, Sam Scott, Giles Stoakley, Judith Volk,
“* * * *
the idea that each decision has life and death stakes for the characters is genuinely exciting. natasha rickman and her team deserve credit for creating a true digital performance rather than a simple streaming”
— The Stage
“* * * * *
with her tight new production rickman has achieved what i was beginning to think was impossible - an experience that is genuinely theatrical and yet takes full advantage of online presentation. you will be delighted by the way rickman conjures her characters, setting and incidents of the play - at times hinting that the work of ingmar bergman and nicolas roeg has been an influence, but creating something unique and really very special”
— London Theatre 1
Romeo and juliet was mentioned when the british shakespeare association awarded creation theatre the inaugural innovation award in 2022
“From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, their executive director, Lucy Askew, has led Creation through an innovative transformation from site-specific performance to digital performance. Their interactive production of Romeo and Juliet was a notable triumph in this form, as it took place in an expansive digital universe and positioned the audience into an active relationship with the ‘onstage’ action. Creation Theatre’s innovative approaches and development of digital theatre techniques made possible new and exciting ways of producing and experiencing theatre online.”
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THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
Performed live over Zoom for Creation Theatre. Co-directed with Laura Wright.
Cast: Kofi Dennis, Victoria Jane, Andy Owens, Dharmesh Patel, Graeme Rose, Giles Stoakley, Annabelle Terry
“It’s a complicated but classic Jacobean tragedy, here wrapped in a fun psychedelic 1970s vibe, complete with Bond-esque multi-frame cinematography and an overall tip-of-the-hat to the thriller-spy genre. The Zoom platform allows for a seamless blend of film and theatre. The split-screens and technicolour visual palettes reminiscent of Hitchcock, Bond, and similar spy thrillers bring these elements together pretty seamlessly.”
— Exeunt Magazine
A Christmas Carol
Performed live over Zoom for Guildford Shakespeare Company and Jermyn Street Theatre, December 2020
Written by Charles Dickens, adapted by Naylah Ahmed
Cast: Brian Blessed, Jim Findley, Paula James, Penelope Keith, Robin Morrissey, Lucy Pearson and Teams Holly, Mistletoe and Ivy from the GSC Young Company.
Director Natasha Rickman’s digital staging of A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly ambitious. This playful treatment features cleverly integrated effects, slapstick off-screen pratfalls and a well-choreographed snowball fight unfolding across multiple cameras. **** The Stage
Natasha Rickman tackles the challenges and ghostly visual possibilities of digital direction with an organised, ambitious grace…Testament to theatre’s powerful role in spreading and connecting high spirits all around. A Younger Theatre
The Snow Queen
Directed and adapted to play live over Zoom in December 2020 for Iris Theatre
Cast: Leda Douglas
Directed and adapted for this version by Natasha Rickman, the production features wonderfully family friendly technology by loom.ai to bring characters such as the Snow Queen to life and the variety of magical locations to life. Bold and colourful, it effectively draws the audience into the story – with plenty of magic in between.
What makes this production so joyful is the way in which it encourages the children (and grown ups) to really use their imagination – from getting them to use something blue to recreating a river to practising their royal bows, it is thoroughly engaging from start to finish. The kids that we could see really looked as though they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. Love London Love Culture
Douglas is energetic and effortlessly engaging, and the Snow Queen herself is a pleasingly fantastical figure. To judge by the bouncing enthusiasm of the young audience joining from their various homes, adaptor Natasha Rickman’s production successfully transported them on an icy adventure i News
The Time Machine: A Virtual Reality
Performed live over Zoom in April 2020 for Creation Theatre
Adapted by Jonathan Holloway from the H.G. Wells original
Cast: Leda Douglas, Sarah Edwardson, Clare Humphrey, Rhodri Lewis, Funlola Olufunwa, Graeme Rose, Paul (PK) Taylor
A sleek voyage through the fourth wall The Guardian
I think they might have created a show that is perhaps something genuinely new in theatre...The triumph of this production is the way it properly embraces the technology My Theatre Mates
The show elevates the Zoom virtual background, screen sharing, and audio sharing functions to an art form.....Creation Theatre has found the element that’s been missing from all Zoom-based productions we’ve seen: the presence of the audience. Theatre is an active experience: the viewer knows the actor is there and the actor knows that we are there. We can see, hear, and sense each other in space. Actors can speak to us--not through a camera--but mere inches away from us. The palpable energy between viewer and performer, until now, has not been so closely approximated. When the audience’s faces all appear on the screen, and the actors can speak to us by name, and we can speak back and play along, suddenly passive video-watching becomes something much closer to theatre...they have substantially raised the bar in virtual theatre making Chatham Life and Style
The Merry Wives of WhatsApp
Performed live over Zoom for Creation Theatre, September 2020
Written and performed by Lizzie Hopley and Olivia Mace
Fabulously funny….directed by Natasha Rickman, the girls have an electric connection throughout the show A Younger Theatre
Fluently directed by Natasha Rickman….I loved every moment. Immaculately performed, Creation has a hit on its hands with these hilarious merry wives Newbury Today
