CO-CREATION

Alongside our work for the stage, we have a co-creation practice rooted in community settings, educational contexts, and public realm projects. Since 2018, we have developed a particular interest and specialty in co-creating work with young people in Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11), both within and outside of school settings. We were previously lead facilitators for The Yard Theatre’s flagship community programme Yardlings, and were Play Artists in Residence at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre. We also lead workshops in devising, dramaturgy, and collaborative practice for university and postgraduate students and are visiting lecturers at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

MA Theatre Lab (2025)

The Shivers (2024-2025)

Play Artists in Residence (2023)

A seasonal residency exploring the power of creative play to enliven and reimagine public spaces and generate imaginative, joyful encounters at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre.

From September to December 2022, we were appointed Play Artists in Residence at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre in Havant, UK, a multi-arts venue with a strong focus on family programming and unique local heritage projects. The invitation was to embed ourselves within the daily life of the centre and to create interventions, activities, and responses that used the venue’s public spaces in surprising, transformative ways. The work we created spanned installation, escape room, and public art, connecting Hampshire communities across generations.

Future Forest

Future Forest - by emma + pj - For Big Green Week 2022

Bring the outside in: Plant a paper forest

Join our new play artists in residence, emma + pj on Saturday 24 September for the first of their inspiring activities this season here at The Spring. In celebration of Big Green Week, emma + pj will be inviting our community to consider the place of nature in our daily lives, and to join together in the communal, playful act of building an indoor ecosystem together. Starting with bare soil and trees made out of seed paper, we are encouraged to personalise our trees with designs and messages for the future, before planting the miniature trees in the Future Forest installation. Inside each tree are wildflower seeds that will be replanted across Havant, taking the installation back outside, and propagating future ecosystems. All materials used within the installation will be recycled or planted.

The spirit of Havant Spring

The Spirit of Havant Spring – our Playable Puzzle Adventure.
Tickets: Free! Book now!
Join us at The Spring this half term for a brand-new spooky adventure like no other! Our Play Artists in Residence emma + pj have devised a mesmerising escape room-style game for families this Hallowe’en, inspired by fairytales, folklore and local legends. Between the forest and the sea a dark spirit grows– do you have what it takes to stop the spirit before it swallows the town whole?
Experience a heart-thumping race against time in our family-friendly, free, immersive playable puzzle. Following a trail of clues, you’ll solve riddles, crack cryptic puzzles, and find hidden objects to help cast a spell and banish the dark spirit forever. But time is against you-- can you complete the quest in under 30 minutes? Join us this half term to beat the clock and save the town!
Each half hour session will be for a maximum of 8 people – feel free to book all spaces for your family and friends, or book fewer than 8, and enjoy being matched up with other small groups to work as a team. All groups of children must be accompanied by an adult, and everyone in the room must book a ticket, regardless of age.
The experience is best enjoyed by young people ages 7-11, but all ages are welcome to join in.

The experience lasts 30 minutes.

Adventures in space

ADVENTures in Space

This December, Play Artists in Residence emma + pj are lost in space. They’re drifting along the edges of our galaxy, on a mission to return home in time for Christmas.

From meteor showers to planetary storms, black holes to extraterrestrial encounters, emma + pj will beam 24 dispatches from their journey directly to mission control at The Spring.

Drop into our building throughout the month to discover an advent calendar like no other. ADVENTures 2.0 is part-video installation, part-immersive sensory experience, transporting you to the outer reaches of the universe. 

This is a free, drop-in activity open to the public Monday-Saturday from 10am-4pm. The experience is designed to be re-visited - the first 10 dispatches will be available on Monday 5th December, followed by a new dispatch every day through Christmas Eve.

The Digital Renaissance Project (2020)

A series of digital projects and virtual productions created in collaboration with young artists aged 8-18 from Andy’s Summer Playhouse during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the summer of 2020, we were invited to join Andy’s Summer Playhouse (New Hampshire, USA) on a series of digital projects created under lockdown conditions. Shifting their entire summer programme from in-person to digital, the team at Andy’s created an innovative new collaborative platform - The Digital Renaissance Project - designed to connect their community of young artists with theatre makers around the world. Using Zoom, Twine, and Andy’s bespoke collaborative portal, we worked with 3 different ensembles of young artists across households and time zones to devise creative projects celebrating liveness, play, and community during this unique time of separation and isolation.

Movie Re-enactment Challenge

We’re all stuck inside. Zoom is our new reality. So let’s make a blockbuster movie.

In this week-long challenge, we explored ‘shot-for-shot’ re-enactment, taking a scene from Jurassic Park and recreating it using our bodies, our homes, and our imaginations. Using techniques from devised theatre, we explored ways of re-imagining familiar stories, finding Hollywood moments in our everyday surroundings.

The Ghost House

The floorboards creak. A candle flickers. Something stirs in the darkness…

The Ghost House is a play-at-home experience that peels back the veil between our world and what lies beyond. Guided by their phones, audience members are taken on an interactive journey through their own homes, glimpsing stories that are normally hidden in the shadows. Created using the interactive Twine platform, this is our first phone-based experience that fuses game play, mixed reality, and pre-recorded story elements.

Collaborating with an ensemble of young artists, we spent 3-weeks exploring our homes as sites of ghosts, history, memory, and imagination. Together, we created soundscapes, voice overs, video portraits, short stories, visual art, character improvisations, costumes, and more. The result is a spooky, innovative hybrid experience that re-imagines our relationships to our homes, igniting new possibilities for the worlds that might be contained within them.

Obsession Party (2019)

A playground cabaret.
A primary school Coachella.
A rock concert fantasia for the Fortnite generation.

A show about the things we can’t stop thinking about from The Yard Theatre’s in-house company of 7-11 year olds. Together with international performance duo emma + pj this energetic company of young people are ready to take you into a world of obsessions. Expect original tunes, riotous fun and lots of slime.

Between 2018 and 2019, we facilitated weekly sessions in devising and experimental performance as part of the Yardlings: Bigger programme at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick, London. Collaborating with 20 young people aged 7-11, we created Obsession Party, a one-night-only performance presented for the public on the professional main stage at The Yard.

With support from Katie Greenall, Katherine Igoe-Ewer, Debbie Lewis, Lara Tysseling, and James Dawson.