The People

Jane Claire, OBE (Chair)

Jane has spent over forty years working in the theatre. After a long and varied career in stage management working in regional, fringe and West End theatres she moved into producing. Following nine years with the highly regarded touring company Shared Experience, where she was responsible for numerous national and international tours, she moved to English Touring Theatre. She was Executive Producer at ETT for twelve years, producing more than 48 productions touring throughout the UK and established ETT Forge to mentor and support companies and artists interested in touring their work. Currently, as well as being Chair of the Scary Little Girls Advisory Board, she is the Chair of Flute Theatre and The Faction and also sits on the board of Derby Theatre. In 2017 she was named Theatre Employee of the Year by UK Theatre. She received an OBE for Services to Drama in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List.

Tricia Grace-Norton (Honorary Secretary)

Tricia inherited her interest and love of the performing arts from her Stage Manager father and since a child has always been actively involved in front-of-house, on-stage and back-stage events. She is Vice-Chair of a local Community Arts Group.

On moving to Cornwall she discovered the Scary Little Girls Living Literature Walks in Fowey and was absolutely enchanted by the immersive and talented theatrical experience. She immediately decided to contact the Artistic Director of this imaginative and inclusive company to see if any volunteers were required and was delighted to receive a YES reply.

Tricia has volunteered with SLG as a member of the Board of Trustees (Hon Secretary) ever since the charity was founded.  Her extensive experience in Business and People Development provided a useful background for the administration required by a newly registered Charity and the Board of Trustees.  She has continued her role as Hon Secretary on the CIC Advisory Board.

In addition to her administrative role, Tricia has also loved being involved in many SLG projects including:  ‘The Fantastic Anna Maria Fox’ performing  and organising events, selling programmes at the Minack Theatre, interviewing the wonderful Greenham Common Women, numerous Living Literature Walks and  other activities where help is required.

Sheila Vanloo

Growing up in Fowey in the 1960s wasn’t very exciting so Sheila organised live music events in the town; if no bands were available she would carry her Dansette record player and collection of vinyl 45s to the Town Hall and run what would later be known as a disco. Marriage and running her own business meant there was little time to indulge Sheila’s passion for the Arts until 20 years ago when she was invited to write reviews for a magazine, this led to more reviews in other magazines and papers. Sheila was a Director of Restormel Arts for 10 years and Project Managed St. Austell’s Community Play in 2013 and Festival of Fun in 2018. Sheila is Director of Arts and Community at Radio St. Austell Bay where she has presented a weekly Arts programme for 10 years. Sheila is also Chair and Co-ordinator of St. Austell Torchlight Carnival; and Pollinator for the Tresoys Project taking place across Cornwall in 2022 involving free arts and community events.

Sarah Pym

After ten years as a teacher, Sarah made the switch to arts management helping to found Sterts Arts Centre in 1986 and build its open-air theatre on Bodmin Moor. After a move in 1995 to the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth as General Manager, Sarah came back to Cornwall in 2006 to  The Works part-time as theatre development officer and also developing a freelance portfolio of work that has included producing two community plays. After The Works merger with Hall for Cornwall Sarah left in 2014 to work freelance as an Action Learning Facilitator across the South West and as Project Manager for Access Theatre as well as supporting and facilitating other arts projects.

Ellie Carter

Ellie Carter is the Creative Director of SGA Productions, a themed entertainment production company specialising in theatre, tv and live events. In the last ten years Ellie has worked for SGA and freelance as a creative, playwright, director, designer and now mainly as a producer. Ellie is the co-founder, producer and brand designer behind Rave-A-Roo, a brand of kids raves, which won overall Best Family Entertainment in London at the UK Hoop Awards 2018 which had over 40,000 votes cast by parents. Ellie directs for Scary Little Girls and has written and directed shows for children’s’ brands such as Freemantle, Aardman Animations and BBC Studios. Ellie was the Assistant Director on the annual CBeebies Christmas Show from 2013 – 2019 which airs on BBC One and at cinemas.

Christina Li

Christina is a musician and longtime collaborator with Scary Little Girls. She first became involved almost ten years ago during the Fringe run of The Full Bronte. Since then, she’s put poems to music, written an app, worked the lights, and been a dancing elf with, in her estimation, the best theatre company. Christina is currently part of the band Deep Talk, signed with London-based The Animal Farm.

Outside of the arts, Christina works in program management at First Republic Bank, bringing a background in finance and project management. She’s also a proud board member of MISSSEY (Motivating Inspiring Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth), where she supports their on-the-ground work with Oakland commercially exploited youth.

Faye Stainton

Faye is a feminist artist, performer and writer who currently studies Contemporary Performance Practice at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is presently conducting academic research into depictions of sexual violence in the arts and hopes to one day form her own feminist theatre company in which addresses and explores these issues.

Faye began working with SLG in 2023 through a 3 month placement whilst studying. She has performed in SLG productions, including the Winter Mayven 2023, and has assisted in producing and stage managing.

Annamaria Murphy

Anna is well known as a writer and ‘Word Witch’. She has worked with Kneehigh almost from the beginning. She has written shows including Tristan & Yseult (with Carl Grose), The Red Shoes, Don John, and Midnight’s Pumpkin, and leads the Kneehigh Rambles programme, working with young people and communities. For the past three years, she has been walking the Roads less Travelled in Cornwall, collecting, re-inventing and exaggerating stories heard along the way.

She co-runs The Story Republic, part of KEAP.

Deborah Hinton, OBE

Deborah returned to Cornwall after many years of exile, living and working in London. She has been actively involved in the voluntary and the statutory sectors at national and local level for over 45 years, as a board member, trustee, director, employee and volunteer in organisations covering a wide range of social welfare, environmental and cultural areas.

Statutory appointments include a three-year appointment to the National Parole Board; Justice of the Peace; Member of the Board of a Regional Health Authority. In 1994 she was awarded an OBE for ‘services to the community’.

Now she spends her time striding along the cliff tops, making ceramic mermaids and supporting Cornwall’s rich culture, its theatre and arts; she is a Board Member of the Royal Cornwall Museum, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cornwall Community Foundation and the ‘Visitor/ Assessor’ for the Henry Smith Foundation for Cornwall and South Devon.

Erin Richards

Welsh-born actress Erin Richards is currently starring as ‘Barbara Kean’ in Fox’s Gotham.  She has had a successful career in the UK and USA appearing most notably as ‘Molly Hughes’ in Fox’s Breaking In and ’Nancy Reid’ in BBC’s Being Human. More recently she has moved behind the camera with her writing, producing and directorial debut Hot Girl a short film about an actress struggling to find her power in an industry bent on reducing women to ‘hot girls.’

Erin has worked for several theatre companies, particularly enjoying directing or writing short pieces with a dark comedy twist which suit her feminist observations of the theatre, tv and film industry. Erin is overjoyed to be asked to be part of the Scary Little Girls family and is honoured to be patron for such an important company.

TV: Gotham (2014-2017), Misfits (2013), Merlin (2012), Breaking In (2011-2012), Being Human (2011), Crash (2010). Film: That Good Night (2017), The Quiet Ones (2014), Open Grave (2013)

Michèle Taylor

Michèle is Director for Change with the Ramps on the Moon consortium, a group of 6 mainstream, mid-scale theatres with Graeae Theatre Company working to increase the number and visibility of D/deaf and disabled people across the theatre sector. She has nearly 30 years of experience of working in theatre, firstly as a write, performer and director and then later adding training and consultancy in equality and diversity for the arts sector.

As a disabled person who is committed to the power of telling diverse stories in unexpected ways, Michèle is excited to be a part of the Scary Little Girls Journey.

Bidisha Mamata

Bidisha is a British broadcaster, film maker and journalist specialising in arts and culture and international human rights.

Bidisha is a presenter for the BBC, hosting programmes such as Woman’s Hour, and a writer for The Guardian and The Huffington Post.  She says ‘Scary Little Girls is shaking up the theatre world with brilliant and innovative work and a revolutionary working practice. In form and content, style and substance, philosophy and script, action and words SLG is replacing the old, sexist ways with something far more just and powerful, thrilling audiences will amazing new work all the way.’

Sue Hill

Cornish born and raised, Sue Hill is an actor, theatre maker, curator, writer and visual artist. In 1988 she joined Kneehigh, helping to grow their distinctive style of theatre. With Anna Murphy, another Scary Patron, she invented and re-imagined Cornish festivals, including Tom Bawcock’s Eve, Mazy Day and City of Lights. From 2000 until 2006 she was Artistic Director for the Eden Project, commissioning artists, writers and performers.

With her brother Pete Hill she has made many large scale earth sculptures, including the celebrated Mudmaid at Heligan and the Dreaming Girl for the Chelsea Flower Show (www.peteandsuehill.co.uk).

She designed the head of the Man Engine, the giant mechanical miner that processed through Cornwall in 2016 (www.manengine.org).  She has been a member of WildWorks since 2005 working on most projects including ‘The Enchanted Palace’ at Kensington Palace in 2010 and The Passion in Port Talbot with Michael Sheen in 2011 (www.wildworks.biz).

She is a founder member of Perthi Kov (www.perthikov.co.uk).  Sue has travelled widely with her work with performances, masterclasses and commissions in Bhutan, South Africa, Kenya, Canada, Malta, Palestine, Cyprus, Kosovo, Portugal, Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia and mainland Europe.

She is Landscape Director at WildWorks, member of the Creative Team at Eden Project International and an Honorary Fellow of Falmouth University.

Candy Smit

Born in Oxford, Candy spent her childhood in the home that Lewis Carol purchased for his sisters in Guildford, where Cheshire cats and white rabbits continued to appear and disappear. Her father was a great story teller and a landscape artist, intrigued by the science of perspective, so every summer holiday was spent somewhere scenic… mostly Suffolk and beloved Cornwall.

Candy studied at Camberwell Art School and Durham University, in Social Sciences. Durham was where she met musician Tim Smit. They moved to Cornwall in 1987, with three small children and no prospect of work.

Discovering and devoting time and love to Heligan over thirty years has led to many precious meetings of minds with creative people from near and far. Writing is Candy’s first love, project managing all the Heligan publications, including art books with Sue Lewington, Mally Francis and Martin Impey. Protecting and enhancing the spirit of place requires the courage to say ‘No’, as well as taking those fabulous leaps of faith.

Sometimes jewel creative relationships emerge. In August 2014 Heligan’s partnership with WildWorks and the communities of Mevagissey, Gorran and St Ewe resulted in the landscape epic 100: The Day Our World Changed. The privilege of working with Bill Mitchell won’t ever be forgotten. 

Shazz and Becca’s enduring enthusiasm for Heligan has resulted in contrastingly intimate pieces, evidencing the life-changing experience for young actors themselves. For me this has shone an even brighter light on the value of performing arts.

Jane Darke

Jane Darke is a documentary director, painter and writer. She made a film about Atlantic debris, The Wrecking Season 2005, and The Art of Catching Lobsters, about grief, 2009. Her most recent film was about the poet Charles Causley (2017), all were broadcast on BBC FOUR. She works and exhibits at Tregona Chapel, St Eval, on the North Coast of Cornwall. Her book Held by the Sea was published by Souvenir Press in 2010. Jane has also made several radio programmes BBC Radio 4.

www.janedarke.co.uk