Applied Theatre Podcast
Hosted by Applied Performance maker Tom Craig (plus guests).
Each episode features interviews with Applied Artists, Educators and Practitioners. Our mission is to create a community for Applied practitioners to share their practice and raise the profile of the work they produce.
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In this episode I speak with David Gibson, founder of Off-Script Safeguarding, a safeguarding consultancy working exclusively across the creative arts, from grassroots community projects to professional theatre, dance and film productions.
With nearly 25 years of experience in safeguarding, David has spent much of his career working with young people and exploring how creative spaces can support their development. Through Off-Script Safeguarding, he works with organisations to develop practices that recognise the particular needs of the creative arts, helping to ensure that safeguarding is not simply a set of policies to comply with, but an integral part of how we work.
We discuss:
- David’s journey into safeguarding and the relationship between his work with young people and the creative arts.
- What it means to move beyond policy compliance and develop a genuine safeguarding culture within an organisation.
- The particular challenges of safeguarding in creative spaces, where exploration, experimentation and the freedom to take creative risks are central to the work.
- How practitioners can recognise the needs of the young people they work with, and consider how the content, activities and environments they create might affect them.
- The importance of understanding power, creating clear routes for raising concerns, and ensuring that both young people and staff feel supported.
- Safeguarding in professional theatre, including the role of chaperones, licensing and the challenges of establishing consistent approaches across different local authorities.
- Why safeguarding should not be about restricting creativity, but about creating the conditions in which people can work safely, confidently and ambitiously.
This episode considers how we can take greater responsibility for the spaces we create, and why safeguarding needs to be understood as part of our creative practice rather than something that sits alongside it. Thank you David for your time and for sharing your experience and knowledge.
Offscript Safeguarding:
Website: https://offscriptsafeguarding.co.uk
LinkedIn: Search for David Gibson and Offscript Safeguarding.
Applied Theatre Podcast:
Substack: https://appliedtheatrepodcast.substack.com
Instagram: @AppliedTheatrePod
Email: appliedtheatrepodcast@gmail.com
Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube (with subtitles) – Applied Theatre Podcast
#theatre #appliedtheatre #appliedtheatrepodcast #podcast #safeguarding #creativesafeguarding #youththeatre
Subscribe on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube (with subtitles) – Applied Theatre Podcast
In this episode I speak with Lara Parmiani, Founder and Artistic Director of LegalAliens Theatre, a migrant-led Theatre of Sanctuary based in Tottenham, North London. Since 2012 LegalAliens has created physically driven, politically engaged theatre platforming migrants and refugees as artists, participants and collaborators. Their Tottenham Project, running weekly since 2018, offers free theatre training for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants at the Engine Room in Tottenham Hale.
We speak on the occasion of Ali in Wonder(Eng)land, playing at Jacksons Lane on 14th and 15th July, a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland devised with and performed by an ensemble of migrants and refugees.
Ali arrives in a surreal version of England full of rules that keep changing, interviews with no right answers, and helpful people who make everything worse. It's Carroll's Wonderland, just with better paperwork.
We discuss:
- The evolution of LegalAliens from a professional company of migrant artists to an organisation running weekly applied theatre classes in Tottenham
- What prompted the Tottenham Project and how it grew from two people in a room to a company of sixteen preparing for a Jacksons Lane stage
-Ali in Wonder(Eng)land — how the idea emerged, and how the 2026 version has been rebuilt with a largely new group.
- Holding artistic rigour alongside the real complexity of a room where people are navigating insecure immigration status, mental health challenges, language barriers and a system that keeps moving the goalposts.
- Why comedy and absurdism are not ways of softening the brutality but a way in.
This episode considers what it means to make work that is both artistically ambitious and genuinely community led, and why those two things are not in opposition. Thank you Lara for your time and your generosity.
LegalAliens Theatre:
Website http://legalalienstheatre.com
Instagram @legalalienstheatre
Tickets for Ali in Wonder(Eng)land at Jacksons Lane: jacksonslane.org.uk
Applied Theatre Podcast:
Substack https://appliedtheatrepodcast.substack.com
Instagram @AppliedTheatrePod
Email appliedtheatrepodcast@gmail.com
Subscribe on Spotify, Apple & Google Podcasts and Youtube (w/subtitles) Applied Theatre Podcast
#theatre #appliedtheatre #appliedtheatrepodcast #podcast #migrantarts #legalalienstheatre
30 Jun 2026
S01 E35 -Maria Åberg/ Projekt Utopia!
Subscribe on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube (with subtitles) – Applied Theatre Podcast
In this episode I speak with Maria Åberg, Artistic Director of ‘Projekt Utopia’, formerly Project Europa, an organisation working with migrant theatre makers from around the world to platform migrant imagination through the performing arts.
Maria reflects on the journey from directing on some of the UK's biggest stages, including the RSC and the National, to founding an organisation built on collective devising, multilingual practice and migrant-led artistry, and what prompted that shift during the pandemic.
We discuss:
– The decision to rebrand from Project Europa to Projekt Utopia, and why the original name was shrinking the space rather than opening it up
– Migrant imagination as both a topic and a methodology, and whether there is such a thing as a migrant dramaturgy or aesthetic
– Working with migrant communities during a period of explicit anti-migrant sentiment, and what it means to hold space for that reality within the room
– What institutions still don't understand about casting, visas and genuinely welcoming migrant artists
– The challenges of building governance structures that reflect an organisation's values rather than inherited, top-down models
– What's next for Projekt Utopia, including international touring and a long-term vision for what a fully migrant-centred cultural institution could look like
This episode considers what it means to make work from a place of hope without losing sight of the realities migrant artists are navigating, and why imaginative capacity born of migration may be one of the most undervalued creative resources in the industry today. Thank you Maria for your time.
Projekt Utopia:
Website - https://www.projektutopia.org
Instagram - @weareprojektutopia
Applied Theatre Podcast:
Substack - https://appliedtheatrepodcast.substack.com
Instagram - @AppliedTheatrePod
Email - appliedtheatrepodcast@gmail.com
Subscribe on Spotify, Apple & Google Podcasts and Youtube (w/subtitles) - Applied Theatre Podcast
#theatre #appliedtheatre #appliedtheatrepodcast #podcast #migrantartists #projectutopia
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