Following an initial round of applications, we are delighted to welcome five new bursary members into the Action for Children's Arts community.

Elgan Rhys, writer-director-performer

Elgan Rhys is a fluent Welsh speaker, writer-director-performer living in Cardiff. In 2015, he co-founded Cwmni Pluen Company, and was Associate Artist at Frân Wen from 2017-19. He was raised in Pwllheli and studied Theatre and Drama at the University of South Wales, where he has since returned to lecture.

Elgan directed Frân Wen’s acclaimed adaptation of the multiple-prize-winning Llyfr Glas Nebo, which toured main stages at eleven Welsh venues. His debut play Woof, staged to sell-out audiences in January-February 2019 as part of Rachel O’Riordan’s final season at the Sherman Theatre, was described by The Guardian as “a triumph”. Pluen’s most recent production, Mags, which Elgan wrote, toured Wales and London in Autumn 2019 following an initial 2018 run that was described by Wales Arts Review as “a fearless play by an innovative company, using language in a way not seen anywhere else in Wales.” Recurring elements in his work are community co-creation, an interest in multilingualism, the amplification of young people’s voices and telling stories of contemporary queer life. Elgan has also been BAFTA Cymru-nominated for his TV work, and is one of Stonewall Cymru’s Role Models. He is currently developing several plays with major companies, as well as TV and book projects.

Nominated by Theatr Iolo.

Stephan Boyce, actor

Stephan is an actor and long-term employee of Bigfoot Arts Education.

"By the end [of a workshop] the ‘naughty’ child is confidently performing Shakespearean soliloquies. The shy child is a doing solo dance in an assembly. The quiet child is directing a group activity. Often the children labelled with terms like shy, naughty, unresponsive, not a team player and other harmful terms are transformed by creativity. I believe that this is due to everyone’s innate need to create and imagine. An important skill that is undervalued and suppressed as we get older."

Jaydean Dawkins, theatre practitioner

Jaydean is a theatre practitioner, mother, and the Founder and Director of Confessions of the Youth Theatre Company (now renamed JD Theatrical Creative), a company devoted to creating new devised work with BAME and underprivileged young people in the Twerton and Radstock, some of the most deprived areas of the Southwest. She specialises in making work that confronts and challenges current issues surrounding the lack of diversity in theatre through the empowerment of underrepresented people and groups.

Nominated by the egg, Theatre Royal Bath

Kyle Lima, performer

Kyle Lima is an actor, writer, singer and director, and in his own words “a frustrated yet proud dyslexic” born and raised in the Splott area of Cardiff, South Wales. He is Theatr Iolo's Platfform Artist for 2020. In 2018, he was appointed as a BBC Writersroom Welsh Voices member and has collaborated with the BBC in developing scripts for radio and TV. He has also written and performed for Sky Arts as part of the Sky arts ART50 program, filmed at the Barbican Centre, dealing with the issues of Brexit and Article 50. He has worked with the Omidaze Theatre Company in collaboration with National Theatre Wales, The Fio Theatre Company, and the Sherman Theatre.

Nominated by Theatr Iolo.

Ben Knight, baritone

Ben Knight is a singer who has worked with Bach to Baby.

"I am passionate about children’s arts for a multitude of reasons. Making music should be inclusive to all children from different walks of life. I have personally benefited by projects when I was younger that lead me to my musical success today. My family is not musical and I was the only male singer at my school. Music education and outreach projects gave me vital skills including; confidence, creative thinking, collaboration and communication. All skills I feel that making music can bring. Most importantly, children have the right to create, imagine and play and I am passionate about music being fun and exciting for all children."

I’ve had the pleasure of working in children’s arts for my whole career, including for the last 12 years as Artistic Producer at Theatre Hullabaloo. I can’t imagine wanting to do anything else. Theatre Hullabaloo believes that creativity should be part of everyone’s childhood. I’d go even further and say that the magic that we all know from being part of the audience in a spine-tingling performance, or the way your mind is blown when an artist encourages you to turn your world view upside down, should be an entitlement of all children, whatever their background.

In 2011, when the first round of austerity hit children’s arts particularly savagely, I wrote in The Stage ‘Perhaps we can no longer afford that precious place in childhood where we have room to imagine?”

The Hullabaloo, our new venue for children and families which opened in December 2017, stands as a beacon for that place of the imagination. It is a building which is proud to recognise how important children are and to offer them spaces and art that is made specifically for them. These spaces are filled with the best of children’s theatre from around the world, attracting specialist artists, most of whom have given their lives to developing work and a relationship to their young audience which is as sophisticated as we know children to be. Fundamental to our vision is that The Hullabaloo is the meeting point for artists, children and academics so that we are not just making great art in creative collaboration, but also developing research which will impact on national policy around the place of creativity in childhood.

The Hullabaloo stands in one of the 1% most deprived wards in the UK, many worlds away from the corridors of Whitehall and yet, through being part of an organisation like Action for Children’s Arts, we feel that we have a voice in influencing the future cultural opportunities of our children nationwide. It may just be a small corner of this confusing world, but together we can make it better.

Theatre Hullabaloo presents TakeOff Festival, England’s leading festival of theatre for children and young people, 21-26 October (Delegate Festival 23-25 Oct, Durham City).

For more information about Theatre Hullabaloo visit www.theatrehullabaloo.org.uk

Miranda Thain, Artistic Producer, Theatre Hullabaloo