Tea Break Theatre
Tea Break Theatre is made up of a team of performers, producers and director as well as a range of associate artists who pop by every so often.
THE TEAM
Director -
Katharine
Armitage
Katharine set up Tea Break Theatre in 2012. She has directed and adapted all of Tea Break's productions (power-hungry despot). As a freelance director and assistant she has worked at theatres including Shakespeare's Globe, Arcola, Belgrade Theatre, Pleasance, Old Red Lion, Leicester Square and St James. She has written several plays and one opera. Katharine also works in comedy with her comedy group zazU who can be found on the 'Friends' page.
Chris is a puppeteer extraordinaire and the guiding brain behind the puppetry side of the company. He immortalised the PSAMMEAD as the grumpy ancient creature in Five Children and It and make a puppet look so realistic that dogs would bark at it. Chris can multi-role like no one else on earth and is well known for his impressive range of hats. He is the lead creator on our amazing puppetry show for kids 'Bobbin'.
Company
Member - Jennifer Tyler
Performer
Jenny - the ray of sunshine - Tyler joined as JANE in Five Children and It. She makes pom-poms seem like genuinely fearsome weapons and speaks up for every overlooked youngest child. She is a talented character comedian with an ever growing cast of strange souls. Find them HERE. She became Marketing Manager in 2015.
Company Manager -
Molly Small
Performer
Molly is our Company Manager and looks after every show and every member as if they were an adorable puppy and not a very ambitious adaptation or highly-strung artists... She joined us to create the role of ANTHEA (also known as Panther) in Five Children and It. Since then she has moved from puppetry to producing and back to performing as a superb astronomy-obsessed Princess in The Snow Queen We can always rely on Molly to look after everyone.
Company Member -
Emily Essery
Performer/puppeteer
Emily is the one and only Phoenix, our most educated puppet to date, whom she brought to life in The Phoenix and the Carpet. Emily can make wire and tissue paper breathe and her director get a bit weepy when the breathing stops. She is also very skilled at fitting in small boxes for long periods of time.
Company Member -
Jeff Scott
Jeff took up the mantle of playing Bobs for our Wilderness run of Five Children and It. (and yes the above picture does show one of our audience members clinging to his legs which is how good he was). In his downtime he likes to drink coffee dressed as a bear.
Flick has quite literally brought music into our lives. She joined the company to extend our regular cast for The Phoenix and the Carpet and brought with her a whole symphony of musical ability. She is perhaps best known for the creation of a depressed black beetle known as Derek who just wants to be friends with you.
Company Member - James Thorpe Woods
Performer
James first worked with us when he was an understudy for the role of JUDY in Punch & Judy (yes, we do mean Judy). He can't have been too scarred though because he returned to play BOBS in Five Children and It. He is a fully trained lifeguard and will one day write a sitcom about his experiences.
Associate Artist -
Callum Cameron
Performer
Callum can sometimes seem inseparable from his character CYRIL in Five Children and It, but that's just a sign of how darn good he is. Keeping us looking professional, Callum is an actor of a hundred roles so watch this space. He's quite nice as well.
Associate Artist - Jonathan Ainscough
Jonathan only has himself to blame for this picture. He has survived working with us by laughing heartily at everything we do and we quite like that. He is a super musician, arranger as well as director and is helping Fran hold the North. He is joint Artistic Director of Re:Sound, more about whom can be found on 'Our friends' page.
Associate Artist - Charlotte King
Performer/puppeteer
Not happy with two genius puppeteers? Well luckily we have three! Charlotte played the other half of the PSAMMEAD in Five Children and It as well as the incomporable MARTHA and the fabulous but fearsome SIR WULFRIC DE TALBOT. She is also an entrepeneur and can be spotted on Dragon's Den.
Stage Manager -
Emily Walker
We have a couple of sayings at TBT HQ: pre-Emily and post-Emily. What we did in the pre-era we're not quite sure, it was a fairly dark time. Now she is our stage manager and general life manager. Not to mention a rather excellent artist. Sorry, no you can't steal her.
Fran is doing sterling work holding up the North of England, so we call on her when our theatre leads us that way. Fran joined the company for To be read at dusk and played the lead in The Mortals in the House, which she also co-produced. She has a penchant for period costume (for penchant read 'obsessive desire').
Associate Doctor -
Helen Pollitt
Helen doesn't work in theatre, though you wouldn't know it. She's an actual, proper doctor, but that didn't stop her producing one of our earliest shows and stage managing the first run of Five Children and It among other things. She also put up with our Director trying out theatre on her during their teenage years so if we can't give her a medal she definitely deserves a little grey rectangle. Ta Doc.
