Features

Meet the MDEE Exhibitor & Performer: Theatre Re

Theatre Re is making its debut at the Music & Drama Education Expo as one of this year's exhibitors. John Johnson sits down with its founder and artistic director, Guillaume Pigé, to find out more about the company and the work it produces.

Can you tell us a little about when and how the company were formed?

Theatre Re came to life in 2011. As a director and actor, I joined forces with Katherine Graham, lighting designer, and composer and musician Alex Judd, to make our first show called The Gambler. We received our very first Arts Council grant to make it, and looking back, it feels like this initial project already had all the components of what makes a Theatre Re show. It was collaborative at heart, and was collectively devised with music, action and light being the key components. It also had strong connections with cross-sector partners and community groups such as Gamblers Anonymous. The piece had successful runs both in Edinburgh and London. As a team, we all felt like we could do more together, so we just kept going!

Where does the name Theatre Re come from?

It comes from the prefix ‘re’. When looking for a name, we made a list of all the verbs of action that communicated what we wanted to do with the company. All these verbs started with that prefix. It is the ‘re’ of rediscovering, reinventing and revealing. It also comes from the belief that nothing will ever be new, and therefore we need to actively ‘make it new’.

What do you want your work to do in the wider world?

Our aim is to bring people together by reminding everyone that we are all made of the same human stuff. We all have fears, hopes and desires. One key part of our work is that it is inventive. We play with form and how we communicate our stories – but it also needs to be accessible. We aren't interested in making something that is so experimental that people can't connect with it. If our work resonates with our audiences in a deep and intuitive way, we feel like we've succeeded.

Your company covers several creative areas, from performances to workshops and resources. Is there any one aspect of your work that's more important than the others?

They're all important and a key part of our life as a company. They also all feed into and support each other. We gain experiences and make discoveries when we're developing something new and taking it on tour, and this feeds our training programmes. The same happens in the opposite direction. The participants we work with come and see our work and it creates an appetite for what we do.

In 2026, you'll be marking 15 years of Theatre Re. Has the landscape changed for you as a theatre company during that time?

Yes and no. It's also difficult to comment on it because we've changed a lot. We've grown in terms of the type of work we make, its scale and the number of people it reaches. It's probably a lot more difficult now than 14 years ago for emerging companies to be seen and noticed, purely because platforms to showcase work are harder to find.

What challenges have your company faced over the past 14 years?

There have been many, but we once lost most of our set and costumes in Madrid for our production of The Nature of Forgetting. We had a week of shows lined up straight after in Leeds, but everything magically arrived an hour before the first show!

Tell us a little about your next project Moments, which begins touring in 2025.

Moments is our latest production and is a bit different from all our other pieces. We are performing a show in our trademark style bringing together original live music and striking visual performance. There are characters and a journey, but we're simultaneously taking the audience through all the intricacies that have gone into the construction of that journey.

One audience member likened it to the experience of a magician explaining to the audience how they perform a magic trick, and in doing so make the trick seem even more impressive, more real and more magical.

Do you have any plans for any other projects in the pipeline?

We'll be developing a new project with an international partner, which will be a step up for us a company in terms of the type of work we make, the calibre of the artists we collaborate with and the way the piece will be produced. All very secret for now, but more will be revealed soon.

Is this the first time you've exhibited at the Music & Drama Education Expo and what are you most looking forward to with your exhibit?

Yes, it is our first time! We've put a lot of time and energy into developing and testing our training offer over the past few years, and this is the perfect opportunity for us to shout out about what we can do. We hope that the exhibition can be the starting point of new partnerships and projects with various educational institutions up and down the country, as well as collaborations with other larger organisations already offering training opportunities.

theatrere.co.uk