Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic
Arran Howie (She/Her)
Co-Director
Arran is a founding member and co-director of Tortoise in a Nutshell. She has toured extensively with the company’s productions as a producer, performer and puppeteer including: The Lost Things (UK & international tour), Fisk (UK & international tour), Feral (UK & international tour), The Last Miner (UK & international tour) and Grit (UK tour). Arran designed award-winning Ragnarok and co-directed/designed Una Imagines and Flutter for young audiences which have toured throughout Scotland.
Arran has worked in numerous roles with many of Scotland’s leading performance organisations including Manipulate, Starcatchers, Imaginate and Dance Base. She is a trained community practitioner who has led participatory workshops and projects for a wide range of ages, skills and abilities across Scotland.
Arran is excited by thought-provoking art which challenges its audiences. Her practice is heavily focused on engagement and how to widen access to high quality visual theatre.
Alex Bird (He/Him)
Co-Director
Alex is a cofounding member of Tortoise in a Nutshell where he has helped to create and tour numerous projects and multi-award-winning pieces across Scotland, the UK and wider world. His work is driven by a desire to make theatre that inspires, incites conversation and explores our collective imagination.
Alex’s primary background is as a performer/puppeteer and co-creator where his credits include The Lost Things, Feral (Winner Scotsman Fringe First, Winner Kotorski Festival Grand Jury Prize, Nominee Total Theatre Awards, Nominee Drama Desk Awards), The Last Miner (Nominee Arches Brick Award), Grit (Nominee Arches Brick Award, Nominee Total Theatre Awards) and Fisk (Winner Outstanding Performance Kotorski Festival).
Alongside this he has extensive experience as an independent theatre and puppetry workshop leader, puppet maker and producer. He provided voice performance for the short film Cleaning in Progress by Grant Holden and has worked for numerous arts organisations across Scotland, such as Imaginate and Musselburgh’s Catherine Wheels.
Photo Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic
Kirsten McPake (She/Her)
Producer
Kirsten is a creative producer based in West Lothian. She has a passion for live performance and community focused practice, and truly believes in the importance of access to art. She is passionate about embedding care and sustainable working practices within artistic processes and nurturing sector development.
During the pandemic Kirsten completed her masters degree in Theatre and Performance Practice from The University of Glasgow, specialising in Autobiographical and Working-class performance. Kirsten has been producing professionally for six years, previously working as Producer for Stories Untold Productions working across dance, theatre, spoken-word, children’s theatre, socially engaged performance and community arts projects. Kirsten has worked with a number of incredible artists and companies including Civic Digits, Superfan and Active Inquiry.
She is always up for a chat and loves a good spreadsheet!
Lisa Williamson (She/Her)
Community Coordinator
Lisa is an experienced community artist with a commitment to and passion for participation and creative learning. She has worked in participatory arts for over a decade for many of Scotlands leading organisations such as Dundee Rep Theatre, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, Macrobert Arts Centre, Perth Theatre, Stellar Quines and Wonder Fools. From 2019 - 2024 she co-lead Dundee based theatre company hidden route who worked with young people to create bold theatre in unexpected places.
Lisa has directed numerous theatre productions with young people, including original devised performances, site-specific theatre and pieces of new writing. She has experience working with participants in education, youth and community settings and cares deeply about facilitating a space where participants feel part of a community.
Alongside her work with Tortoise in a Nutshell Lisa works freelance and is a performing arts lecturer at Dundee and Angus college.
Meet the Board
Fiona Sturgeon Shea (Chair)
Fiona is a respected Scottish arts leader, bringing over thirty years of experience across producing theatres, venues, funding bodies, the public sector, and national sector development organisations. Fiona has led departments for: Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre twice – as Marketing Manager and Head of Communications; the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond; the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow; the Scottish Government/NHS Lothian; the Scottish Arts Council. She was Creative Director at Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland; and, most recently, CEO of the Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Fiona’s work is consistently driven by a passion for stories of all kinds, and a deep care for the artists who create them. Alongside a career-long commitment to audiences and communities, this foundation informs her broad expertise, which encompasses strategic management, communications, funding, artist and audience development, and high-level advocacy and policy.
Amy Briggs
Amy is a marketing specialist with particular passion for the arts, live events and theatre. Amy forged her career working in arts organisations, moving to Scotland in 2013 for a temporary contract at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, never to return to England again. Since then, she has worked at leading early years arts organisation Starcatchers to develop marketing strategies across their strands of activity. Thereafter, working at Underbelly on their programme of live events and festivals including Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. At the beginning of 2020 Amy moved sectors to work in social enterprise. She is now Senior Marketing Manager at Hey Girls, a buy one give one period product enterprise working to eradicate period poverty in the UK.
Luke Holbrook
Luke is a Creative Producer and Dramaturg with an interest in creating new work with pioneering artists. Previously he was a Programmer and Producer for Assembly Festival, developing, curating and delivering a world-class theatre and new-writing programme for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He was also responsible for developing the year-round multi-arts programme at Assembly Roxy.
Luke spent six years as a Literary Agent in the theatre department of Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, working with a prestigious list of playwrights, theatre directors and literary estates. Prior to this, he was Associate Producer at the Finborough Theatre.
Photo credit: Jane Barlow
Robyn Jancovich-Brown
Robyn is an independent producer and arts project manager based in Scotland, specialising in participatory, contemporary and community arts projects. Since 2009 she has worked with a number of Scotland’s leading arts festivals, cultural organisations and theatre companies including; British Council, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Imaginate, National Theatre of Scotland, Starcatchers and Dumfries & Galloway Dance.
Robyn has been involved in the management and strategic development of programmes such as; the Made in Scotland Showcase, Momentum, British Council & Creative Scotland International partnership and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s artist development and international engagement work through the Arts Industry Office.
Robyn’s ambition is to craft creative experiences which bring people together and create shared and meaningful moments. She has a keen interest in work which promotes equality, inclusion and well-being in society and which makes space for the voices and stories which are often left unheard. Having worked on high profile international projects Robyn has significant relationships across the globe and is interested in exploring how these two facets of her practice can come together.
As well as running Stories Untold Productions, Robyn is currently also; Producer with Civic Digits, exploring how digital technology and live performance can be integrated to inspire a new and diverse generation of tech experts, and a freelance project producer with Stellar Quines.
Shilpa T-Hyland
Shilpa is a Glasgow-based director working mainly with new writing. She seeks to tell stories which are visceral and accessible, but which invite audiences to be socially engaged and question our social narratives.
Recent work includes associate directing Pride and Prejudice(Sort Of) (Blood of the Young, The Lyceum Theatre and others) and assistant directing Crocodile Fever (Traverse Theatre) as part of the JMK Regional Bursary, funded by the Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarships Fund. She was also the inaugural winner of the Horsecross Trust Young Director Award, for which she directed a production of Miss Julie in February 2019. Upcoming work includes directing Revolution Days (Bijli) and associate directing Kissing Linford Christie by Victoria Beesley.