At Quirk, we make great theatre for all generations...
..theatre that inspires, amazes, educates and entertains. We have built up a loyal following of family audiences and school groups and are proud that close to 4000 people come to see our Christmas shows every year. This year we are back, and we are headed into the future with Dayzee & The World of Tomorrow!
We are headed into our 20th year of producing a family Christmas show at Exeter Phoenix, and more recently at The Plough Arts Centre in Torrington. Witty, playful and often anarchic, we devise original work with a social conscience, offering a meaningful alternative to pantomime. Community engagement is fast becoming the beating heart of our work and we offer high quality, empowering and inspiring arts opportunities with every project.
A Quirk show is often a child's first experience of live theatre which is a responsibility we take very seriously indeed. We believe that the whole experience of going to the theatre is important- the intimacy of an auditorium, the sound and lighting and stage magic, but also the opportunity for children to feel ownership of arts spaces. This is why we don’t take our productions into schools. But we do love taking our workshops, co-creation projects and artist visits into Devon schools, community centres and public buildings, making amazing things happen with our audiences, because we believe that everyone should have access to the arts.
Proudly Exeter based...
... we are passionate about creating opportunities for emerging, growing and established South West artists. We are avid collaborators, believing that the best work comes from partnering with the best our amazing region has to offer and we are committed to creating meaningful pathways to progression for South West artists.
Set up in 2003 by Andy Brodie and Simon Hall to produce an alternative to mainstream Christmas theatre in collaboration with Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre, Quirk is now a partnership between Simon Hall (Creative Director & Performer) and Katie Villa (Artistic Director). We are a small company with big ambitions and rely on Arts Council Project Grants funding to deliver our work.
Sign up to our mailing list for all the latest updates!
Proudly working Sustainably...
For a long time we felt like we didn't have much of a voice in the Climate Change conversation. As a collective of freelance artists we all cared deeply about our planet, felt fear and sadness about the effects of climate change and were all doing whatever we could as individuals. It can felt like talking about Sustainability was for the experts.
And we didn't feel like experts.
We still don't, but our thinking and our practices have changed dramatically over the past couple of years. We now recognise that the Climate emergency needs all our voices and it needs them now- flawed, imperfect, inexpert. We have decided to throw ourselves in rather than waiting for perfection.
We may well make mistakes and we are far from perfect, but we recognise the power that the arts can have in effecting positive change, in shining a light into dark places, in creatively connecting people and inspiring our audiences, collaborators and peers to find their own unique place in this great collective undertaking.
