Rebecca is a director and theatre maker who specialises in site-specific performance. Her focus is on the use of space, especially unusual, non-theatre locations, and she works to create new interpretations of plays which explore narrative, character and audience relationship in a range of atmospheric places of all kinds of size and shape. She has created performances in abandoned train stations, underground transport depots, palaces, libraries and, of course, theatres. She has a PhD in site-specific theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London, where she explored working with lost texts in site-specific locations supported surfacing unknown and marginalised stories and experiences.
Recent work includes directing a new version of Still Life, the play of Brief Encounter, called Still Lives for the Old Waiting Room in Peckham Rye station, Peckham, the first production of its kind to take place in this extraordinary abandoned space. Her approach to space and text makes use of installation, voice and movement to create powerful atmospheric performances. She works in close collaborations with designers, composers and performers to create highly memorable total performance experiences. Her current research explores dystopian spaces and feminist futurist world-building, on which she is collaborating with composer Lucy Harrison.
Since 2017 Rebecca has led Lost Text/Found Space, a company dedicated to innovative site-based practice with unperformed texts by women, seeking to challenge and reimagine audience relationships to women’s playwriting. Lost Text/Found Space created Til We Meet in England, a production of Elizabeth Inchbald’s unperformed The Massacre, created for Safehouse in Peckham and funded by Arts Council England. In her community focused practice Rebecca is Creative Director of Making Connections, an arts & community festival in the Old Waiting Room in Peckham Rye Station.
Rebecca is experienced creating collaborative partnerships with a range of organisations, directing Dido, Queen of Carthage in the House of St Barnabas in Soho, and Kensington Palace, the Aldwych tube station (Still Life) and the Roundhouse, Camden (The Round Dance), working in partnership with London Underground, Historic Royal Palaces, St Barnabas Refuge trust, and London Underground. She is senior lecturer and Director of External Engagement at the School of Performing and Digital Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London.
If you need directing, consulting or curious exploration of a site-based project, please contact Rebecca on rebecca@losttextfoundspace.com
Rebecca McCutcheon 