Theatre without
a formula
ABOP is built around the people who make the work. For each project, we bring together performers and creative practitioners to create an ensemble around the story we want to tell and the world we want to create. No two productions are quite the same. The people, ideas and creative challenges of each project shape the company around it — bringing together different experience, skills and perspectives, and creating opportunities for artists at different stages of their development to work alongside one another.
We believe there is real value in sharing the stage, sharing ideas and sharing experience. Experienced and professionally trained practitioners work alongside emerging artists, creating an environment where knowledge, ideas and experience move in both directions. Everyone has something to contribute. Everyone has something to learn. It is about experimenting, taking things apart, trying something different and finding better ways to make the work. And above all, we believe theatre should be fun to make. That doesn't mean taking the work any less seriously. Quite the opposite. We care about the craft of theatre and about finding what makes a story come alive. We want performers to have the freedom to explore, experiment and take creative risks. Text, movement, music, physicality, design and storytelling can all be part of that process. The important thing is finding what the piece needs — and being willing to follow it.
ABOP isn't interested in making the same kind of theatre every time. Alongside creating original productions, we produce plays and musical theatre by established and emerging writers and composers. Each piece brings its own questions, challenges and possibilities, and we want to discover what makes it distinctive rather than force it into a familiar shape.
Sometimes that means approaching a familiar play from an unexpected angle. Sometimes it means bringing a new piece of writing to life or finding the theatrical energy inside a musical ~ sometimes it means giving creativity the space to surprise us. Whatever the starting point, we want to make work with imagination, generosity and a willingness to try something new. Because theatre should stay with you. It should entertain you, surprise you, move you or make you look at something differently. It should give you something to talk about when the lights come up.
Meet D & G.....the guys behind the madness
D and G are lucky enough to call the gloriously wild Cardigan Bay coastline in West Wales home — a place of golden beaches, sparkling blue seas, spectacular sunsets and more than the occasional dolphin making an unscheduled appearance. It’s a place where the weather has a personality, the sea changes its mind by the minute and the landscape seems to put on a different show every evening. Life is a little bit wild, a little bit wonderful and never, ever entirely predictable. There are beaches to discover, cliffs to wander, adventures waiting to happen and good friends never too far away. There are also cats, each one with their own opinions, agendas and rather lofty expectations. They consider themselves the ABOP senior management team and, frankly, there is little evidence to suggest otherwise.
And then there is the creative madness.
Being creative is a curious business. Ideas have a habit of arriving when they please — usually at inconvenient hours, in the middle of dinner, halfway through a conversation or just as the lights are being switched off. A good idea can appear from absolutely nowhere, demanding attention immediately and refusing to leave until it has been chased down, scribbled on the back of something or turned into something altogether more interesting.
So life is lived with one eye open for inspiration and the other on the horizon. There is always another idea lurking around the corner, another slightly ridiculous notion worth pursuing, another adventure that might just be worth saying yes to.
And when all else fails, there is the harbour wall. A bottle of wine. The sea stretching out into the evening. The sky performing its nightly theatrical spectacular. With ABOP you never quite know what the next scene will bring — only that it will probably be beautiful, slightly chaotic, and very much worth staying up for.
Dix Aston Artistic Director
BA (Hons) Dance & Related Arts | MA Applied Drama
Three decades of theatre, dance, performance, education and creative adventures later, Dix is still asking the same question: “I wonder what would happen if we tried this?”
Dix is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of ABOP, where she works across directing, producing, choreography, performance, teaching and creative development. She began her life as a dancer and actor, which means she has a rather useful understanding of what happens both on the stage and behind it. She knows the excitement of performing, the discipline of rehearsal, the importance of good stagecraft — and the occasional necessity of finding a creative solution when things don’t quite go according to plan.
Over the years, Dix has directed and produced a wonderfully varied collection of professional and community theatre, as well as performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is also Co-Founder of the Edinburgh Fringe Experience, helping young performers prepare for the particular joys, challenges and mild chaos of taking their work to the largest arts festival on the planet.
Dance remains an important part of Dix’s creative practice. As a choreographer and dance specialist, she works across movement, drama and performance, helping performers develop not just technique, but confidence, expression, stage presence and their own artistic voice. Within ABOP, Dix directs professional and community companies and leads the Associate Programme, working closely with young performers as they develop their skills, confidence and understanding of professional theatre. She is particularly interested in what happens when performers are given the freedom — and the responsibility — to experiment.
Try it. Question it. Change it. Try it again.
As a writer, director, choreographer and producer, Dix continues to create new work for ABOP, as well as bringing other playwrights’ work to the stage. She likes theatre that takes a little risk. The unexpected. The slightly bonkers idea that might turn out to be brilliant. She is interested in bringing together text, movement, music, visual storytelling and performance to create work that feels alive — and in making sure the journey of getting there is just as curious as the finished production. Because for Dix, theatre isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions. And then seeing what happens.
That same spirit of making theatre happen wherever there is an audience led Di and Gareth to open and run Wiltshire's first pub theatre. It was a chance to create a space where theatre could feel immediate, accessible and part of the community — bringing performers and audiences together in an environment that was informal, welcoming and a little different from the traditional theatre experience. It became another way of exploring what theatre can be, and a reminder that sometimes the most interesting things happen when you step outside the expected.
Gareth Williams Musical Director
BSc (Hons) Psychology
Gareth has spent a slightly suspicious amount of his life doing different things. Psychology. Social Work. Business. Theatre. Music. Puppetry. And somehow they all ended up being useful. Gareth is Co-Founder and Musical Director of ABOP, bringing together his background in psychology and leadership with a lifelong love of music, performance and making things happen. He is a vocalist, instrumentalist, actor, puppeteer and creative practitioner — which means that if there’s a musical instrument, a microphone or an opportunity to make something interesting happen, there’s a fair chance Gareth will be involved. Music sits at the heart of much of his work.
As Musical Director, he develops and delivers musical content across ABOP’s productions and programmes, while teaching within the Associate Programme and working with adult performers through productions, vocal groups, workshops and performance training. For Gareth, music is about much more than getting the right notes. It’s about confidence. Communication. Connection. And discovering that you can probably do rather more than you thought you could.
His professional theatre experience includes work with a range of companies and performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He is also Co-Founder of the Edinburgh Fringe Experience, helping young performers prepare for the wonderfully intense experience of taking work to the Fringe.
Away from the stage, Gareth brings his creative and leadership experience to ABOP for Business, developing programmes that use music, drama and performance to explore communication, collaboration, leadership, creative thinking and team dynamics. In other words, getting people to work together — preferably while having a good time. And then there’s the people bit.
Gareth is also ABOP’s Student Welfare Liaison, supporting participants across the company’s programmes and helping create an environment where people feel safe, supported, encouraged and able to get stuck in. His background in Psychology, Social Work and organisational leadership gives him a particular interest in what makes people tick — and what helps them find the confidence to step forward, have a go and discover their own capabilities.
Within ABOP, Gareth’s world is a curious mix of music, performance, psychology, leadership and people. It all comes back to the same thing: Helping people find their voice. Sometimes that means singing. Sometimes acting.
Sometimes standing in front of a room full of people and discovering you’re rather good at something you didn’t know you could do. And occasionally, it involves a puppet. That’s ABOP. You never quite know what the next scene will bring.
Make theatre that matters. Make theatre people remember.