So, where to begin? SourDough Theatre is a brand new company based in Exeter. We are a group of recent graduates from the University of Exeter and somehow, we have found ourselves unwilling to leave. Although it’s sometimes difficult to articulate why, I think there was a collective feeling amongst us that Exeter was still largely unexplored, we had barely touched the surface of what could be a wonderful playground of rich, artistic surroundings and traditions as well as generous and supportive audiences; the perfect conditions for us to continue exploring our creative ambitions. We have begun to build our little but mighty settlement, turning our kitchens and living rooms into workshops (we wouldn’t have it any other way) as we start work on some exciting projects.

Our Workshop

Our processes tend to be inspired by discoveries and explorations born through previous work. We reinvent shelved ideas, allowing them to grow and ripen at the centre of a new piece. There is always heartache when a perfectly fruitful and compelling idea is given up just because it doesn’t quite fit in to the piece we happen to be making at the time. It is for that reason, we are dedicated to storing material, allowing our relationship and understanding of it to enrich and mature each time we bring it into the rehearsal room.

At the moment, in our current projects, we are working collaboratively to investigate the possibilities of age old storytelling devices or what we like to call ‘old media’ such as shadow puppetry, puppetry, masks, reflections, torch light etc to generate our language for performance.

Tails of Exeter

Three weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited to Poltimore House in Exeter to provide entertainment at their Big Lunch fundraising event. We provided some jazz music, a short dance piece and storytelling on the lawn and turned the old operating theatre into a shadow puppetry theatre where we performed a piece for children called ‘Tails of Exeter’. It was a lot of fun for us and it was great to contribute to such an important local project.

We will be performing at Poltimore House again on Sunday 15^th August for the Falconry Festival. This time, we have a new shadow puppet show called Wings, Wasps and Feathers. We have been busy bees making new puppets and a new story. So come along if your around, there may even be cake.

New Puppets for Wings, Wasps and Feathers

We are also in the early stages of making a piece of work that will be performed at the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter in November. We are extremely fortunate to have gained oodles of support and encouragement from the Bike Shed and we are very excited to have the chance to make a piece for the new space there. We will be in the studio from now until November preparing for the show! It will be called Rouges and Wanderers, it will explore a world of carnival and chaos. We will be posting lots more about our process on this blog in the next coming weeks.

Rogues and Wanderers

We hope this blog will help us document our development and progress and more importantly, allow anyone who’s interested the chance to keep up to date with what we’re getting up to. So thank you for reading this and watch this space.

Monique Luckman