Who Are We?

Talia Theatre is based in Manchester and was founded in 1997 by James Beale and Chloe Whitehead with the aim of developing high quality, dynamic theatre.

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What Do We Do?

Since its creation, Talia has produced a new piece of theatre every year, which have toured nationally and three pieces of street theatre, which have toured internationally. We are one of the few companies in Europe to specialise in Meyerhold’s Biomechanics, a system of movement training for actors. Our latest theatre production is The Life of Molière.

Many of our educational and participatory programmes, both for young people and adults, focus on emotional literacy and social inclusion. Two current projects which highlight this area of our work are Rehearsal For Life, an innovative new programme for 11 to 16 year olds, and The LAB Project, a ground-breaking scheme for adults who may have given up on other more traditional forms of training. The projects developed aim to help tackle social problems in the region and have been recognised nationally and incorporated within many North West based government initiatives.
Over the last six years, we have also developed six pieces of educational theatre, co-ordinated several youth theatres in the region and designed specific workshops for young people.

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Who's Who?

James Beale
Company Director

James founded Talia Theatre with Chloe Whitehead in 1997. James oversees the company’s strategic planning, financial, human resource and funding matters. He also co-ordinates and delivers artistic projects within the community, devises, directs, performs with Talia. In addition to performing in our street theatre pieces, The Bomb and The Duel and The Creatures, James has appeared in a number of our theatre in education pieces and Is There Anybody Out There. He co-directed Home, 7 Assilon Place, An Evening of Chekhov's Vaudevilles and The Life of Molière with Gennadi Bogdanov.  He has recently directed Brave New World and Dracula.

Rebekah Gowers
Finance Manager