Beth has written 5 plays for Strange Town Youth Theatre and one short for the Young Company. Oxford University Press has published three of her short plays and drama lessons for their English language resource materials. As an actress she recently helped develop and perform a show with Puppet Animation Scotland and took it to France. Beth has performed with Strange Town Young Company 3 times in the Edinburgh Fringe to rave reviews, as well as in touring productions across Scotland. She performs street theatre internationally, helps devise and perform interactive, site specific theatre at festivals and dabbles with spoken word. She likes words.
0131 629 0292
info@strangetown.org.uk
Meet more of the Team
Lori Cook
Lori graduated from Performing Arts Studio Scotland in 2023 with a BA Hons degree in Dance and Drama with Kingston University.
She has been involved in theatre her whole life from performing to assistant-directing and choreographing for amateur theatre groups. She wants to encourage children get into drama and to make it a fun enjoyable way for them to express themselves.
Sophia Irvine-Fortescue
Sophia is the Workshop Assistant for the Friday 5-7s Intro to Drama and Friday 8-12s Theatre Skills classes.
James Beagon
Youth Theatre Manager
James is a director, playwright and creative learning facilitator who has lived and worked in Edinburgh for the past 15 years.
He has worked with Strange Town since 2015 and has written and directed a number of Strange Town productions, most recently Livin’ On A Prayer (Traverse, June 2025). Other Strange Town writing credits include Stolen Futures (Traverse, June 2019) Beneath the Surface (Traverse, June 2022) and My Kind of Weird (Traverse Theatre, June 2024). In addition to his role as Youth Theatre Manager, he currently directs the Tuesday 8-25s youth theatre group.
Previous credits with his own group Aulos Productions include the award-winning Fringe productions First Class (2014) and Gobland for the Goblins (2017) and the award-nominated Women of the Mourning Fields (2015) and Antigone na hEireann (2018).
James has worked extensively as a freelance drama practitioner with companies including East Lothian Youth Theatre, Lyceum Youth Theatre, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, Theatre Sans Accents and Acting Out Drama School.
He holds an MFA in Directing from Edinburgh Napier and an M.A. (Hons) in Ancient and Medieval History from Edinburgh University and has run workshops and guest-lectured at both institutions.
Jenny Anderson
Jenny has worked in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders as a drama practitioner since 2017. Through this work, she helps young people to develop their confidence and perfect their drama skills whilst having fun and making new friends.
She also runs Zoom workshops for young people across the UK with the same rare syndrome (Kabuki) as herself. They gain so much by connecting through drama. She loves all aspects of my work both face to face and in the virtual world and is very much looking forward to this new chapter working regularly with Strange Town.
Anna Whealing
Anna is a highlands-born writer, theatre-maker and producer. She has worked with community groups, volunteers, children, artists and industry members. Anna has produced award-winning short films and documentries, run workshops for emerging writers, created several new-writing audio series, organised scratch nights for performance artists in Glasgow and dabbled in stage managment. Basically, she’ll say yes to everything and loves a challange! Anna is currently a creative trainee on textLAB, a writers programme run by Scottish Youth Theatre and Playwrights Studio Scotland. She has acted as Assistant Director for A Play, A Pie and A Pint and Mull Theatre.
Dan Webb
Assistant Director - Friday 8-10s
Dan Webb is an Actor who recently graduated with a BA Honours Degree in Dance and Drama from Edinburgh College. He enjoys devising and creating pieces of work that put smiles on the faces of his audience, and is always looking for new avenues to bring happiness to people through Drama.
