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
Cara Watson
Cara Watson is a Scottish actor and emerging playwright. She holds a 1st (BA) Hons in Acting and has recently completed an MSc in Playwriting at The University of Edinburgh.
Recently, Cara was a co-writer and performer in a series of biopic films about the Scottish Suffragettes, which is now exhibited in Perth Museum.
She is also co-founder of New Writing collective Untie My Tongue Theatre. With her experience and passion within both theatre and filmmaking in Scotland, Cara is very excited to be working 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.
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.
James Beagon
Youth Theatre Manager
James is a director, playwright and creative learning facilitator who has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over a decade.
He has worked with Strange Town since 2015 and has written and directed a number of Strange Town productions including Stolen Futures (Traverse Theatre, June 2019) Beneath the Surface (Traverse Theatre, June 2022), Heart of the Storm & Something Special (Scottish Storytelling Centre, Dec 2021), Over the Waves (Traverse Theatre, June 2023) and My Kind of Weird (Traverse Theatre, June 2024). In addition to his role as Youth Theatre Manager, he leads the Tuesday 8-25s and Wednesday 11-14s youth theatre groups.
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.
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.
Ellie Duncan
Ellie is a Scottish theatre-maker, facilitator and performer, who graduated with a First Class BA (Hons) in Drama and Dance with Kingston University and Edinburgh College in 2023.
Ellie has been involved in the industry from a very young age and has experience and training in both Film and Stage. Ellie is fascinated about moments of history and implementing that into her work. In 2023, she wrote and co-directed her own show ‘The Fool’ which was set in the regency era and performed in The Voodoo Rooms.
Ellie enjoys exploring theatre through improvisation and play and strives to create work that activates the voice of young people, whilst having a lot of fun in the process.
