Jamie Hale – Artistic Director
Jamie is an award-winning theatre maker, poet, (screen)writer, charity CEO and founder and Artistic Director at CRIPticArts. Their work focuses on crip- and queer- realities, and the urgency of living as a disabled person.
Their first poetry pamphlet, Shield was published in 2021, and was read by Jack Thorne in the 2021 MacTaggart lecture, where he described them as an “extraordinary voice”. Their solo film, NOT DYING, was described as “fantastic” by Hannah Gadsby.
In 2021, they were awarded the Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, won Director/Theatremaker of the Year Award in the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Awards, and were listed in the Disability Power 100 as one of the hundred most influential disabled people in Britain, while directing the sell-out 2021 CRIPtic Showcase.
Jamie is working on their first poetry collection, building CRIPtic Arts and developing their TV series with Channel 4.
Caitlin Richards – Lead Producer
Producer and wearer of many hats with 6 years experience and counting making events & shows happen. Proud working-class Northerner.
Caitlin started her career in Special Events and Fundraising in the charity sector, working for the Royal Horticultural Society, the British Red Cross, RADA and English National Ballet and raising funds for cultural, environmental and humanitarian causes.
She moved into producing in 2021, co-producing the 2021 CRIPtic Showcase and development programme, before producing comedy at one of London’s leading comedy clubs. She has been with CRIPtic Arts as Lead Producer since 2021, working to create opportunities and outstanding theatre alongside deaf and disabled creatives, including producing the R&D and performances for Jamie Hale’s solo show NOT DYING (2022)
Sam Brewer – Arts & Communities Lead
Sam is an access consultant, facilitator, actor & theatre maker who graduated from Central School of Speech and Drama’s BA Acting CDT at Central in 2020. Since graduating he has heavily involved himself in disability related activism and was the director of The Diversity School Initiative. He is also an ambassador for the Disability Artist Network Collective. He runs workshops on access tools in the rehearsal room – skill building for practitioners on making their methodologies more accessible. These workshops are designed to be active, engaging and cheeky. Self describing the way he works as “take the work seriously, don’t take yourself seriously.” He co – founded Flawbored in 2021.
Dr Jessi Parrot – Research & Policy Lead
Dr Jessi Parrott is a disabled researcher specialising in disability as an employment issue in UK theatre and television. They received their PhD, on disability casting conventions, from the School of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick, with co-supervision from Warwick Business School. They are also a creative and performer – of both their own and other people’s work – and a playwright, poet, trainer and facilitator. When making their own creative work, they are particularly interested in multidisciplinary and co-creative explorations around the intersections of disabled, queer and trans identity. They are incredibly passionate about holding space for, and platforming, other artists and creatives, and advocating for the arts industries to become more equitable, intersectionally inclusive and accessible through both research and practice.
CRIPtic Incubate
Incubate is a peer-support programme facilitated by Jamie Hale, with four places for people building deaf and disabled-led arts organisations in the UK, and is funded by Arts Council England.