GEMMA BROCKIS

TESTIMONIALS

PIPPA HILL
Gemma Brockis is an experienced, original theatre-maker and a huge talent in the British theatre landscape. Known for her experimental, devised process and for making shows with narratives that bridge into immersive experiences for audiences, Gemma is an innovative, generous and exceptional theatre artist. Since working with her at the RSC where I commissioned her to co-create a new show, Kingdom Come, for The Other Place, I have followed Gemma's work and have encouraged her to focus on developing her playwriting. Gemma's ability to distil dramatic story beats into a visually ravishing theatrical language is extraordinary. The time to develop each story beat is always the element that requires time and investment for her, and it is the area she is rightly seeking to explore and develop.
It is rare to meet a theatre maker who is as uniquely inventive and visionary like Gemma. She is unlike anyone else I have worked with. She has a radical, contemporary, refreshing approach to writing new narratives that has the potential to offer a striking contrast to the current trends in British theatre.

YUSRA WARSAMA
My name is Yusra Warsama, I’m an actor, writer and theatre maker from Manchester and incoming Associate Creative Director for Liverpool and Everyman playhouse and theatres.
For me Gemma Brockis is one of the greatest talents we have in theatre, I often describe her as ‘the woman with the biggest brain’. As well as Gemma having intellectual prowess, she possesses a deep humanity and care for the state of other people around her. She is one of the founding members of SHUNT a seminal and cultural landscape changing company.
For me women…Artists, like Gemma should always be given space to make and play. Her work challenges and pushes concepts further, allowing us to have thriving fresh theatre not regurgitated things that have not even been honoured in legacy. She does the graft - give her the support.

SIMON STEPHENS
I recommend Gemma Brockis for your consideration for your funding without reservation. I think she has the potential to write something brilliant. She is a thinker of unarguable clarity and force. She has read and dramaturged early drafts of my plays with a striking clarity and insight. She has worked as a professional actor for many years and brings the instincts and rigour of her work to her thinking about scripts. Some actors don't have dramaturgical insight. Gemma has a great deal. In attempting to dramatise the startling Massacre of Corse Lawn she will be writing into a subject that compels her. She has found a story that resonates four centuries after its happening. Her passion for her subject is unarguable. Her talent as a theatre maker is unarguable. Her suppleness as a thinker about scripts is, in my opinion, striking. I have no doubt she has the potential to write something remarkable.

KATHRYN HUNTER
Gemma was a dream to work with at Complicité, indefatigable, hugely insightful, constantly immensely supportive to myself and all the cast. Her experience in devising for her company Shunt, makes her unique and splendid in her imagination. I certainly can’t wait to work with her again. I cannot recommend Gemma enough.

DAVID ROSENBERG
I have worked with Gemma on numerous immersive projects, as part of the Shunt collective and beyond. She is an incredible theatre maker, writer & collaborator. She has a unique ability to determine what is truly important and meaningful amongst the general chaotic overload of the creative process.

TIM CROUCH
I met Gemma in 2003, when we were sharing space in the Traverse theatre. I've been seeing her work and sharing experiences and ideas for twenty years. She has a unique voice as a theatre artist - funny, serious and deeply engaged with the experience of the audience. She should be much more visible in the landscape and I've been encouraging her to write herself a show - to take full control and demand visibility. 
I also know her as part of Shunt. Shunt has been hugely influential to the whole theatre scene, not only the more obvious immersive leg. Gemma's voice within that collective was strong, and her work as an individual director/maker/writer has proven her individual artistry, many times over. It's just this kind of voice that we want more of in theatre. If this application is successful, it would be an investment not only in her as an artist, but also in a healthy and exciting theatre landscape.

RIMA DODD
At Complicité, we are in ongoing conversations with Gemma about her work as a writer/director. She is an exciting artist with a varied and fascinating body of work. Her new project, Corse Lawn, takes place in Gloucestershire, and I understand she is looking for an artistic residency in the county. Complicité have a base in Gloucester, and an ongoing relationship with Hawkwood (for both our own work and our ideas development programme - Mudlarks). We are particularly interested in supporting work which has Gloucestershire at its heart. 

PRESS

THE STAGE on AN EXECUTION
Director Gemma Brockis has an uncanny eye for the mundanely hilarious, and her understated use of physical comedy is extraordinarily effective. Eerie and hysterical. A show crafted so exquisitely it becomes high art. ****

TIME OUT on AN EXECUTION
A surprising and sometimes shocking piece of theatre. Always brilliantly executed. Critics' Choice

THE STAGE on KINGDOM COME
This is bold, brilliant work. An almost orgiastic visual experience. ****

NICHOLAS HYTNER on SHUNT
In the best possible way, totally mind-blowing.

TOM MORRIS on SHUNT
To say that it was exciting just wouldn't do justice to the experience.

TIME OUT on SHUNT
An astounding piece of theatre. Radical. Original. Incredible.

THE GUARDIAN on SHUNT
The most innovative theatre company in Britain.

IMAGES FROM KINGDOM COME

FLAVOUR FOR CORSE LAWN