THE COMPANY…

Company Gabrielle Moleta is a UK-based theatre company working with international creatives to make rich, surprising and physically extraordinary theatre that dissolves the boundaries between the human and the natural world.

Our core members share a background in a specific training and working practice which has evolved and descended from the work of Jacques Copeau, in a unique lineage from teacher to assistant, via Michel Saint-Denis, John Blatchley and Catherine Clouzot to Gabrielle Moleta.

Gabrielle Moleta - Artistic Director

Gabrielle is founder and director of Company Gabrielle Moleta. She is movement director, movement coach and theatre maker. As a movement director her work has been seen nationally and internationally on all scales of theatre. For more than two decades she has worked in Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation as an approach to actor training. The company works in this method to create theatre.  She was brought up in Western Australia of Italian/New Zealand parentage. She studied Contemporary Dance in Paris, Physical Theatre at Odeon Theater, Vienna before training at Arts Ed , London on The Acting Company.

WILLIAM WOLLEN - CO-Director

Will is an actor and director. As an actor he has worked on all scales of professional theatre, from the West End and the National Theatre to small-scale rural touring. He was a member of Cherub Company London under Andrew Visnevski.  He also worked with Jim Henson's Creature Shop as various Vogons in the 2005 film release of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and his creature work on gorillas features in the 2016 release of The Legend of Tarzan. He worked as Assistant Director of Outreach and Touring at The Watermill Theatre between 2004 and 2007 and was Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Margate from 2007 to 2012, where he created an exciting menu of contemporary theatre and commissioned and produced new works. He has also directed for, among others, The Watermill Theatre, Croydon Warehouse Theatre and CreACTive, Milan. He trained at Arts Ed London in the Acting Company under Adrian James, Stephen Hutton and Catherine Clouzot. He has extensive experience in actor training and is currently Executive Dean of the Drama School at LAMDA.

Matthew Austin

Matthew  is an actor and performer whose work is intensely physical and ensemble-focused. He has toured worldwide as a performer with Theatre Re's production The Nature of Forgetting, as part of the original cast who co devised the piece. Matthew draws inspiration from contemporary and traditional forms of theatre particularly comedy with its power to highlight both the  joyous and tragic truths of life. Matthew originally graduated from a Drama degree at Liverpool then went on to graduate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts MA Theatre Lab under Andrew Visnevski.

TIMOTHY DODD

Tim is a designer and performer, training first in Theatre Design at Wimbledon where he first worked in devised pieces with Richard Negri. He was theatre designer for Peta Lily, David Glass, Lumiere and Son, Cheek by Jowl. Putting performing on hold for a career designing for video and film for Queen, Elton, The Stones, Streisand. He was an advertising creative in the 90’s and for Borkovski PR was a stealth actor penetrating TV, radio, media with undercover personas. He returned to training in the Acting Company at Arts Ed.  After some theatre work he now builds and performs interactive characters for public spaces.

Jamie Fischer

Jamie is a British-Zimbabwean actress, writer and puppeteer based in London. She has worked and trained in Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, the USA and most recently the UK. A recent graduate of RADA’s MA Theatre Lab, she has a strong foundation in physical theatre grounded in traditions as diverse as Grotowski, Meyerhold, Meisner, Copeau and Brecht. A graduate of the Eugene O’Neill National Puppetry Convention, her work as a puppeteer encompasses design, build and performance. Jamie is also a classically trained vocalist and one-quarter of the all-female cabaret group, Polly Clamorous. See more about her work here.

ANNE PAJUNEN

Anne is a Finnish actor (FIA) working internationally in the fields of theatre, dance, film and television as a performer and maker. She has worked in various contexts from institutions like the Finnish National Theatre to small independent productions at the fringes of the fringe. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the Theatre Academy of Finland and the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios in Brussels. You can see more of her international and interdisciplinary work here.

LAURA J BOWLER

Laura Bowler, described as “a triple threat composer-performerprovocatrice” (The Arts Desk) is a composer, vocalist and Artistic Director specialising in theatre, multidisciplinary work and opera. She has been commissioned across the globe by ensembles and orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, ROH2, Opera Holland Park, The Opera Group, Manchester Camerata, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini (Canada), Ensemble Phace (Austria), Ensemble Linea (France) and Omega Ensemble (Australia). 

Her recent projects include; a bike powered music theatre work, Houses Slide, for ensemble and vocalist commissioned by London Sinfonietta; Distance, a multimedia work for live streamed ensemble (Talea, New York) and in person vocalist (Juliet Fraser, UK) commissioned by the sound Festival; her Royal Philharmonic Society Award winning, Wicked Problems- an 8 minute work for herself as vocalist with bass flautist, Ruth Morley, commissioned by sound Festival; and Antarctica, a 50 minute multimedia work for orchestra and vocalist co-commissioned by Manchester Camerata and BBC Radio 3. 

POLLY WISEMAN

“Her writing sears and burns,”  Lyn Gardner, The Guardian on Bright.

Polly trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began her writing career as a member of The Royal Court Theatre Young Writer’s Programme and Soho Theatre Writer’s programme. Plays include: Femme Fatale – South East tour and Omnibus Theatre London, Damage Control – Playground Theatre, Somewhere In England – Eastern Angles tour, Manchester Sound – Home Mcr, nominated for a Manchester Theatre Award, You Know The Answer, Jermyn Street Theatre, The Power - short-listed for the Nick Darke Award, Bright - Soho Theatre, Trying It On - Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, adapted for BBC 4, The Pinball Master - National Theatre Studio at Hampstead Theatre, Loaded – Birmingham Rep and tour, Fierce – Brighton Festival and North American tour,  Stormin’ Jack Norman - Theatre 503, Swedish Rustic – BAC.She has been writer-in-residence/on attachment for Birmingham Rep, Theatre Absolute, Theatre Royal Margate and taught playwrighting for Birmingham Rep, Chelsea Theatre and Soho Theatre. She is currently under commission to Eastern Angles, Sphinx TC, Playground Theatre, Fireraisers TC. She is a member of the 2021 Criterion New Writing programme and the Finborough Forum. Damage Control is on now at Riverside Studios.

FAy Simpson

Fay has been the Artistic Director and co-founder of Impact Theatre since its creation in 1990. Fay has developed a unique physical training method for the actor called The Lucid Body, and is the author of The Lucid Body: A Guide for the Physical Actor, published in 2008 by Allworth Press. She has taught at The Yale School of Drama, the New School’s Eugene Lang, Michael Howard Studios, The Studio/NY, Marymount Manhattan College, and at the Actor’s Center. She currently teaches Lucid Body technique at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, and privately at the Lucid Body House, NY.