Freelance Theatre Professional

Emma Rucastle is a theatre director and practitioner, who trained at Middlesex University and GITIS, Moscow. She has worked extensively in community, educational and theatre settings since 2009 and has directed a wide range of professional, fringe and community productions, which have been performed in theatres, castles, churches, parks and libraries in Lancaster and beyond. Emma’s 2019 community Passion Play was featured in the Church Times. Her all-female productions (mainly Shakespeare) have been performed at Cambridge University, UCL, several theatre venues in the north-west and London and have been featured in academic journals and on Woman’s Hour.

As a practitioner, Emma regularly works for Shakespeare Schools Foundation and Rotherham Underground Shakespeare Festival. Since 2018, she has been the Lead Artist for The Dukes’ Theatre’s GRT Creative Learning project. In 2019, she was appointed to the TramShed Outreach Team, part of an inclusive theatre company in the ChickenShed mould. Emma is the current chair of the Lancaster Fun Palace Makers. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a graduate of the Clore 55 Short Course in Arts Leadership.