Broken Puppet Theatre Company was founded in 2012 by Creative Director/Producer Clare 'Jay' McCarthy, approximately 2 years after a car accident had changed her life - and threatened to derail her previously successful career in the creative industries.

 

With newly acquired mobility difficulties thanks to pelvic injuries sustained in the accident, and an eventual diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis [Better known as M.E - a complex, multi-systemic neuro-immune disease] Clare's career in Theatre Arts facilitation and filmmaking looked for some time to have been taken out of reach, and while stuck in recovery she began writing short stories for use in children's theatre.

 

It's not a big leap from children's theatre to puppets, so this work quickly led to an interest - okay, an obsession! -  in puppetry, which in turn led to a need for more pairs of hands, which led to 'roping in' her best friends to help...and long story short, they worked so well as a team and were all equally captivated by the artistic potential and social impact of puppetry arts, that Marie, Leah, and Bekkie decided to stick around! ;)

 

The team started producing workshop performances for a local children's hospice and appearing at community events and festivals to run puppet making workshops, and in 2016, decided to constitute the company as an unincorporated voluntary sector not for profit organisation, with a specialism in producing inclusive puppetry theatre.

 

Our company name is intended to celebrate, not hide -  the fact that to most of society we are considered 'Broken' - but to us, Puppetry offers us the chance to move beyond the physical limits of our own 'Broken' bodies and into a world where our disabilities and differences can be re-imagined as a source of strength and creative potential. Our work aims to invite as many people as possible into a newly defined reality, where inclusion is the status quo, not the exception.