We are part of a collection of organisations and individual practitioners who are passionate about producing work for young audiences. The strength of the sector is essential to the health of everyone. Because we do not work alone, Catherine Wheels has a variety of initiatives to support the sector.
Advice and Mentoring Support
If you are working in, or want to, work in the sector and need advice please contact us. We offer artistic, producing, marketing and technical advice. We're happy to share all our policies - please drop us an email with anything you would like to see.
We relish working with and supporting other practitioners. We currently work with Shona Reppe, Vickie Beesley, James Ley, Bridie Gane and Alice Mary Cooper. Read more on our Artists We Work With page.
Rehearsal Space and Equipment Hire
We lease an industrial unit on the edge of Musselburgh. This space is available for anyone to hire regardless of income. We also have a selection of equipment, props and costume hire available on the same basis. For more information, visit our How Can We Help? page.
Equality and Diversity
At Catherine Wheels, we acknowledge the inequality of access to the arts, and that barriers exist at all levels of society, including the sector we work in. We believe that children and young people should be able to see themselves reflected and represented in all the shows they see, both in terms of the stories being told and the performers who make and tell those stories. Catherine Wheels is currently involved in two ongoing initiatives:
Catherine Wheels is a partner organisation of Vital Spark. Born in 2018 at the Spark Arts for Children in Leicester, Vital Spark is a movement addressing the lack of diversity in the Performance for Young Audiences (PYA) sector in the UK. Through development opportunities, and the commissioning and production of new work, we support artists who are currently underrepresented in the PYA sector; and in turn, these artists support us in our ambition to be a more inclusive organisation.
Over the past two years we've been part of a Young Audiences working group in Scotland to better understand and tackle racism in the sector. Together we've created a document, reviewed every 6 months, which forms part of our ongoing commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation.
Young Audiences Group Anti-Racism Statement
Code of Care
The Code of Care was created by The Spark Arts for Children in partnership with Mashi Theatre and a number of independent freelance artists. The Code of Care Freelancer Form and Tool Kit is one method Catherine Wheels is using to better understand the perspective of the freelancers we work with, and better support their needs. You can find more information about the origins of the Code of Care here:
The Toolkit and Freelancer form can be found at the links below:
Green Credentials
We love all things green and in everything we do from the office to making and touring work we put the environment first. We created our GreenWheels touring kit in 2018 to support our touring teams with making small everyday changes, and since then have been making bigger changes in the way we tour nationally and internationally.
GreenWheels background info
GreenWheels touring kit
Audiences and Accessibility
We love our audiences wherever we are and this means we do not see the difference between a show in a school or village hall or a show at Sydney Opera House. The care and attention we give to the work we make is democratic – wherever the audiences are, we will reach you!
We love Scotland and want to present all of our work in the country we live in. We also love our home base of East Lothian and are committed to presenting our work in the schools and venues around the county.
Affiliations
We support and are part of the following organisations:
Theatre in Schools Scotland (www.theatreinschoolsscotland.co.uk)
Federation of Scottish Theatre (https://www.scottishtheatre.org/)
ASSITEJ (www.assitej-international.org/en/)
Living Wage Scotland (https://scottishlivingwage.org/)