IMAGINATE FESTIVAL
CHILD’S PLAY
After 20 years as the director of children’s theatre festival Imaginate, Tony Reekie is handing over the reins. Kelly Apter caught up with him about his last programme
D espite its size, funding climate and number of full-time children’s theatre companies (two to Denmark’s 130), Scotland has built a strong reputation for creating groundbreaking work for young audiences. That’s due, in part, to the people making it – but the existence of an annual festival celebrating that work for the past 26 years cannot go unacknowledged.
About to hand over the reins after 20 years of stewardship, Imaginate
director Tony Reekie is humble but proud of his organisation’s input.
‘I think having a festival every year really helped people, in terms of what their aspirations could be,’ he says. ‘Because one of the things that this festival has always done, long before I came, is bring in really high- class work for children, which gave people the opportunity to see what it looked like. ‘And I think it’s also really useful to have some kind of organisation or structure which allows artists to come together and feel that they’re part of something bigger.’
Looking back over Reekie’s two decades at the Imaginate helm, one of the biggest changes has been the festival’s targeted age group. Previously aimed exclusively at 5 to 12-year-olds, the programme has been broadened out to include superb offerings for both under i ves and teenagers. ‘What’s lovely about that progression of work for younger audiences, is it has run alongside the science of it,’ explains Reekie, ‘which showed artists, makers and audiences what happens when you give children artistic stimulus – tell them stories, play them music. And actually what happens to their brains is really important.
‘But there’s a real art to creating an environment where artists, very young children and their parents all combine in something really special – it’s a difi cult thing to i nd, but when you do, there’s nothing quite like it.’ A perfect example of that is Hup, in this year’s festival. Created for babies aged 0–24 months, this co-production by Starcatchers and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra features two violinists, a cellist, a raccoon and a gentle narrative about a tree.
One other noticeable change in the Imaginate programme is the absolute rei nement of the age ranges that the 14 productions are aimed at. Look through the lineup and you’ll see works for ages 3–7, 6+, 8+, 9+, 10+ and more besides. Because, as Reekie says, ‘If someone says they’ve made a show that works equally well for 5 to 12-year-olds, they’re either a charlatan or a genius.’ At the far end of the age spectrum, Reekie has programmed Mess (pictured), a moving yet funny show about anorexia for ages 13+. ‘I saw Mess in a school which had a theatre attached to it, and there were lots of kids there,’ he recalls. ‘Afterwards I said to a teacher that it was great they managed to get so many kids to come out in the evening. She explained that half of them had already seen it that morning, and came back to see it again.
‘I really enjoyed it, but to get the endorsement that it meant so much to those kids – I knew something really interesting was going on with that production.’
Imaginate Festival, various venues, Edinburgh, Mon 11–Sun 17 May.
2 Apr–4 Jun 2015 THE LIST 51