Empty Stages

Associate Artist Programme

As part of our commitment to representing communities across East Anglia and nurturing artistic talent in the region, our new Empty Stages Associate Artists Programme will support and develop the artistic practice of four regional artists or companies – one from each county of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex.

The programme will offer creative mentorship, practical support, professional development, and free access to rehearsal space.

Running from September-March, the programme will conclude in a showcase event at the Eastern Angles Centre.

Meet the Associate Artists:

Kate Austen

Kate is a writer and theatre maker from Essex. She is currently on attachment with the Mercury theatre Colchester and has written a play based on the eviction of Traveller residents at Dale Farm in Essex. Kate’s work focusses on Testimonial and Verbatim theatre. She immerses herself in the community that she is representing and conducts extensive research and interviews. She workshops the ideas with those affected to ensure that the story she is telling is truthful.

Kate has recently been commissioned by Blown Fuse Theatre to write a piece of theatre based on the female prison experience, taking research from a series of workshops with probationers in Essex. This is supported by Arts Council England and Advance Charity.

Kate also works as a freelance script reader and dramaturg. She has recently assisted in writing the book for a musical about the housing crisis, assisted in redrafts of a script for the Southwark Playhouse and gave script notes on a short film about the Spanish civil war.

Continued learning is a huge part of Kate’s practice, and to ensure she sensitively approaches the topics she writes about; she has completed Trauma-Informed Practice training and is a Mental Health First-Aider.

kateausten.co.uk

Justine de Mierre

Justine de Mierre is a live performance artist working across storytelling, improvisation, hosting and music. With a performance style that is passionate, energetic and inventive, she has a unique way of connecting playfully with audiences, participants and fellow artists.

justinedemierre.com

sowhatsthestory.co.uk

theunqualifiedeyes.co.uk

With over 25 years professional performance experience, Justine came to storytelling from a background in community and street theatre. Her storytelling practice So… what’s the story? has seen her telling and hosting at festivals and events nationally and internationally including the International Storytelling Festival in Marrakech, Storyseed Festival in Timisoara Romania, Cambridge Folk Festival, Bath Literary Festival, Edinburgh Literary Festival, Folk East and The National Centre for the Folk Arts at Halsway. Her eclectic storytelling work ranges from work in schools, libraries and prisons, to raucous adults-only one-woman storytelling shows, to facilitating story sharing through drama for learning disabled people.

Her love of live, spontaneous, responsive performance and supporting others to do the same runs through all her performance practices: including running courses with her improv company The Unqualified Yes, and hosting joyously eclectic open mic and variety events – online and in person – which bring together new and experienced performers to collaborate across spoken work, improv and music.

Florencia Nannetti

Florencia has a background in Fine Arts, Theatre and Circus. She works with museums, charities and Circus companies doing public programming, producing and community work. She also develops her own work as a performer and director, blending physical theatre, circus and storytelling. She is passionate about helping others to be creative, and is committed to making work about issues around migration, identity, belonging, decolonisation, feminism and the climate crisis.

She is really looking forward to working with Eastern Angles as Associate Artist to develop a solo show and further develop her artistic and community practice.

florencianannetti.com

Katie-Anna Whiting

Katie-Anna is a Norfolk born and bred performer, theatre maker and mum, and Artistic Director of The Whiting’s On The Wall theatre company. She is a Norfolk Arts Awards Jarrold New Writing Prize finalist for her latest piece Horse Play.

thewhitingsonthewall.com

She won the Lionel Bart Scholarship to study Acting at The Academy of Creative training in 2008, and has since performed in independent film, touring theatre and commercials. Since returning home to Norfolk in 2019, she has performed with Norfolk-based fEAST Theatre, most notably as the title character in Rosa Mendoza, (2021) and in self-produced rural touring shows There’s no place like Cromer, (2020) Voices of Norfolk (2022), and Horse Play (2023). She is currently assisting the womxn of The Common Lot on their ‘processional activism’ project, Rename The Streets; redressing the gender imbalance of street names, one street at a time. “Let’s get the next street named after your mum!”