Deborah Dickinson, currently the Producer at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, is a Creative Producer with 30 years’ experience in theatre and television.  Prior to her current post in Scotland,  she was Senior Producer at Mind the Gap in Bradford for three years.

 

Deborah loves telling stories and creating experiences that connect all kinds of people.  She supports developing artists to create new work, encouraging them to take risks and produce memorable theatre events. She makes theatre of the extraordinary and the everyday happen in unlikely places. Deborah loves taking art out from behind the closed doors of theatres, and producing shows and events in unusual places - streets, public spaces, promenades or deserted buildings.

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But what she loves most about theatre is the way that it can change our ‘view’ of the world especially when it connects different people and communities through universal stories. She believes that embracing and engaging with all experiences and cultures is at the heart of making great art, and a better, fairer society.

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Deborah started work as a television researcher and producer with the BBC.  During her five years there she worked on programmes ranging from Ebony, a black magazine programme, to the seven-part series Seven Ages, presented by Ronald Eyre based on Shakespeare’s speech about the seven ages of man.  She then went on to work as a freelance with a number of independent television companies including Day-Lewis Productions and Island World Productions.

 

Later, Deborah moved to France, where she set up her own television production company ‘Foxy Films’ which specialised in making documentary films, and providing on-the-ground research, location scouting, casting, and project management services to British television and film production companies. 

 

Returning to the UK after five years, Deborah joined Full Body and the Voice, a theatre company for adults with learning difficulties, producing their annual touring shows.  During her tenure, the company gained regularly funded organisation status from the Arts Council and annual funding from Kirklees Council.  The success of the company was recognised with an Arts & Business ‘Creative Business Award’ and a Creative Community Award.

 

Deborah joined Freedom Studios in 2009.  She took over as Chief Executive in 2011, producing a range of ambitious and exciting events for the company including three Street Voices programmes for emerging writers and a number of site-specific productions.  Whilst at Freedom Studios, she produced the critically acclaimed The Mill – City of Dreams and Brief Encounters at Bradford Interchange.

 

From 2015 to 2019 Deborah was Associate Producer and Head of Creative Engagement at Octagon Theatre, Bolton where she worked closely with Elizabeth Newman, initiating, amongst other projects, the Reveal Season of new work in site specific settings all over the town.