Yarn is a theatre production company and consultancy. Created in 2023, Yarn produces new work as well as providing support for individual artists and companies as they weave their own stories for performance. This support can be artistic, organisational or administrative. Yarn helps to support, plan, design and deliver projects for a long-term life.
Our own productions are devised collaboratively and have a distinct, quirky physical, visual style, involving music, dance and a lot of laughter as well as clown, puppetry, illusion and projection where it feels the right way to tell the story.
Yarn is the brainchild of Olivia Jacobs, known for her work as a theatre director, creative producer and consultant over the last 25 years. Olivia works collaboratively, facilitating conversation, elevating the skills of those she works with to help create exciting, innovative, ensemble work that has a long-term touring life.
Having worked for Soho Theatre, Nitro (formerly Black Theatre Co-operative), Besht Tellers and as Artistic Director of Camden People’s Theatre , Olivia founded Tall Stories with Co-Director Toby Mitchell in 1997. During her tenure the company produced and directed work in rural community venues, small and mid-scales venues, in the West End, on Broadway, at Sydney Opera House and toured work to six continents. Olivia has forged ongoing connections with venues worldwide, international festivals, promoters, venues and collaborators.
Way back when, sailors spent hours repairing rope onboard ship, twisting fibres together or spinning yarn. As they worked, they would tell each other stories to while away the time. Over time, these stories came to be known as ‘yarns’, and telling a story came to be known as ‘spinning a yarn’.
In a fast-paced world where time is at a premium, individuals are disparate, locked into technology, and attention spans become shorter and shorter, stories provide an opportunity to rest a while and reconnect. Telling stories forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey culture, history and values that unite us. By getting lost in incredible yarns, as sailors did all those years ago, we can step out of the mayhem for a moment and be transported somewhere fantastical.
