Calling all StageSiders, welcome back to another installment of StageSide Stories. This time, we talk to Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches, co-founders of Guildford Shakespeare Company, about their upcoming season. Guildford Shakespeare Company are celebrating their 20th year creating incredible theatre, so do keep on reading to find out more!
To begin, could you introduce yourself and your role at Guildford Shakespeare Company?
Hello I am Sarah and I am one of the co-founders and producers at GSC. I set up the theatre company with Matt 20 years ago. As well, as heading up our main-house productions, I also line manage the Education and Outreach Department at GSC.
…and I’m Matt, the other Co-founder and producer! Along with Sarah, I produce the main-house shows and together we decide the strategic planning for the theatre company. My other hat includes something similar to Marketing Director/Audience Development. I’ve also directed a lot of our one-off events and in 2024 our multi-venue open-air Romeo & Juliet that saw us close Guildford High Street to traffic every evening for 4 weeks.
Looking back over two decades, what feels like the defining ambition that has shaped GSC’s identity?
I think three things stand out for me:
- Our site responsive approach
- Classics reimagined
- And our community focused response
Absolutely – it’s watching engaging with theatre or Shakespeare for the first time and realising just how accessible it can be; entering a space they have walked past for 30 years; yet never set foot inside until this performance; witnessing the awesome power that theatre has to genuinely affect people’s lives.
What does it mean, to you personally, to be part of the company who has been creating great art for 2 decades?
Beyond proud, and utterly incredulous that someone as young as I am could possibly have been running a company for 20 years… I mean, I’m only 25!
But seriously, I have watched our productions, classes and projects change lives. The transformative power of art and its benefits never ceases to remind me about how lucky I am to have the job that I have. Whether it’s a family coming together via a zoom murder mystery in lockdown, or a group of friends laughing at an open-air performance, a teenager from our drama-therapy course choosing to go back to school, or an 8 year who was an elective mute choosing to speak for the first time in years on stage – all of it matters, all of it is quite simply magical.
I think you’ve captured that pretty well Sarah! To be honest I do have to pinch myself quite often when I think about the last 20 years.It has been honour to go on this journey and see what started out as a one-off idea for show in the open-air to a truly legacy making organisation is really humbling.
Personally it has given me so much: from sharing a stage with a national treasure to taking a show to New York to seeing the enormous difference a week’s SEND drama club can make for an entire family’s well-being.
I’ve learnt so much from the talented artists we’ve had the good fortune to work with over this time – from fellows actors to directors, marketing and theatre managers.
GSC is known for reimagining Shakespeare in unexpected spaces, places or new contexts. How has that approach, of performing in specific spaces, evolved over the years?
Well, the ambition of those spaces has certainly grown over the years. Initially it was open-air Shakespeare and then when we decided to become year-round producers, we asked ourselves the question “who are GSC when we perform inside?” and so our site-responsive approach began. Initially parks, churches, woodland areas were our places of choice. Since then we have moved onto Model Railway Villages, Spiegeltents, multi-location promenade projects (one that including closing the road to traffic every night for 4 weeks) and even a Boeing 747… Once you start, there’s no end to where your imagination can take you.
Of course, there was also a time when necessity rung the changes. During lockdown our site-responsive spaces became our own homes, with actors being sent green screens, props and costumes, so that we could perform plays live on zoom. A strange concept but worth it to keep people employed and audiences entertained.
What has also been fascinating it to see how Shakespeare’s 400 year old words naturally find their way into these eclectic spaces – it shows how robust and malleable these stories are. Equally this site responsive approach has enabled us to explore stories outside of Shakespeare – to create a promenade production of Alice in Wonderland in the very places that Lewis Carroll himself found himself, to have a real 1920s motor car for Mr Toad to drive off stage in, to have an interactive murder mystery in a real country house if very special to create and be a part of.
When planning an anniversary programme, how do you balance celebrating the past with looking firmly towards the future?
The future is always in our thoughts, there are always so many creative ideas buzzing around at GSC HQ, that it’s looking back that we actually find little time to do. It’s only when someone clever from marketing puts together a film of previous shows, that I ever really get the time to sit back and let nostalgia take over. Those are good moments. We have, however, managed to plan our 20th anniversary with some nice links to our first year!
What can audiences expect from the 2026 season, are there particular themes or ideas that run through the programme?
Our year starts with our new adaptation of David Copperfield, which begins with the words “I am born” which feels like an apt way to begin this anniversary year.
Then we have a glorious open-air double bill of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing… Much Ado was our first ever show – so that was us being born. It’s exciting for us to circle back to it, 20 years later!
And then we have a Murder Mystery in the Hogs Back Brewery, who were one of our first ever partners – so again that feels very fitting.
Is there a show in the 2026 programme you are most excited for?
Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (sometimes thought to be Love’s Labour’s Won) have been designed to work as a pair, with Much Ado being a revisiting of LLL’s characters but 6 years later! Both of these plays are witty, sparky and bright but still filled with so much depth, love and complexity within relationships, I am excited to see how they work together.
Crumbs, where to start?! As actor-managers in the old sense of the position, I’m really looking forward to be part of the acting company in the summer. We’re returning to New York for the second year as part of 59E59 Theater’s Brits Off Broadway season with David Copperfield, which is very special. I’ll be directing our final show of the year – a new Murder Mystery staged in a brewery… actually it’s all rather exciting!
Guildford and its community are central to GSC’s work. How has the relationship between the company and the town grown over 20 years?
One of the things that I feel most proud of is how our community has embraced GSC and very much taken us into their hearts. The community feels an ownership of GSC, is a wonderful thing.
Our community work has also become an important focus for us. Right from the beginning we set up drama clubs and classes, but our social inclusion projects are a real passion for all of us. Under the umbrella of Brave New World we produce intergenerational projects, drama-therapy courses, knife-crime awareness projects; we work with displaced people, and have free to access clubs for young carers and SEND children and young adults. We want everyone in our community to be able to access the arts and to ensure that there is no barrier in being able to do so.
We’d be nothing without them! When I think of all the people that have supported and guided us over the years – and many of them are still with us – you realise how important the arts are to a healthy society. Theatre enables us to explore our world, our place in it, what we think of it, how we want to share it, and how we can make it one better one.
In 2024 the LSH/Revo report found that Arts, Culture and Heritage was considered to be the 3rd most important element in successful town centres over the next 5 years. Our mission has always been to promote theatre-going as an inclusive part of our community – that it is not the preserve of an elite, that it is for everyone, and that stars with positive, equitable experiences in schools, drama clubs and evening classes; outreach projects that break down barriers to access, and ensuring our eclectic venues are as accessible as possible.
In 2023 we were recipients of the Institute of Directors national award for Inclusivity, Diversity and Equality, and last year the Mayor of Guildford’s Community Service Award. Together with the feedback and responses we receive from audiences and participants, these are our mandate to keep doing what we do.
As you announce this anniversary programme, what are you most excited for audiences to experience next year?
The past couple of years have seen us do some quite ambitious things with our shows – 7 venues for Romeo & Juliet; two plays performed at the same with the same cost moving between them; staging a show on a real 747 in the middle of airfield! So in some ways, though this anniversary is still ambitious in its creativity and variety, it’s going to be rather nice to settle into something that feels familiar but no less exciting.
Brabeouf Manor – our summer venue – was an audience favourite for many, and we’ve not been back since 2018, so that will be really lovely for audiences to revisit. And of course, there will be lots of little extra surprises along the way I am sure!
Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring artistic director, what would it be?
Be brave. Follow your heart and your instincts. Tell the stories that you would want to watch yourself, and never, ever be afraid or ashamed of having high standards. Invest in the people around you; this industry is full of passionate, dedicated, brilliant humans – they are your strengths! (Sorry that was more than one thing!)
I couldn’t have said it better myself… oh and that you can never proof read something enough!!!
Have your say
Are you thinking of starting a career as a theatre company founder? Are you currently working on as a theatre company creator? How are you finding the process, and do you have any tips? Let me know in the comments!
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