I’m meeting Anna of Anna Newell Theatre Adventures at The Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street. The historic Dublin landmark was established in 1817 by a young English man called Thomas Gresham who had been abandoned on the steps of the Royal Exchange in London as a baby. While Anna, who is herself originally from England, has nothing to do with foundlings, she has everything to do with babies, and children and young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties.
Newell suggested our meeting place today. She is familiar with the Writers Lounge in the hotel after stints at the nearby Gate Theatre where she presented babyGROOVE in 2023 during their GATECRASHES programme, and a tour stop with Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This in 2024. The theatre is an affiliate of the directors brainchild ‘The Network for Extraordinary Audiences’.
Most recently, Newell has spent autumn in arts centres and theatres across the country with Shimmer. Created by Katie Davenport and performed by Hayley Earlam (Choreographer), Oran Leong and Jess Rowell, the show is “a dreamy new adventure for audiences of babies aged 3-12 months” and is “full of silver, light and wonder”.
I am intrigued by the theatre maker’s accent and cannot quite identify its myriad components. It turns out that she has come to live in Bray via Essex, Dundee and Belfast. One of three children whose father was heavily involved in amateur dramatics, Anna grew up in a house where there was lots of playing of instruments and singing. Her theatrical career burgeoned when she wrote The Frog in the Well for herself and her friends at just seven years old. Laughing, she describes how, of course, she ended up being the frog because no-one else would agree to being painted green.
But it was while at Kings College, Cambridge studying English literature that the director’s mantle fell and rested assuredly upon her shoulders. Anna would go on to spend 17 years directing throughout Scotland, including seven as Associate Director at Dundee Rep. During this time she founded a female harmony group called ‘LOADSAWEEMINSINGIN’. Amazingly, Anna managed to repeat this feat by creating the award-winning ‘Feile Women’s Singing Group’ in Belfast in 2006. Both enterprises continue to this day and are affectionately referred to by the artist as her babies.
A job directing Michael Duke’s play Revenge was what first brought Newell to Belfast in 2002 when she fell in love with the northern Irish city and stayed. As artistic director and lecturer at the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts in Queens University she helped develop an experimental contemporary dance piece with a medical ethics issue at its heart. It is a source of pride that the students involved in the work were awarded credits commensurate with other modules.
Through ‘LOADSAWIMMENSINGIN’ Newell had met academic and research scientist Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk. The developmental psychologist, whose field of study is “babies’ innate ability to communicate and connect with other people”, sparked a fascination in the director. And by 2012, Newell, as artistic director at Replay Theatre Company, was creating her very first show for babies called Babble.
Since then, she has become a Vanguard for the production of theatre for babies and for children and young people with PMLD. Co-produced by the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge, supported by Wicklow Arts Office and The Arts Council, and working in collaboration with Enable Ireland and CYPSC (Children and Young People’s Services Committees) among others, Newell makes appearances in theatres, schools, hospitals and community centres across Ireland. She has showcased her work on six continents. Highlights include performing Babble off-Broadway and helping to set up ‘Babytheatre’ in Cape Town with Jennie Reznek for Magnet Theatre in 2015.
The theatre maker characterises these experiences as adventures rather than shows because other than merely presenting them to their extraordinary audiences, she and her many talented, artistic collaborators are on the same immersive and sensory journey of discovery. The music is always original and always harmonious. For 30 years Newell had worked with her friend, the late Scottish composer, David Goodall, who sadly passed away in 2023. Musically, she is now part of the creative team for ‘BabyLovesMusic’ with fellow musicians Eamon Sweeney, Kate Hearne and Tim Doyle.
Costumes veer away from primary colours and tend towards elegant and wondrous. Sets include magical tents (Up In The Clouds/Sweet Dreams Are Made of This/I Am Baba) which help block out excess aural noise and visual distractions, and hydropools (Sing me to the Sea), which have been transported to audience specific destinations in a camper van. Robust envelopes of fabric stuffed with fur called ‘floofs’ (Up In The Clouds) and ping pong balls (An Attempt To Talk With The Beginning of The World) are just some of the multitude of props utilised throughout the 20/25 minute performances. And sometimes there are no props at all.
While I imagine the shows bring enormous joy and laughter, I ask Anna if she ever feels sadness or distress following interactions with her PMLD audiences. She describes how she endeavours to connect with individual children or young people with complex needs in a calming, soothing and sensory driven way. She has enormous respect for parents and caregivers in these situations. Her approach is both scientific and political. She has a vast knowledge of the neuroscience behind her craft but also feels very strongly that each baby, child and young person is entitled to enjoy theatre in all its forms.
Every child engages and responds to the show in their own beautiful, unique way and so each adventure is different. Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. During one performance of Sing Me To The Sea, while gently pouring warm water through a colander for a young boy with PMLD, he asks his mother if “this is heaven?” and hugs Anna before leaving, while at the very next show, another young boy asks “What are you doing?”, “Why are you singing?”, and “Is it finished yet?”
The babies are no different. Such is their excitement and desire to engage that some crawl for the first time. Other babies have never before seen another baby. One young participant, who had been constipated for a week, became so happy and relaxed that his Mother ended up with a doozy of a nappy to contend with. In a review, a parent describes attending an Anna Newell production as akin to a day at the spa. I wonder aloud, given the nature of the work, if the theatre maker finds things tiring sometimes, but she is a high energy person and promises to be creating adventures until she is 70 years old, at least.
2026 promises to be busy for Newell. In the New Year, she will be touring with Up In The Clouds and in the summer with ‘BabyLovesMusic’. In the meantime, as well as brainstorming a new show for children and young people with PMLD, she will celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary this month with husband David, who is definitely not in the business, and for whom she moved to Bray in 2016. The festive season will see the pair travelling to England and Scotland to visit their full complement of four parents and spend time with family.
I don’t want a lot for Christmas myself but who knows, when Anna returns, maybe she can be persuaded to start a new women’s singing group for all of us southern Irish gals. We could gather at The Gresham Hotel. After all, if it is good enough for Mariah Carey, it is good enough for the likes of us.
