Photo by Sonia Visual Storytelling
Photo by Sonia Visual Storytelling
Nina (they/them) is a political theatre maker and educator based in London. Their work is celebratory, immersive and collaborative, exploring different creative tools for social change.
Nina is Artistic Director of 'Be More Mushroom', their theatre project which explores the many intersections of queer theory and fungi and asks: 'what can mushrooms teach us about identity, society and power?'. Be More Mushroom is being developed as part of an artists residency at St. Margaret's House with Dan de la Motte and a group of queer mycologists, performers and musicians. You can buy tickets for Be More Mushroom here. Nina has also designed three corresponding workshops: Introduction to Queer Theory and Queer Fungi, Make Music Like Mushrooms and Make Theatre Like Fungi.
Nina is an experienced educator and facilitator. They regularly work with ULEX, recently delivering 'Integral Activist Training' and Creative Tools for Social Change' in Catalonia for 50 activists in Europe (2022). They're also an accomplished producer, recently programming and producing Rebel Soul's Queer Takeover Day at Shambala (August 2022), a series of workshops exploring what it means to 'queer', why it's important and how to practically implement 'queering'.
Nina often runs creative trainings in community, educational and arts settings in Theatre of the Oppressed. They trained with Jana Sanskriti, Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed and have lectured at Queen Mary's, Roehampton, UEL and Rose Bruford. They produced and delivered Theatre of the Oppressed for Housing Justice and Theatre of the Oppressed for Renters Rights (Concrete Action and London Renters Union 2019-2021) using theatre to teach eviction resistance and housing rights.
Nina was Artistic Director of You Should see the Other Guy Theatre (2014-2022), a London based grassroots collective made up of queer and women artists which worked on and off stage to tackle housing injustice. Nina has co-written and directed YSSTOG's Land of the Three Towers (Camden People's Theatre 2015-2019), a series of verbatim musicals which were performed on London housing estates. The plays share different methods of resisting gentrification and regeneration. Land of the Three Towers: Vol I has been published in Radical Housing: Art Struggle and Care (ed, Ana Valencia, 2021) which can be downloaded and ordered here.
Nina's baby (pun intended) is Womb with a View (WINNER Best Festival Venue, IAF 2017, WINNER Shambala micro-venues competition 2016), an immersive venue which gives birth to new ideas and an interactive performance which gives birth to YOU. The womb sets out to queer narratives of wombs, childbirth and parenthood. In 2021 Nina received Developing Your Creative Practice Funding to develop Womb with a View, exploring queering trans healthcare and telling the story of birth through cabaret, song and silliness.
Nina has designed celebrated costumes for award winning companies including Kill the Beast's He Had Hairy Hands (WINNER Peter Brook Festival Award, WINNER Manchester Theatre Awards, BBC Top Pick of the Fringe) and The Boy Who kicked Pigs.
Nina loves to teach singing and song-making. They are a long standing member of queer choral collective F*Choir and sing in Kate and Nina Scott, a band with their identical twin sister.
 Work in progress page from You Should see the Other Guy and Concrete Action's resource for Stage 1 of 'TO Housing Justice'. The resource will share workshop plans and an evaluation of the project. Workshop Design: Nina Scott Resource Design: Concrete Action |
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TO HOUSING JUSTICE (2019)
Creative Director: Nina Scott
Co-Facilitators: CJ Hutchinson and Sib Trigg
Producer: Concrete Action
TO Housing Justice is a long term creative activist collaboration between Nina Scott and Architects Collective, Concrete Action.
Stage One brought together social housing tenants, people in temporary accommodation, people who have experienced homelessness, academics and theatre practitioners.
Our mission was:
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To collaboratively consider the effectiveness of theatre of the oppressed for housing activism.
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To acknowledge and dismantle power structures
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To generate dialogue
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To share and pool knowledge within the room and beyond
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To design collective models for social change and personal transformation
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To provide training and experience in facilitation in Theatre of the Oppressed
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To create an accessible training programme that is free, with travel, lunch and childcare provided
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To monitor and evaluate the project and publish a resource for fellow activists and TO practitioners detailing our findings