Rubie, Nina Scott and Polly Rowley-Sams as The Musical Spores / Photo by Tegid Cartwright
Photo by Tegid Cartwright
Nina (they/them) is a political theatre maker, musician, performer and educator based in Glasgow. Their work is celebratory, immersive and collaborative, exploring different creative tools for social change.
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Nina is Director, Co-Writer & ensemble performer of Be More Mushroom, a raucous, educational musical for kids and grown ups exploring what fungi can teach us about identity, power and society. Be More Mushroom was developed as part of a residency at St. Margaret's House with Dan de la Motte and a group of queer performers, musicians and mycologists. It was recently performed at Queer Nature: After Hours at Kew Gardens and will be developed further in 2024. Alongside the show is multiple workshops for all ages creatively engaging with Queer Theory and Fungi.
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Nina is an experienced educator and facilitator. They currently lecture on the BA Theatre for Social Change course at Rose Bruford Drama School, teaching Creative Campaigning and Producing in Practice. Nina regularly works in Catalonia with ULEX, co-designing and delivering courses for activists across Europe including: 'Theatre of the Oppressed' (Nov 2023) 'Integral Activist Training' (Oct 2024, 2023 & 2022) and 'Creative Tools for Social Change' (April 2022).
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Alongside Emer Mary Morris, 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-produced, 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. The script of 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.
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Nina's baby (pun intended) is Womb with a View (WINNER Best Festival Venue, Independent Association of Festivals Award, 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.
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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.
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A core part of Nina's practice is singing and song-making and they are a long standing member of queer choral collective F*Choir. They sing and play bass in Rubie.
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HE HAD HAIRY HANDS (2016)
Writer: Kill the Beast
Performers: David Cumming, Natasha Hodgson, Ollie Jones, Zoe Roberts
Director: Clem Garritty
Lighting Designer: Elliot Griggs
Animator: Alex Purcell
Model Box Design: Clem Garritty & Bryan Woltjen
Sound Design: Ed Borgnis & David Cumming
Costume Design: Nina Scott & Rachel Schofield Owen
Music: Ben Osborn & Kill the Beast
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WINNER - Best Studio Production, Manchester Theatre Awards
WINNER - Peter Brooke Award
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"The grotesque performance style and production design gives the whole production a feel and aesthetic that is unique and sets itself ahead of many other theatre shows on at the Fringe. Kill The Beast have absolute bags of ingenuity and this ludicrously inventive show cements them as one theatre company who are destined for huge things". **** Broadway Baby
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"Where the company really stand out is in the fine-tuned detail of their aesthetic. Each scene has the comic rigour of a perfectly crafted sketch, yet these delicious scraps of narrative also manage to stitch seamlessly into a full-length show. The tone, look and plot are all remarkably consistent, executed with a boldness and wit that more established companies would kill for" - Whats on Stage
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"He Had Hairy Hands is a gloriously dark show riddled with wit and real theatrical cleverness, all topped off with beautiful animation and costumes". **** Play to See
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"This 1970s supernatural murder mystery oozes with fast-paced, highly visual jokes, deliciously gruesome details and tasteful quantities of green slime. The quick rotation of characters, costumes and accents makes for a jam-packed show" **** The Skinny
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"This year, the black and white expressionist world they created for Boy Who Kicked Pigs has snapped into nicotine-stained 70’s colour. The projected backdrops, animated by Alex Purcell from hand-constructed box-sets created by Brian Woltjen and Clem Garritty, are as beautiful and witty as ever, as are the horrific costumes from Nina Scott and Rachel Owen" **** Exeunt Magazine
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"Painted with grotesque beauty" - Festmag
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"Kill the Beast goes the extra mile in this fast-paced comedy thriller. Everything down to the last detail is thoroughly well thought out – from the costumes to the makeup to the props, all flecked with grime and mould to create the sinister netherworld of a town under siege by a crazed killer" **** A Younger Theatre