The Company

Teatro Entre Escombros is a theatre group based in Barcelona, set up by Amy Gwilliam and Javier Ariza in June 2010, in their final days at the prestigious Ecole Philippe Gaulier. It marked their promise, their challenge, to hold the blood of Gaulier in their veins; to insist always on playing with the spark of an idea, however devastatingly stupid it might seem; to go on with the beautiful suffering of sharing their simple, peculiar humanity with their audience. And please, never forget: just play. 

The company´s signature, so to speak, is the very rapport which flourishes between Gwilliam and Ariza. She, a Brit through and through, considers herself more serious than he, dark-humoured, veering more towards the gulf of tragedy. He, utterly Spanish, sees a comic twist at every turn, and will normally take it. And so their games are marked by a kind of Spanglish tragicomedy: witty, passionate, and humanly bizarre. 

Since their Parisian attic beginnings, Entre Escombros have created two shows – The Mole and the Worm; an underground tale, set in a cave, and Fuga per Canonem, unfolding in a cabaret and a lighthouse. With the constant inspiration and provocation from the director and the writer, they dare to make up their own myths, improvised from the stuff of dreams, from the electricity generated in imaginative collaboration. 

With The Mole and the Worm, they have performed in over 20 “site-specific” venues across Spain and England: caves, a castle, warehouses, decadent old houses, black box theatres, cloister courts etc, winning two 2nd best show awards and a best actress award. They treat each show as a unique event, adapted to a particular space. With the Fuga, they have taken it to Burgos, taking the opportunity to hold educational talks and involve young people in their love for theatre, and are touring in London and Toledo with the show in May 2013. They also do interactive theatre, participating in festivals, street theatre, improvisations and being booked for a range of immersive events.

They call themselves “Entre Escombros” (“In the Rubble”) because they launched into a world deemed to be “in crisis, at the brink of collapse”. They were nuts to set up, apparently. But rather than be defeated by it all, they take inspiration: from the rubble comes simplicity, and from simplicity, they hope - freedom. 2 actors can summon a greater thunder.

THE ACTRESS: AMY GWILLIAM (London, 7-3-1986)

Actress, director, writer and co-founder of Teatro Entre Escombros. She studied in the Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris, learning the art of clowning, bouffon, creating characters, mask work,  melodrama, direction, etc. Having studied English literature at Cambridge, her life in theatre has oscillated between interpreting, directing and producing. This is how she has been able to work as an actress in Medea directed by Annie Castledine (Co-founder of Complicite), Rockaby (S. Beckett), The Changeling (Middleton), Bedbound (Enda Walsh), Tales if Ovid, A Letter That Never Reached Russia, a theatrical creation based on Nabokov's short stories at the Edinburgh Festival and improvisations with the Cambridge Footlights comedy group.

   She has directed: The White Devil (John Webster), The Bald Soprano (Ionesco), Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare). She assistant directed for the British director William Oldroyd for two operas which premiered in Feisteixo (a festival in Viana do Castello, Portugal) and for Davis Thaker, on Arthur Miller's The Price.

    Executive producer of Cymbeline directed by Trevor Nunn. Assistant producer for London television company, Hat Trick (2005-6). 

THE ACTOR: JAVIER ARIZA  (Burgos, 31-8-1982)

Linked to theatre, circus and music, he began to get close to the arts at the age of 8 years. After attending children's theatre and youth theatre, at 20 he began work as a professional in the Burgos-based company Teatro La Sonrisa, where he devised 6 clowning shows. He has also worked with other companies, such as “Ópera Faber” “Los kikolas”, “Bambalua Teatro”, “Cal y Canto Teatro”, “Tiritirantes” and “Ronco Teatro”, realising plays and street entertainment.

He has done several international tours, with Teatro La Sonrisa as well as with the NGO Clowns without Borders in countries such as France, Portugal, Palestine, Mexico and Ecuatorial Guinea.

He studied in Paris at the Ecole Internacional du Teatre Philippe Gaulier, the “Escola de clown de Barcelona”, “Bonts International clowschool” and in 2010 founded Teatro Entre Escombros together with Amy Gwilliam.

THE PRODUCER: DAISY BARD (London, 22-1-1991)

Daisy has been involved in a myriad of shows ranging from the ridiculous to the bizarre. Since working with the Young Pleasance at a formative theatrical stage, Daisy has taken the circuitous route from costume design, to assistant directing and producing.

She has produced the hugely successful I am, I am at the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Festival 2012 and ORESTEIA: a new adaptation by Alex Mackeith. She has assistant produced comedy duo BEARD at the Edinburgh Festival. She has assistant directed Footlights Harry Porter Prize runner-up To Have and To Hold at the Edinburgh Festival 2011. Though usually based between London and Cambridge, she is the current producer of Teatro Entre Escombros, touring with them to London and Toledo in the next month.

She has formed part of the design team – mainly specialising in costume but also foraying into set and hair and make-up –  for the following: The Cambridge Footlights Pantomime 2012: The Snow Queen; The 24 Hour Plays; The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare);  The Boys in the Band (Mart Crowley);The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams); Miss Julie (August Strindberg); The Orphanarium of Erthing Worthing (Máirín O’Hagan/Max Levine); The Picture of Dorian Gray (John Osborne); Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare); Cambridge Footlights Spring Revue 2011: Odds; The Seagull (Chekhov); The Way Through the Woods (Paul Cooper); Soho Storeys (a 50s jazz musical by Tim Norton, performed by the Young Pleasance in the Pleasance Grand) at the Edinburgh Festival 2010.