We are Akin: Anna Beecher and Rachel Lincoln.
We make theatre which leads audiences into bold, enveloping, sensory worlds, guided by poetry.
About
We make theatre which leads audiences into bold, enveloping, sensory worlds, guided by poetry.
Our first show, Nest is a stunning multi-sensory performance work for babies and their parents and carers. It has toured throughout the UK, with over 100 performances to date at venues including Southbank Center, Brighton Dome and more, and it had its US premiere in 2019 at New York’s Lincoln Center.
We are currently developing House, a new, immersive performance work with versions for 2-4 year olds and for 5-7 year olds.
Our work for young audiences is directly informed by our experiences as early years practitioners and by extensive research into child development. It’s equally informed by our belief that family work can have meaningful, exciting content for adults.
Akin’s founder’s Rachel Lincoln and Anna Beecher have been making theatre together for fifteen years. Rachel Lincoln is a director and theatre maker who trained at The Lecoq School and on the National Theatre Directors Course. She’s interested in movement, tactility and play and makes Akin’s work boldly visual and as enveloping as an art installation. Anna Beecher is a novelist, poet and theatre maker. Her texts thread through our shows like music. Language operates on two levels in our work. It’s sonically playful for young children and emotionally rich for adults.
Above all our work is joyful. We want you to feel better when you leave an Akin show than when you went in. Our shows offer audiences magical, relaxed and relaxing spaces in which to share time with people they love.
Meet Anna and Rachel
Anna Beecher writes fiction, poetry and performance texts. Her work has been presented at Battersea Arts Center, Young Vic Taking Part, Vault Festival, Edinburgh Fringe and Latitude Festival amongst others and she has performed at the Royal Albert Hall as a finalist in the UK National Poetry Slam.
Anna is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s MFA program in Fiction where she was a Poe-Faulkner Fellow and was awarded a National Georgraphic Scholarship. In 2018 she won the $10,000 Henfield Award for Fiction and her debut novel, Here Comes the Miracle, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Anna teaches creative writing, coaches other writers in performing their work and works as a dramaturg.
Rachel Lincoln is a Director and theatre maker. Her productions include; (upcoming) A Threshold, Southwark Playhouse, If We Were Older, National Theatre. The Oldest Trick in the Book, Arcola, Skin Of The Teeth, Pleasance Edinburgh and The Curtain, Young Vic Taking Part, Massive Sense Of Urgency, Ovalhouse .
Rachel trained at the Jacques Lecoq school, Jerwood Assistant Director Program and on the National Theatre Directors course.
She has worked with Ivo Van Hove as a rehearsal consultant on A View from the Bridge in Chicago, and associate director on Hedda Gabler at the National Theatre/ UK & Ireland tour. Rachel was a National Theatre Connections Associate Director in 2019.
Find out more at www.rachellincoln.co.uk