The Vamos Theatre team

Artistic Director: Rachael Savage
After working nationally and internationally for fifteen years, Rachael founded Vamos Theatre in 2006. As Artistic Director, her roles include writer, director, actor, and consultant for change in the care sector; she is a member of the Prime Minister’s Focus Group on Dementia. Rachael trained at Glasgow’s RSAMD, after which she performed with a range of major theatre companies including Birmingham Rep, Northern Stage, Coventry Belgrade, Trestle Theatre and with three international theatre companies. With Vamos Theatre, she has pioneered work with the education and health sectors, led residences in South Africa and China, been Mask Director at The RSC, led mask training at London Business School, created Vamos Theatre apprenticeships and driven the company's artistic and strategic vision, leading to it becoming a regularly funded Arts Council NPO. Since creating Finding Joy in 2013, Vamos Theatre’s award-winning show about dementia, Rachael has continued to create connections with the health and social care sectors to promote the arts as a powerful tool for change. Rachael’s work in the field emphasises non-verbal communication, empathy, listening, trust and truthful connections. 

Creative Producer/Youth Theatre Director: Honor Hoskins
Honor joined Vamos Theatre in 2007 and has worked as part of the Core Team as a performer, practitioner, Tour Manager and Marketing and Development Manager. As Creative Producer, Honor oversees the company’s Learning and Participation programme, as well as regularly delivering workshops, training and residencies. Prior to joining Vamos Theatre, Honor worked for The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury as Outreach Officer. She has also delivered and managed projects with The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham; Snap Children’s Theatre Company; and three County Youth Offending Services; she also trained with TiPP (Theatre in Prison and Probation).

Executive Producer: Claire Morton
Part of the Vamos Theatre team since 2018, Claire has over 18 years of extensive experience and knowledge of working across performing art-forms and the cultural sector. Between 2015-2018, Claire worked independently for a range of projects, from independent artists to international touring companies (including Ballet Black, Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company, Made by Katie Green and many more), fundraising just under £500k to support the delivery of work and new artistic programmes. Prior to this, she co-directed Morton Bates Arts Services, helping to raise over £1.3m through Arts Council England, securing over 750 performance bookings and delivering 100 projects across the portfolio between 2008-2014. Claire holds a BA in Dance & Culture with Professional Training (University of Surrey), a Masters Degree in Arts Management (City University, London) (Arts Humanities Research Council Award recipient) and is a fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme (short course).

Head of Communications/Associate Artist (Composer): Janie Armour
Janie has been part of the Vamos Theatre  team since its beginnings in 2006, composing the music for all of Vamos Theatre's shows. In 2014 she also took on the role of Head of Communications, where her responsibilities include overseeing the company brand, website and messaging strategies,

Health Connector: Hazel Ratcliffe
Hazel is the director and founder of Ratcliffe Training Consultancy and has worked in Social and Health Care for over thirty years. As a qualified nurse, psychotherapist and social worker, she has worked with most client groups, but more intensively with people living with dementia, those with learning disabilities and in mental health. Hazel has been an Associate Specialist in Learning and Development for the Association for Dementia Studies since 2010 at Worcester University. She is a Dementia Champion and has worked closely with communities over the past five years building awareness and reducing stigma around memory loss.  She also co - founded ‘Buddies’, a support group for people living with dementia, run by people living with dementia.

Marketing Officer: Abbie Payton
Abbie started her career in travel and went to many lovely places around the world, after which she studied at Chichester University and graduated with a 2:1 degree in contemporary dance and business studies. After leaving university, she worked in marketing for an outdoor activity centre in Birmingham for 11 years, alongside teaching dance classes and workshops to children. She currently teaches wedding couples' first dances in her spare time.

Office Administrator: Sarah Hawkins
Sarah made her first professional appearance with Vamos Theatre in Nursing Lives (2010), having trained in Vamos Young People’s Theatre for 3 years. Since then she has performed in Offal Tales (2012), three tours of Finding Joy (2013, 14 and 2016), Sharing Joy (2014, 2015 and 2017), Nursing Lives (2015) and The Best Thing (2015). The call of home comforts led to stage management roles, while the arrival of babies no.1 and 2 now sees Sarah working as Administrator. When she’s not at her desk, Sarah is also a trained horticulturalist and loves nothing better than working in the garden.

Office Administrator: Rhiannon Malbas
Rhiannon started her career in the Civil Service, working as a Diary Manager to a succession of senior government ministers. She then moved into the charity sector, working as an Executive Assistant at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and Birmingham Children's Hospital. After a long stint in London, she decided home was calling and moved back to Worcester to start a family. In her spare time Rhiannon runs around after her two young children, enjoys cooking, walking and works as a freelance bridal florist.

Vamos Central Lead: Rebecca Harrison
Rebecca has been working as a physical theatre artist for over twenty years and worked with various theatre companies during that time. She obtained her degree in performing arts from London Metropolitan University and with three friends, set up a theatre company after graduating. The company launched with a tour to Sarawak, Malaysia in 2004 and continued in the UK on return. After running a few educational workshops in her early career, she identified a passion for teaching and qualified as a performing arts teacher in 2006. Since then she has taught mainly in further education and for two years in Southern Thailand on a ‘learning English through drama’ programme. Rebecca joined the Vamos Theatre team in 2019 and now splits her time between teaching, leading mask workshops, walkabout and running Vamos Central.

Vamos Central Assistant: Aadil Din
Joining the Vamos Theatre team in 2023, Aadil is in his final year of his masters degree in Touring Theatre at University of Worcester. His introduction to the arts was through the Hippodrome Education Network at Birmingham Hippodrome and he has previously performed in Highly Sprung Theatre Company’s Taking Flight, as well as Birmingham Hippodrome’s West Side Story and To the Streets!, in collaboration with China Plate Theatre. He has recently workshoped new musicals such as Reality Bites at the Birmingham Rep and has toured his own work around Worcestershire including Iceberg (Holly Jolly Sauce at Huntingdon Hall, 2022; Worcester Fringe Festival, 2023), and Refuge (tour to secondary schools, 2021). Aadil thoroughly enjoys working in the field of Theatre with Learning Disabilities and aspires to be a Drama and Movement Therapist in the near future.

Associate Artists:
Carl Davies: Associate Artist (Set and Costume Designer)
Carl first worked for Vamos on the first tour of Finding Joy in 2013. He trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and was a finalist in the prestigious Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design 2005. He has worked in a huge variety of performance genres including opera, panto, Shakespeare, site-specific performance, and circus; and with companies as diverse as Forest Forge, Hijinx, NOFITSTATE, and Theatre Royal, Plymouth.

James Greaves: Associate Artist (Performer)
James co-founded Trading Faces Theatre Company in 1987, specialising in physical theatre and mask work, and from 1989 worked extensively with Trestle Theatre Company taking mask performance all over the world, from Tashkent to Sydney and Tokyo to Taunton. He performed in many Trestle classics, including Top Storey, State of Bewilderment, Blood and Roses, Adventures of the Stoneheads and Beggars Belief. James first joined Vamos Theatre to perform in Finding Joy, taking on the role of Danny. Since then he’s toured throughout the UK and Europe with us, as well as leading mask workshops across the UK.

Alan Riley: Associate Artist (Performer/Director)
Alan is a performing arts graduate of Middlesex University, who has worked as a performer and director with Vamos since 2014. As a founder member of Trestle Theatre Company, he has acquired extensive devising and performance experience in mask theatre. He also co-founded ‘Theatre de Camping’ producing and touring several physical theatre comedies. Alan was employed as a performer and writer for The Tweenies, a pre-school children’s programme for BBC TV. He contributed a number of scripts and provided the ‘body’ of several characters, mainly Doodles the big red dog, but also: a sprightly old lady, a clown puppet, a robotic spaceman toy and a musical monkey that played the drums!