Sandy Thomson founded Poorboy in 2002 and its Ensemble in 2009. She is variously a stage director, a site specific director/designer and a playwright in all those contexts. She and her work have been nominated for numerous directing and staging awards in the UK and she is a Playwright Studio Scotland Award recipient. 

She prides herself on making work that celebrates the ordinary alongside the extraordinary in a style that is truly theatrical.  Surrounded by storytellers, shaggy dog story enthusiasts and downright liars from a young age, she is versed in stories, mythology and fairy tales from most parts of the world. Her own work frequently has a dialect rooted in Scotland, a pawky sense of humour and an ability to establish those universal experiences and narratives found in common across the globe.  She has made work for streets, lifts, cars, waiting rooms, gardens, subway trains and stages of all sizes. 

A lifelong fan of comic books since her first experience of a Prog of 2000AD in about 1980 her creative interests have taken her work onto the page, into partnership with visual artists and musicians and into film.  Above all her work celebrates the joy of the live interaction between performer and audience and she is endlessly enthusiastic about making work with a room of talented and committed actors.

headshot photo credit: Sidey Clark

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