KARIN THOMSON
Scriptwriter and Dramaturg
ABOUT KARIN THOMSON
Karin Thomson is a screenwriter and dramaturg who is available to take on creative or commercial commissions.
As a writer she believes that collaboration with the creative team is essential in developing a story idea; utilising the best that a production team can bring to a project. The tone of her creative work is dark, mixing fantasy with reality in an English Gothic style. Her imaginative life has been inspired by the cinematic and literary greats who have shown how drama, as Arthur Miller put it, can ‘raise the consciousness of people to their human potential.’
She is currently developing a series of documentaries on theatre archives and their creators with significant collections around the UK. Starting with Shakespeare collections in the West Midlands, including the Library of Birmingham, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Shakespeare Institute, Karin will explore landmark productions through the creation of the archival documents and the inspiration behind them.
Last year, Karin was commissioned to make a film of the play 'The Trial of Lady Godiva', an educational provocation for the Law School at the University of Coventry. Funded by Coventry City of Culture, Karin directed and edited the film which will be used in teaching later this year. To accompany the play, Karin let loose her creative flair with sound and image creating a visual poem of Tennyson's 'Godiva', read by Sonia Ritter.
In 2020, Karin worked with award winning multi-media artists, the McGuires on a Creative XR project transferring the story of 'Dracula' into an immersive AR experience. Awarded additional funding, 'The Invited' has moved on into its next development phase. This innovative and groundbreaking performance will be a wonderful new experience in sensory story telling.
Comments from collaborators:
“Karin is an excellent dramaturg and writer who has consistently helped us to transform the most complicated plots, narratives and subtexts into streamlined, elegant, concise and effective storylines within the broad range of mediums that we work in. Never short of ideas, she is inventive, observant and a fountain of knowledge in the craft of storytelling and literature.” Kristin & Davy McGuire (Multimedia Artists)
https://www.studiomcguire.com/
“Working with Karin on No Man’s Land has been a creative and collaborative dream. She has a freshness to her writing that is much needed, and provided the sort of script that only comes up once in a decade!” Ben Crystal (Actor, Author, Creative Producer) https://www.bencrystal.com
Every picture tells a story but so does every prompt book, actor's script, costume bible, and set design. The TAFP is collaborating with Shakespeare libraries in the West Midlands. In partnership with Everything to Everybody, a project to open up the Library of Birmingham's Shakespeare Collection to the city, we hope to engage and connect people with theatre craft, the personal and professional stories of document creators, and the archives which hold these amazing and inspiring documents. Using landmark productions and the UK's top theatre creatives the TAFP will also illuminate the multitudinous ways in which theatre tells its greatest stories.
The first film to be made will feature the actress Sonia Ritter talking about her acclaimed performance as Lavinia in Deborah Warner's 'Titus Andronicus' for the Royal Shakespeare Company (1987). Filming in June/July 2022.
WORK
Projects Past and Present
2021
Earlier in 2021, Karin worked as Dramaturg with Multimedia Artists, the McGuires on a reimagining of Dracula. Kristin and Davy McGuire received funding from Creative XR to create a prototype for 'The Invited'. This new project reimagines the gothic story of Dracula in a seance in which an augmented reality pop-up book serves as a conduit for Dracula’s curse to re-enter current society. Each page turn will reveal a new kirigami world and a new set of broody AR animations to those who are invited to become part of Dracula’s reincarnation.
February 2017
To accompany the opening exhibition to the University of Birmingham’s new Main Library, entitled Inspiring Knowledge, this film aimed to promote the exhibition, the wonder of libraries and the potential in all students to learn, create and be the originators of new knowledge.
Karin worked with the University’s Creative Media department who contributed tremendously in the filming and editing of the piece. The film was shown at the opening ceremony of the Main Library in 2016 and is available on the University of Birmingham’s YouTube channel.
2021
As a woman confronts grief for her father in a forest of pines, myth merges with reality, drawing out inner and outer demons.
Starring Kristin McGuire and Oliver Senton, this film is scheduled for production this year.
2016
In November 2016 this artwork by the McGuires featured in the beautiful Taichung National Theater, as part of an international tour.
This collaborative adaptation led by the artists, reworks Macbeth into 6 pop-up pages, designed like sets, on to which actors are projected. As pages are turned they trigger the projection and sound on to the beautifully intricate designs of the theatre book.
The project was funded with a REACT Prototype Award. Supported by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Pervasive Media Studio Bristol, the University of Exeter and the University of Birmingham.
March 2016
Friend or Foe? presented authentic voices from the first world war. The production included three one-act plays, written during the conflict, each passionate and exposing raw emotions and deeply held convictions. These powerful plays demonstrate how the playwrights of that conflict have a voice which was equal in strength to that of the poets, challenging perceived ideas of manhood, womanhood, social order and authority.Working with Fred Theatre the production toured Stratford-upon-Avon, London, and Birmingham in March 2016, and in April was part of the conference entitled, 'Pack Up Your Troubles: Performance Cultures in the First World War' at the University of Kent in Canterbury.
Currently in development.
Lillian wants her husband back from the trenches of the First World War and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve that. Currently in production, this film about love, war and witchcraft is a collaborative project developed with Gary Tanner (Man in a Hat Productions); designed by Helen Hughes (RSC), and starring Kristin McGuire and Ben Crystal.
21 December 2021
Funded by Coventry City of Culture 2021, Karin is currently working on filming a play by Stephen Hardy which puts Lady Godiva on trial for indecent exposure, and you as a jury member.
This film is a provocation for law students to consider and workshop legal and moral imperatives involved in the trial process.
The project, devised and developed by the author, actress Sonia Ritter and the Law Department of the University of Coventry is due for delivery in May 22. Read more about Karin's involvement in the blog!
Please don’t hesitate to contact Karin about potential projects.
“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works”
Virginia Woolf
