about us
Cosmino Theatre have been dreaming theatrical experiences into reality for over 25 years. We believe firmly in the ability of the arts to cross boundaries, dream new futures and provoke positive change in the world. Cosmino Productions was founded in 1998 in the UK and since 2010 has been based in Berlin, Germany.
Cosmino have created over 15 productions including performances with collaborators including the State Theatre of Salzburg and Greenwich Theatre, London. Productions currently on tour include Rachel’s award-winning solo performance Dreams Die Hard inspired by her grandmother’s wartime diary and her Turkish-Cypriot roots and Paulas Reisen, a physical performance featuring clowning and puppetry, dealing gently with issues of exclusion and integration, based on the children’s book by German author Paul Maar. Heartburn is our ambitious new project exploring the rights of women. We are delighted to be working with Spanish performer, Eva Rufo and British visual artist, Jo Johnston. Heartburn premiered in January 2022 and is currently touring internationally.
Artistic Director, actor, composer (she / her)
Rachel is a British performer, teacher, academic and director based in Berlin. After falling in love with all things third theatre and Odin Teatret at the age of 11, Rachel embraced the potential and autonomy of devised theatre. As well as creating over 16 original performances as Cosmino Productions, Rachel has performed alongside Kathryn Hunter in ‘Yerma’ at the Arcola Theatre, London and was an actor with internationally acclaimed Polish company, Teatr Biuro Podróży. Her PhD research into Shamanic dimensions within contemporary theatre practice saw her collaborate on workshops with ‘Way of Wyrd’ and ‘Way of the Actor’ author, Brian Bates. Rachel is also trained CBT Hypnotherapist which informs both her teaching and devising practice.
Rachel has directed for Greenwich Theatre, East 15 Acting School, Northampton and Leeds Universities and Salzburg Landestheater, Austria directing King A in 2017 and Paula’s Reisen in 2019. Rachel has held posts at Manchester Metropolitan & Leeds Universities and is currently a faculty member at Arthaus Berlin – International School for Devised Theatre & Performance and also teaches on the Theatre Studies Online undergraduate programme at Rose Bruford College, UK.
Rachel is relieved that after so many years of making and teaching theatre, it is still the greatest thrill imaginable.
Technical director, actor, composer (he / him)
Kuba was reared on Polish alternative theatre and trained with Teatr Ósmego Dnia , Teatr Porywacze Ciał and was an actor with Teatr Biuro Podróży from 1997 – 2003. He toured with the company across six continents. Kuba has worked as a movement teacher, theatre director and musician internationally. Kuba has performed with Blue Man Group for 18 years and is part of the permanent Berlin cast.
Kuba’s dream of forming a samba band might still happen.
Associate Artist & Creative Consultant (he / him)
Dr Patrick Campbell is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader of the BA (Hons) Drama and Contemporary Performance Programme at the Manchester School of Theatre, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). His teaching focuses on psychophysical training, with an emphasis on the holistic links between corporeal expressivity and vocal freedom. His academic research looks at the ways in which contemporary theatre artists in Europe and Latin America are challenging monolithic, phallogocentric framings of subjectivity, representability and heritage through performance and training.
From 2014-2021, Campbell worked alongside Dr Jane Turner, carrying out an analysis into the contemporary value of Third Theatre – a transnational theatrical community first identified by Eugenio Barba in the 1970s, characterised by a laboratory ethos and practice. Together, Campbell and Turner carried out research into the training, dramaturgy and participatory strategies employed by the Third Theatre community, particularly in Latin America and Europe, mapping and critically examining the myriad configurations of Third Theatre, particularly in relation to interstitial, intercultural and postcolonial debates. Their monograph, A Poetics of Third Theatre: Performer Training, Dramaturgy, Cultural Action was published in 2021 as part of the Perspectives on Performer Training series, edited by Maria Kapsali and Rebecca Loukes.
For the past twelve years, Campbell has studied with Roy Hart Theatre founder member Margaret Pikes, who has developed a unique approach to extended vocal practice entitled Wolfsohn-Hart Voice. Campbell has trained to be both a practitioner and a pedagogue within this vocal tradition and co-authored with Pikes the monograph Owning Our Voices: Vocal Discovery in the Wolfsohn-Hart Tradition, which was published by Routledge in 2021 as a part of the Voice Studies series, edited by Konstantinos Thomaidis and Ben Macpherson.
As well as an academic, Campbell is also a theatre-maker. He directed and performed the one-man performance Black Rivers (2018), which toured extensively over the 2018-2019 period and was performed across the UK, Denmark and Brazil. In 2018, Campbell joined the nomadic laboratory Cross Pollination, founded by Marije Nie and Adriana La Selva. He has continued to collaborate with the platform since then, performing in the hybrid online performance La Petite Mort (2020) and taking part in pedagogical and community-based activities carried out in Denmark, Belgium, Portugal and the UK. Campbell has developed two work demonstrations in dialogue with Cross Pollination: The Magpie’s Nest (2021) and The Affective Dramaturgy of the Voice (2022). The latter toured the UK, Portugal, Brazil and Germany from 2022-2025.
Campbell’s pedagogy and research is international in scope. He is an Associate Academic and Guest Artist on the POTA (Practising the Odin Teatret Archive) project, developed at Ghent University (Belgium) and is a Contributing Academic to Pedagogies, Processes and Archives of Presence, a research project developed in collaboration with LUME Teatro, a theatre group and research centre based at the State University of Sao Paulo (Brazil). From 2022-2023, he collaborated on two intensive summer sessions on Wolfsohn-Hart Voice Work in France alongside Margaret Pikes, teaching advanced voice practitioners from the UK, France, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and Malta. In 2022, Campbell was a Visiting Lecturer at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), carrying out research, teaching and community outreach activities. In 2023, he spent a six-month period at the same institution, developing postdoctoral research into Brazilian Third Theatre.
Associate Actor (she / her)
Eva has been dancing since she was 4 years old and the rigour of this discipline has never left her body or her work. She is excited by the potential of creating performances outside of ‘traditional’ performance spaces and since 2006 Eva has been producing her own performances inspired by the Cuentacuentos (storytelling) tradition. Eva has created ten performances to date: Zapominać=Zabić (2006) Nosotro$ollE (2007) Mujeres-Kobiety (2008), Me too (…I want to be an Almodovar girl) (2009) Art. 182 ust.1-3 kc (2009), ¡¡¡Oooooleee!!! (2012), Rayuela (2014), Todo Cambia (2014), Christmas Tales (2016), With Wine, About Wine / Z winem o winie (2017).
Eva regularly runs workshops in dance, storytelling, and TIE throughout Poland: i.e. the Puppet Theatre (Poznan), Off Opera (Poznan), STOP-KLATKA Association of Drama Practitioners (Warsaw), Imaginarium, One World Association (Poznan) and in many primary and secondary schools.
Eva teaches Spanish at the Institute of Linguistics (UAM), where since 1999 she organizes with her students an annual story telling event and since 2006 the Story Festival ‘Una Semana de Cuento’.
In 2018, she directed the ” Five Worlds Project”, the closing concert of the Days of Cultural Diversity at UAM, Poznan. Heartburn is Eva’s first production with Cosmino.
Associate Actor (she / her)
Ash Willison is an international multi-media artist and performer. She studied theatre in the USA and Russia, and recently completed her MFA in Berlin where she now lives and works collaboratively with artists and communities to create and perform stories. Her many-layered practices in dramaturgy, writing, performance and line art are all grounded in the exploration of movement and embodiment.
Recent work includes Band Practice musical comedy duo (Performing Arts Festival Berlin “Bar Whatever” 2022, Edinburgh Fringe Festival Bob’s Blundabus 2022, Berlin International Clown Festival 2022, 48hrs Neukolln 2022), Lost and Founds (Dogchild Theatre residency in Shaar HaAmakim), Diary of Hole (The Knast, 2022), and continued appearances in variety and cabaret-style performances. Other work includes leading workshops with Platypus Theatre and working with Cottonwood Agile Learning Center to create new shows and stories with young learners.
Ash is assisting on the Under the Starry Sky project and researching and devising for a new Cosmino Production planned for 2024.
Associate Actor (she / they)
Lisa is a theater maker, actor and Singer for the US and Germany. She works in theater, film and Kabarett. Her formal training consists of a BA in Acting from the Institute of the Arts Barcelona and an MA in Devised Theatre and Performance from Arthaus Berlin (LISPA).
Recent work as a Theatre maker includes Band Practice musical comedy duo (Performing Arts Festival 2022, Edinburgh Fringe Festival Bob’s Blundabus 2022, Berlin International Clown Festival 2022, 48hrs Neukölln 2022), Lost and Founds (Dogchild Theatre residency in Shaar HaAmakim, Israel) and “Bar Whatever” (Performing Arts Festival 2022).
As an actor, some of her theatrical work has included roles such as: Olga, Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Abigail, in Arthur Miller’s Crucible, Hecuba in Euripides Trojan Women, Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as well as in Film: Abigail in “A Matter of Causality”(2019), which won Oniros Film Award Best Ensemble.
She has also worked as a facilitator with young, non English/German speakers with the English Theater Frankfurt and Stagecoach School.
Lisa is assisting on the Under the Starry Sky project and researching and devising for a new Cosmino Production planned for 2024.
Artist, Graphic Designer (she / her)
Jo Johnston, originally from the UK, is now based in Berlin. Jo studied at the Birmingham College of Art and finds inspiration in every walk of life. You can visit Jo’s website here.
Jo curates a joint project with Marcel Kröner called ”The Little Window Galerie”. Allegedly the smallest art gallery in Berlin, each month one artwork from a diverse range of artists is exhibited in a “Schaufenster”. The ‘little window’ is on the busy Berliner Strasse in Pankow, Berlin for everyone to enjoy as they pass by. Jo is passionate about finding ways to release and encourage creativity and works with children and young people on a daily basis.
Jo’s has created artwork for two Cosmino productions, Dreams Die Hard and Heartburn.
