We are GymJam Theatre.
Not like pyjama ‘jim-jams’.
More Like a creative workout and Like having a jam.
A creative space & outlet to Feel the freedom to make mistakes and play.
Or we can be your favourite jam on toast, whatever you prefer.
GymJam are an award-winning, neurodivergent-led physical theatre company. We tell unexpected stories in unexpected places, in bold and collaborative ways, blending clowning, beatboxing, puppetry, integrated design and more! We challenge theatrical norms and create dynamic audience experiences. We are passionate advocates for neurodivergent artists and audiences, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity are at the heart of our work.
Hello there,
Meet Our Team
Gavin Maxwell
Artistic Director
Gavin is a neurodivergent Theatre-Maker and Movement Director, and the Co-Artistic Director of GymJam Theatre. In 2023, he directed Forward for GymJam, a co-creation and participation project in collaboration with the Lyric Hammersmith and QPR Football Club. Gavin also co-directed Anthropocene: The Human Era, an OFFIE-winning choose-your-own-adventure film produced by GymJam Theatre in co-production with Oxford Playhouse, which was made in 2022.
Gavin completed The Boy on the Roof tour with Vamos Theatre in 2024 and continues to work with the company in an associate role. He delivers mask workshops in various settings and performs as part of Vamos' walkabout offer. In addition, he co-created and piloted a new training workshop, Empathising with ADHD, with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).
A passionate advocate for neurodivergent artists, Gavin champions work made through a neurodivergent lens, ensuring that kindness, compassion, and agency are central to the creative process. He also contributed to the Every Brain document, shared with theatres nationally, offering guidelines and support on how to best support and work with neurodivergent artists.
In 2023, Gavin was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from the Arts Council to investigate making and creating work as a neurodivergent artist. This opportunity has allowed him to further explore and develop his unique creative process and approach to theatre-making.
He is also continuing his longstanding collaboration with Frantic Assembly, contributing to projects globally. Gavin co-directed Frantic’s flagship outreach project Ignition in 2019 and 2022, and served as Associate Director for the company’s 2021 production of I Think We Are Alone.
Gavin holds an MA in Collaborative Theatre Making from Coventry University and is a graduate of the East 15 Contemporary Theatre course.
gavin@gymjamtheatre.com
William Townsend
Co-Founder
William is one of the Co-Founders of GymJam. He ran and managed GymJam alongside Gavin for 6 years. He stepped down as Co-Artistic Director in 2025.
He is currently working as a freelance physical theatre artist, movement director, and humanistic therapist.
He has worked and collaborated around the UK and EU as an artist, co-leading GymJam’s projects such as their international collaboration with DOGMA in Milan, Inverness and London. William’s work is always linked to human stories, and he has collaborated on shows tackling subjects such as the refugee crisis, male mental health and suicide, trans and queer homelessness, the climate crisis, and he has toured or taught in the UK, EU, Norway, and Australia.
As a creative he is fascinated in movement that speaks with a depth words can’t. His attention to what lies underneath enables stories to emerge. Will’s training is in European ensemble physical theatre, and he integrates his wellbeing practice into his artistic practice.
As a therapist and wellbeing practitioner, he currently practices at 8AKP in Cambridge, and with local charity services in Cambridge such as Cogwheel Counselling.
Meet Our Associate Artists
Rachel Mary
Emilie Largier
And her company, Ruckle Theatre
Bar Groisman
And her company, Sababa Co.
Michael Lynch
And his company, Project Lockout
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Risha Silvera trained with Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company.
Theatre
Includes Black Women Dating White Men at Drayton Arms; Jack Frost for Moon on a Stick; and Starcrazy for Miracle Theatre. As a puppetry performer, work includes The Hatchling for the Queen’s Jubilee; and Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Athletes Welcome Ceremony.
TV
Includes This is Going to Hurt.
Film
Short films include Anthropocene: The Human Era.
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Michael is Artistic Director of Project Lockout, a performer and Associate Filmmaker of Frantic Assembly.
Specialising in movement direction, he graduated BA Physical Theatre at East 15 Acting School (2019) and Frantic Assembly’s Ignition project back in 2015. Since founding Project Lockout, he has been both director and movement director for company shows and digital projects since establishing itself in 2017; he has also led workshops for Oxford University (2018) and headed movement direction at Theatre Royal Stratford East (2019) for their National Connections company.
Michael believes in empowering people through movement practice in conjunction with freewriting; supporting this belief through the creation of short art documentaries from company workshops.
As a performer he toured with Justice In Motion in On Edge, a parkour performance piece highlighting the issue of modern day slavery. This year he directed and filmed 30 dance-narrative videos and a short film for their Moving Together project.
Often seen wearing a hat.
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Emilie Largier is the artistic director of Ruckle Theatre, and a French, queer & neurodivergent theatre-maker, performer and practitioner / workshop facilitator as well as a support worker.
After several years working as a Costume Maker & Designer, she trained in acting, physical theatre and dance in London. She studied acting at The Salon Collective and graduated in 2020 from Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company. Since then, she regularly keeps training with Ensemble based theatre companies such as Theatre Re, GymJam Theatre, Temper Theatre and recently Frantic Assembly, to name only but a few. She also works for screen. Credits include: Silk City ft Ellie Goulding, Heartstopper (Season 1), The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself.
In her own words : “I strongly believe in theatre as a transformative experience. I want to make radical theatre, challenging societal norms & (re)explore inclusive theatre practices empowering people, from artists to audiences.”
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Bar is a Choreographer and Movement Director based in Cambridge, UK. She first trained at DanceEast Centre for Advanced training and the National Youth Dance Company, before graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2019 with first-class honours degree. During this time she worked as a performer with many established artists and organisations including Protein Dance, Michael Keegan-Dolan (Teac Damsa), Joss Arnott, Sharon Watson, Tim Casson (Casson & Friends) and Ruby Portus at the Sadler’s Wells Young Associate Programme.
Bar founded Sababa Co. in 2019 – a contemporary dance theatre company creating physical and theatrical dance works that push the boundaries between movement, text, music, and set. Through her work, she endeavours to share personal insights into everyday human struggles, creating a platform to tackle undervalued and under highlighted issues. Current production ‘Coiled Up’.
Her choreographic work includes: ‘Aize Balagan’ performed at the Resolution Festival at The Place, ‘Coiled Up’ funded R&D by Arts Council England and ‘Chameleon Life’ for the Sommarlund Arts Festival in Lund, Sweden.
She has Movement Directed for Award Winning Edinburgh Fringe show ‘This Is Not A Show About Hong Kong’, OFFIE nominated show ‘In This Smoking Chaos’, Junction Young Company’s production ‘Re-do’ and Vault festival running one woman show ‘SAD-VENTS’.
Bar is a placement trustee on the Sadler’s Wells Board of Trustees, sits on the National youth Dance Company’s Young Person’s Board and is an Associate Artist with award-winning company GymJam Theatre.
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Rachel is a neurodivergent theatre maker, writer and performance poet with ADHD. She trained as an actor (classical, physical, comical, ridicule), then developed her own work as a freelance Artist, devising, directing, founding and growing a theatre company, until eventually buckling under the weight of all the secret admin no-one seems to talk about. But now the truth is out.
Full-throttle burnout
a couple of years since
had her hunker down in a bunker for a bit
diagnosed in 1997, ADHD wasn’t something you admit
especially for girls, they saidkeep your head down, wear this mask, you’ll probably grow out of it
anyway, she didn’tSO
Now you know
Way back when, Rachel made highly-physical theatre shows
Celebrating stories of communities she knows
Whose life and truth and humour brought the joy out in her
ThoughShe always wondered what would happen
If she put the same love in her own
The time has come to tell it now
Rachel’s story
Listen close
You’ll get it from the lion’s mouth
We are incredibly proud to have our Associate Artists as part of our team.
We want to champion their work, their companies, and their ethos in the industry.
If you want to learn more about them, or get in touch with them,
click their name, or read about them above!
What does being an Associate Artist mean?
We are interested in providing our Associate Artists with time to connect, to ask questions, to reflect, and focus on whatever part of their practice they want to work on with us.
Whether it is about negotiating funding applications, company guidance, or having a sweat with us.
We offer opportunities, support, and mentorship in the direction they want to head in.
