Myette Godwyn
Actor · Puppeteer
Profile
Playing age: 55–65
Primary base: Scotland (Highland Perthshire)
Languages: English
Biography
Myette Godwyn is a puppeteer, actor/singer, writer, visual artist, director and theatre-maker with over 40 years in professional theatre. She trained as an actor at Cygnet Training Theatre in Exeter, following a degree in Expressive Arts (Fine Art and Theatre) at Brighton School of Art, and later gained an MA (Ed) in Inclusive Theatre from Middlesex University, researching inclusive approaches within the rehearsal room. She also has Childcare Learning and Development qualifications.
Myette's work increasingly focuses on puppetry, visual and object-based theatre, and theatre for children and Early Years. She has a workshop and studio in Moulin above Pitlochry. As Myette Puppets, she currently creates and delivers weekly Puppets and Play sessions for 0–5s at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, alongside writing, making and performing her own puppet shows suitable for venues of a variety of sizes. She is writing a children's adaptation of The Magic Flute, The Wee Magic Book, with the Scots Opera Project and creating and performing its puppetry, including Banjo, a character she created, and puppeteers and voices. She is also creating, writing, producing and performing her own Christmas puppet show, The Penguin's Adventure, for Dunkeld and Birnam Santa Day and has various shows available throughout the year.
From 2000–2015, Myette founded and led Whirlwind Theatre, an inclusive visual theatre company based in Lancaster that brought professional actors, musicians and theatre-makers together with up to 40 children. She wrote, adapted, directed, produced, designed and performed, with puppetry, masks and hand-painted scenery central to the company's visual style. Productions included The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch, The Selfish Giant and a SW England tour of Goldilocks and the Three ‘Blues’ Bears, which she wrote. She also wrote and performed Miners' Memories, a Millennium production for the Museum of Cannock Chase created in collaboration with Illyria Theatre Company.
Her acting career has included repertory, touring, children's theatre and visual performance. She appeared as Louise in ‘Private Lives’ at The Century Theatre, Keswick, directed by Gregory Doran, and A Doll's House, directed by Kate Raper. She toured Britain and Europe with the Palm Court Theatre Orchestra and Company, acting, singing, narrating and creating and performing full-costumed characters.
Other professional work includes Mrs Tiggywinkle and one of the Two Bad Mice in the original Alton Towers production of Peter Rabbit and Friends on ice directed by Richard Gill, later made into a short film for children's television, and Chorus Leader in Murder in the Cathedral at the Oundle International Festival. Myette has also been involved with research and development script readings, dramaturgy, and youth and children’s theatre facilitation.
Myette believes passionately that children's and Early Years theatre should be given the same artistic ambition, imagination and professional value as theatre made for adults. Her work has a distinctive visual language, bringing together handcrafted puppets, objects, movement and colour to create small theatrical worlds where ordinary things can become something unexpected. At the heart of her work is a desire to create theatre in which audiences of all ages can belong.
Professional links
Please see Myette’s website for further details and book through Ignis Artists Agency.
Other memberships: Scottish Society of Playwrights; British Guild of Puppetry.