Volcano Theatre Company

Who we are

We are a small, busy organisation with a distinctive culture. Working with us is very different from working in a large corporation or institution. Our job roles are varied and flexible, with a high degree of autonomy. Everyone has challenging, specialist aspects to their job which come with a high level of individual responsibility, and everyone does a share of the everyday stuff like making the tea or tidying up. It’s a workplace that suits people who want to work co-operatively – contributing their own ideas but also listening to others, sharing work equitably and playing to individual strengths. We do a lot of different kinds of work, of which creating original performance is the centre. Much of our work is aimed at young people. Theatre-making, for us, sits at the centre of a network of social and cultural practices rooted in our home city and reaching out through Wales, the UK, Europe and beyond.

Volcano is a grassroots, independent organisation of unconventional origins. The energy and urgency of the company’s work owes much to the backgrounds of its founders, who came from working-class families in Merthyr Tydfil, East London, and Swansea, and were drawn together by class consciousness, counterculture and an attraction to extremity and risk. Our work has diversified, and the company’s founding artists have become more established, but it is important to us to maintain our ability to swim against the tide. This, in our view, requires a new generation of talent that is likely to come from outside the mainstream. This is why we want to attract new people who come from all kinds of social background and career pathway, and not just those who progress through conventional routes into careers in the arts.