Sarah is a Freelance Director, Dramaturg, Writer, and Producer working across Theatre, Film, and TV.
Formerly Associate Director and Creative Development Coordinator at Theatr Cymru (Welsh language National Theatre), she has collaborated with companies including the Sherman Theatre, Theatr Clwyd, Bristol Old Vic, Wales Millennium Centre and the National Theatre. Her work spans new writing, reimagined classics, children’s theatre, dance, outdoor arts, site-specific and multidisciplinary projects, with a focus on thought-provoking, heartfelt storytelling that champions underrepresented voices and accessible arts.
Recent highlights include directing Mererid Hopwood’s Welsh translation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, featuring original music composed and performed live by Gwenno, working as Staff Director to Dominic Cooke at the National Theatre, and developing a bilingual dance-theatre piece in Welsh and BSL. She has extensive experience nurturing writers and artists, leading new writing and directing initiatives, and was mentored by Kate Leys and Anna Seifert-Speck through a script development course with BBC Writersroom.
She has directed an award-winning short fiction film and a short documentary for BBC Wales, as well as receiving a Ffilm Cymru Beacon Development Award to develop a new short film. Experienced in both lecturing and workshop facilitation, she has taught and led creative sessions across universities, schools, and community settings.
Originally from rural mid-Wales, she is inspired by nature, music, motherhood and Welsh history, culture, and identity, weaving these themes throughout her work. Now returning to freelancing after starting a family, she has also begun working as a writer and is currently developing an immersive show for babies and their caregivers, a new play about the joy and challenges of early motherhood through music and an outdoor promenade theatre production exploring the Earth’s 4.6 billion history.
Reviews
“Y Cylch Sialc (The Caucasian Chalk Circle) is remarkable and credit must be lavished on director Sarah Bickerton...This exuberant, lively and amusing production is an ensemble of the very highest standard.”
Wales Arts Review
‘affecting and energetic Brechtian staging’
The Stage
"The adjectives 'electrifying' and 'thrilling' are used to praise, from time to time, but not often to describe a literal impact on stage! In that regard, Sarah Bickerton's vision in directing the cast must be praised"
Arts Scene Wales
“…one of the best things I’ve seen at an Eisteddfod since many years, this funny, scorching drama…it was truly excellent”
Radio Cymru (Radio Wales)
“Nansi has been one of the highlights of the theatrical year. There was as much humour in the script as there was angst and it was beautifully acted...a great spectacle…director Sarah Bickerton must be handed great credit.”
North Wales Daily Post
Music, Baby
A new original play in development exploring the joys and challenges of early motherhood through music
in partnership with Saffron Music and Mothers for Mothers
“The play really stood out…an incredibly well observed look at matrescence, which manages to capture the overwhelming nature of it both in the writing but also the form,”
Royal Court Theatre
Readers feedback:
“A solid one-woman character-led play…this play has the potential to be really exciting and has some great elements to it.”
Theatre 503
“Reading ‘Music, Baby’ felt cathartic, life-affirming, and so relatable. The character’s journey and experience of early motherhood resonated deeply with me. I laughed and cried and nodded in recognition the whole way through. I can’t wait to see how Sarah develops the play further”
Melangell Dolma, Writer / Actress / Director and new mother
“Beautifully captures the rawness and complexity of what it’s like actually being a mother in that first year of becoming… interesting form, sparky writing and hilarious theatricality”
Jo Newman, Director / Dramaturg and new mother
Blindsided by motherhood, we follow a new mother’s journey from playing classical piano to electronic music-making as a means of expressing and understanding her changing self. As she unravels and slowly pieces herself back together, electronic music opens up a new multifaceted, multidimensional musical landscape; an exciting way to explore her matrescence through sound. A funny, hopeful celebration of how connection and music can offer a way out of the darkest places.
‘She certainly has rhythm. I copy her and bounce along. We smile.
And I think to myself, this music is nice, but somehow not me anymore.’
About the show:
Director: Jo Newman
Dramaturg: Caroline Horton
Music making workshops with new mothers in partnership with Saffron Music and Mothers for Mothers will feed the further development of the play
I bump into her on the street.
Shit.
Awkward. Just walk past her and pretend you haven’t seen her.
It’s hospital, next door bed Mum.
Just get past her. She won’t recognise me.
I didn’t reply. She messaged me twice out of the blue last week asking if I wanted to go to some baby sensory bollocks.
Getting much sleep?
God I must look rough.
A little more I guess. You?
Yes she’s sleeping through the night. Finally.
Annoying. I don’t want to bloody know.
She looks like she’s got it together. Baby all dressed up and she’s dressed up...and...right
But not gonna to lie, she says - Matrescence is fucking mad isn’t it!
I have no idea what she means. But I like that she swears.
I don’t know what to say, so I pretend that I know what she means and laugh
Yeah I know...and there’s a silence and it’s too long and feels awkward, oh shit so
Sorry gotta go now, I say I’ve got a parcel to pick up because I can’t think what I should be saying...
I’ll text you, she says.
Yeah, great.
Once she disappears round the corner,
I Google it.
Matrescence