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Back in January we announced our new Associate Company Programme for 2026- 2027, showing our significant commitment to long-term artist development and platforming LGBTQ+ and women-led work. The inaugural Associate Companies comprise of Ballet Queer and ThisEgg with their practices reflecting the values of our venue and the communities we serve. We caught up with ThisEgg’s founder, Josie Dale-Jones on all things ThisEgg and what this latest phase in our partnership with the company means to them.
Hi Josie! Could you please introduce yourself and your role at ThisEgg
Hello! My name is Josie and I ‘am’ ThisEgg. ThisEggis a company name under which I make work with a variety of artistic collaborators. This work is often, but not always, theatre. When I am working under ThisEgg, I am usually a producer, maker and performer. When I say maker, I mostly mean devising together with others. In and around the rehearsal room, this can mean taking on roles including and/or being part of writing, designing, choreographing, stage managing, directing – any aspect of putting on a production really… I guess my main role at ThisEgg is to come up with the initial idea for a project and then bring a team together around that.
Can you tell us about ThisEgg – why it was formed and what makes your work unique for audiences and the theatre landscape?
I formed ThisEgg with some friends after finishing Sixth Form College. We wanted to make and present our own work. Really, we wanted to hang out and be on stage together. We also wanted to make what we loved doing our job. I think that, all these years later, this want for fun and togetherness is still what keeps the company going. The other two things that quickly became motivators was to use the rehearsal room to learn new things and test ideas, and the theatre / stage to say something – I really do believe that making, presenting and watching theatre can be part of creating change.
Now that ThisEgg is one of Shoreditch Town Hall’s inaugural Associate Companies, what excites you most about this partnership, and how do you think it will support your work?
I really genuinely remember walking in to the building for R&D of a new ThisEgg show for the first time (it’s so grand!). I felt like the luckiest person. It would probably be the only week I ever got in the building, but I didn’t mind, I had a week in the building. So. Cool.
That was in 2016. Shoreditch Town Hall has been supporting the making of ThisEgg’s work for the last 10 years (that’s such a long time!!).
ThisEgg being one of Shoreditch Town Hall’s inaugural Associate Companies (which we are thrilled about!) is a formalization of of our ongoing partnership and trust in each other. Trust is such a mega part of the work.
Image from A Little Inquest Into What We Are All Doing Here (Alex Brenner)
Your show A Little Inquest Into What We Are All Doing Here premiered in our Spring Season in 2025. Why was Shoreditch Town Hall the perfect venue for it?
A Little Inquest Into What We Are All Doing Here is a about a show that was cancelled while it was still in rehearsal. The idea of what the show might be created a demand for it to be left unseen. It being programmed at Shoreditch Town Hall, a former civic building and a place for public discourse and debate, was an active gesture for it to remain a space for people to perform and watch work that is political. Presenting the show at Shoreditch Town Hall offered some hope for makers who want to talk openly and honestly about subjects that some institutions find too complicated to stage.
It also felt like a hugely important gesture in standing by ThisEgg, and ThisEgg’s work.
Your work often focuses on women-led stories and political or contemporary themes. Why is it important to highlight these voices and experiences in theatre today?
I think theatre is one of the places we go to figure through some of life’s big questions – to see people on stage grappling with some of the things we’re grappling with. More than that, it can be a place we can go to feel it out, theatre can help the grappling in heads move from our heads and into our hearts and our legs… or something like that. Theatre can help us remember that, despite it all, we’re all humans with stories.
Do you have a favourite corner or space in Shoreditch Town Hall?
I love love love the Council Chamber. I have been stuck in the middle of the mess of a making process in there so many times and I still love it. I’ve never been in another rehearsal room that has more than one chandelier. Have you?!
You can find out more about our Associate Companies Programme by clicking here.
You can follow ThisEgg’s work on Instagram by clicking here.
