Our Story
'There was a star danced and under that was I born.'
- Beatrice from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing
RhapsodAic was founded on the principle that the arts should be accessible to everyone. The arts can build confidence, fuel imagination and nurture communities; providing opportunities for communication and connection whilst celebrating the unique contribution each individual can make. With Shakespeare at the company’s heart, RhapsodAic aims to provide a platform for every star to dance.
Where We're Starting and Why?
RhapsodAic began with a love of literature, theatre, education and storytelling, shaped by years of working with young people with a wide range of additional needs and stories. That experience helped form one of the principles at the heart of RhapsodAic: people should not have to fit themselves around the arts; the arts should offer everyone a place to belong.
Our early work has a particular focus on accessible Shakespeare, creative writing and performance. We create abridged and adapted Shakespeare texts, educational resources and workshops designed to give schools, youth groups and communities flexible ways into literature and creativity.
But RhapsodAic was never intended to be only about Shakespeare, or even only about education.
Stories at the heart of RhapsodAic
Stories and storytelling are at the centre of many art forms. At RhapsodAic we embrace stories, and where better to start than with one of the greatest storytellers of them all?
With Shakespeare at its heart, RhapsodAic is determined, as it grows, to explore many forms of storytelling.
We are always looking for new ways to tell stories.
That is why writing and publishing are an important part of RhapsodAic too.
Alongside our educational and performance work, RhapsodAic provides a home for original writing and publishing.
Through our writers and Associate Artists, we want to support stories created for the joy of reading as well as work designed for classrooms and stages.
Accessibility isn't only about making existing art easier to reach. It is also about creating more ways for people to tell stories, encounter new voices and discover forms of expression that speak to them.
We want to build an organisation that brings together writing, publishing, theatre, music, performance, education and visual creativity — alongside forms of expression and collaboration we probably haven't discovered yet. A place where artists can create. Where people can participate. Where stories can move between page, stage, classroom, concert hall and whatever comes next.
We don't know exactly what RhapsodAic will look like years from now, and that is rather the point. We want to remain curious, collaborative and open to unexpected opportunities.
Meet the Artists
Georgie Cockerill
— Founder & Artistic Director
Georgie is an English Literature graduate, Shakespeare specialist, educator, writer, musician and founder of RhapsodAic. She holds an MA in Shakespeare and Creativity from the Shakespeare Institute and spent six years teaching English within specialist SEN education, developing creative and adaptable approaches to literature, writing and performance.
Her work with RhapsodAic brings those worlds together: a lifelong love of the arts, specialist experience in inclusive education and a slightly stubborn conviction that Shakespeare — and creativity more broadly — belongs to everybody.
Rosamund Bloom
Associate Artist
Rosamund Bloom is an author and Associate Artist with RhapsodAic, representing the company's growing work in original fiction, storytelling and publishing.
Specialising in fantasy, mythology and imaginative world-building, Rosamund creates stories that explore people, relationships and the complicated spaces between right and wrong. Her work demonstrates another way in which RhapsodAic's central philosophy can take shape: not through adapting an existing story or delivering a workshop, but through creating new worlds and stories for readers to discover.