About us
Filament Theatre produces inclusive work featuring original vocal music for audiences and participants. Our shows can range from adaptations of children's books (Momo) to original music theatre (Drive Ride Walk) to our collaborative choral theatre piece, Earth Makes No Sound. The company is led by composer and choir leader, Osnat Schmool and director, Sabina Netherclift.
We work in partnership with other organisations to bring performances and participation opportunities to a wide audience. We have worked with groups from primary-aged school children to cross-generational choirs and have presented work in traditional theatre settings as well as non traditional performance spaces including hospitals, libraries, shopping centres and museums.
We work with professional performers (artists at all stages of their careers and from many different backgrounds) and run Filament Choir, a non-auditioned choir which has a wide ranging set list including original compositions. Since our formation in 2009 we have created eight shows (from pop-ups to full length performances), six lockdown films and our chorus (and now our choir) has taken part in several stand-alone events. We have worked on participatory projects in London, Oxfordshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire as well as leading choral music/movement workshops in the UK and South West and North East France.
‘Filament deliver works of absolute freshness, assurance and free imagination that genuinely take risks and push back frontiers.’
Bill Bankes Jones, Artistic Director, Tête à Tête Opera Company.
The company is an Associate Artist of Greenwich Theatre.
Filament Theatre is a registered charity. We rely on the generous support of trusts, foundations and individuals to help us reach the communities we work with and to develop our audience. We welcome donations to further our work, both performance projects and participation programmes.
Click for biographies
+ Osnat Schmool: Composer
Osnat Schmool is a composer/lyricist, choral conductor, performer and co-founder of Filament. She leads Filament's Choir which meets every Monday evening and Southbank Centre Youth Voices for 11-18 year olds
Osnat's most recent composition work includes Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Summer 2023, alongside working as a choral arranger & MD on the National Theatre's productions of The Crucible and The Welkin. She has written and co-created several shows for theatre and opera including Re:Love (Bridewell Theatre), The Thirsty Giraffe and Goldilocks (Little Angel Theatre) and all of Filament’s work to date. She arranged the UK Folk Music Award winning Lovely Molly for Sam Lee in 2016.
Osnat directed the Roundhouse Choir from 2009 until 2020. During this time, she worked with, amongst others, Angelique Kidjo, Ronnie Spector, Jamie Cullum, Auclair, The Holst Singers, Codetta, Mark Ronson & Boy George. The choir appeared on live broadcasts for BBC 6 Music festival 2020 & BBC Radio 3 as part of Voices Now festivals at The Roundhouse. She has also conducted choirs in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Big Feastival and in June 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall for Guy Garvey’s Meltdown closing performance, M.I.A.’s Meltdown Festival headline performance (2017) and at The Royal Albert Hall for Jamie Cullum’s Late Night Prom (2016). In 2022, she worked with 59 Productions, conducting Nitin Sawhney's choral score for About Us as part of **Unboxed **2022. Osnat regularly teaches music and singing to people of all ages: from her local primary school Choir in Hackney to undergraduates (Rose Bruford, RADA, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Goldsmiths).
+ Sabina Netherclift: Director
Sabina trained with Jacques Lecoq in Paris. She is a director, movement director, performer and co-founded Filament with Osnat. She is a resident artist at South Street Arts Centre for whom she co-wrote and performed in An Incomplete History of the Oxford Road (commissioned by Reading's High Street Heritage Action Zone 2024) Threads (about the women who made Britain's copy of the Bayeux Tapestry), Behind Closed Doors (staged between lockdowns in 2020/2021) The Great British Bump Off (Hexagon Theatre) and co-created Amelia (written by Benedict Sandiford) for Sitelines (South Street's award winning programme of work in unusual places). Other performance work includes, The Red Ladies, The Overcoat and The Feast During the Plague (The Clod Ensemble) Senses of Place and The Nativity (Young Vic) The Open Air Drawing Room (Eric MacLennan/touring) as well as creating movement for The Night of the Soul (RSC) and taking part in various R&D projects at the National Theatre Studio.
Her directing work includes all Filament’s work to date. Other directing work includes Believers by Catherine Dyson for Sitelines, On Track and Beach Rd (Redcape Theatre) Finding a Cure as part of In Ruins and The Labour Exchange (Sitelines / South Street Arts Centre) The Deadly Curse (Opera North Education) and Cold Hands Warm Hearts (ENO Baylis) . Work as a movement director includes The Snow Queen, Macbeth and The Last Abbot (Rabble Theatre) Cinderella and The Jungle Book (Greenwich Theatre) and Voices Now at the Roundhouse, London (featuring over 400 choir members from all over the country) Blood Drive, Re:Love and The Happiness of Fish (Bridewell Theatre Company).
She is a lecturer in Contemporary Theatre Practice at Guildford School of Acting and has taught, directed or movement directed at Mountview, Arts Ed and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Sabina has run workshops on choral music/movement for Southbank Centre, Whitechapel Gallery, Central School of Speech and Drama, Rose Bruford, Greenwich Theatre and Stratford Circus Arts Centre.