Jim Johnson (theatre-maker/musician)

Jim Johnson, born in 1971 in Neston, Cheshire, is a theatre maker and musician. He is one of the 300,500 best unsigned songwriters in the country according to a reliable source. Between 2003 and 2006, the period in which the theatre was closing down, he was Education Officer at the Gateway Theatre in Chester. During this time he wrote, directed and produced productions for both main house and studio, including Of Mice and Men, Jane Eyre, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Wind in the Willows, and Romeo and Juliet, as well as his wholly unoriginal play with self-penned songs entitled Girls Next Door. During this period he also closed down another formerly successful theatre project - the Cheshire County Youth Theatre directing Edward Bond's Arcade. Somehow, in 2006 he was appointed Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Peshkar Productions in Greater Manchester, often working with producer Bryan Savery. He is vice chair of the board of trustees for Collective Encounters Theatre For Social Change in Liverpool. .