Jeremy James Taylor

In August 2008 Jeremy James Taylor took Hiawatha! to the Edinburgh stage, and it has since been invited to be part of a new festival in Lodz in Poland in October 2009.

One reviewer for the Guardian wrote that Taylor's Hiawatha! “gave the Fringe one of its best children's shows this year” and praised the “meticulous rehearsal process” which was evident in “every aspect of the show”. In particular, it was the “strikingly visual and incessantly physical” style which drew the attention, where the cast was used to create stunning scenes of mountains, forests and camp fires.

The production is based on Longfellow's poem of the same name, and it was Taylor's challenge to bring out the poem's rhythm in his production. Tribal dances lent themselves to this, and a series of dances in the production was very effective, such that it “accentuates the poem's rhythm so intensely that by the end it resonates through the audience”.