About Us

Tiny Dragon is an innovative production company based in Newcastle Upon Tyne who bring together creative storytelling and digital entertainment to develop new, immersive events in a variety of commercial locations. Led by Mark Calvert, Matt Runham and Pippa Fox who have extensive successful experience in producing and creating theatre across all scales as well as project and event management.

The business was formed in December 2021 with the aim of shifting storytelling and production away from traditional tropes, and towards immersive entertainment designed to be enjoyed by mass, mainstream audiences.

Immersive: providing, involving, or characterised by deep absorption or immersion in an activity that takes place in a real or artificial environment.

We create physical entertainment experiences enhanced by digital technologies that blur the line between film, games and theme park attractions, developed in the North-East.

We’ve already taken over 1,200 people into space and back with Space Camp, our immersive family adventure. Over the next 18 months we’ll be developing brand new ideas that can take our audiences under the sea, on a magical sleigh ride with Santa, or be immersed in a zombie experience inspired by films and games such as 28 Days Later and Resident Evil.

Alongside our own projects, tiny dragon Productions provide consultancy work to a range arts organisations and companies focussing on business development, producing, tour booking and programming.

Meet The Team

Matt Runham has been working in theatre since 2005. He's worked as an actor, a workshop leader, a stage manager and for the last ten years as a producer. Following five years producing and programming at Curve in Leicester he moved to Newcastle to take up the role of Senior Producer for Northern Stage, setting up a new Artistic Planning team and overseeing the producing/co-producing and touring of all their shows, alongside curating their visiting programme. His work has been seen by over half a million people in the UK and internationally.

Part of the UK Theatre team who negotiated the new Writer's Guild agreements 2019 he is particularly interested in building partnerships and developing performance programmes. Notable work includes Sting’s The Last Ship and The Young 'Uns The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff.

Matt is a board member for Berwick Maltings.

Mark Calvert is a working-class theatre director and maker from the North East of England. On graduating from Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre he was an actor for over 10 years, working and touring regionally, nationally and internationally. From 2010 Mark began work in participatory arts, in schools, local HE & FE colleges, and a number of communities across the North East. Also in 2010 Mark began directing, primarily family work, for under 5s and then onto large-scale productions of classic stories.

Mark has worked across all scales of stages from studio to main houses working in new writing and devised theatre settings. He has taken work to Edinburgh and has worked with independent artists supporting their work both as a director and a dramaturg. Mark is dedicated to supporting UK culture in achieving greater socio-economic diversity and helping working-class artists build sustainable careers in the creative industries.

Pippa Fox is a Producer and Project Manager. On graduating from the University of Bedfordshire with a degree in Dance & Professional practice, Pippa taught dance before deciding to pursue a career in Arts Administration. An internship at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds led on to a role in the Programming team and the first opportunity to work as Assistant Producer. In 2015 Pippa joined internationally acclaimed physical theatre company Gecko as Project & Participation Manager. During this time, she supported the creation and national/international touring of Gecko’s productions, and led on the co-ordination of the company’s participation work. In 2019 Pippa relocated to Newcastle to become the Producer at Northern Stage; responsible for line producing Northern Stage’s in house productions, and for programming visiting work into the theatre’s three stage spaces. She is a board member for Dance City in Newcastle.