Meet Our Team
Hitcher Encounters is led by two individualistic women with a shared passion for interactive theatre and a strong drive to create pervasive, experimental work. Through our company journey, we hope to branch out and explore more avenues of immersive work that caters to our individual interests. As we do so, we also wish to collaborate with other artists.
Arathi Suresh | Artistic Director & Producer
‘I am a storyteller. I always have been. From narrating bedtime stories that my parents told me back to them, to acting out Indian myths during my training in classical dances, to designing and orchestrating ‘The Labyrinth Project’ with my Co-Artistic Directors.’
Arathi comes from a traditional theatre and dance background with a wealth of cultural performance experience in both India and Oman. Born in India, raised in Oman and now living in Leeds, Arathi Suresh is an Indian Classical Dancer who recently found herself passionately immersed in bespoke, interactive performances. Being truly enamoured by the power of stories and its ability to evoke emotions in people, she aspires to create authentic productions that remind today’s world of the significance of true human connection.
Co-Founder of Hitcher Encounters
Hetty Bater | Artistic Director & Producer
Co-Founder of Hitcher Encounters
‘Our audiences are such a goldmine of imagination and storytelling. You can create the most thrilling and unexpected stories from their vivid imagination, why would we not use that?
For me the utmost important part of a Hitcher Encounters experience is the way the audience feels the second the show ends. You should hopefully feel exhausted, a little in shock maybe, but above all exhilarated. I love the idea of being whisked away into a thriller or a fantasy novel, where you approach the next step with a nervous excitement, even though the control lies in your hands. This is what I believe Hitcher Encounters is, a new way of telling stories with each individual audience member at the heart of every thought, utterance and encounter.
I specialise in one-to-one interactions in theatre performances, having worked on several one-to-one digital shows. I am very excited to expand my practise out into in-person shows and bring each audience member a unique experience.
