the inƒorming perƒorming company 
is 
Edmund Pegge and Richard Potter. 

Edmund, is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, has been a professional actor for many years in Australia, Britain and America. 

Richard is a graduate of Flinders University and the University of Adelaide, with a professional career in teaching, broadcasting, journalism, acting and writing, in Australia and Europe. 


the inƒorming perƒorming company was established in 1998 in order to tour schools with a variety of poetry performances and conducted creative writing workshops with students at all levels.
They used their skills and expertise in writing and performance of literature to facilitate the development of creative writing through poetry. A key element of their methodology was to read back what the students had written. It astonished their ears to hear their words lifted off the page with such an aural effect.

Here is a remarkable testimonial of their work by the infamous polymath Bob Ellis.

“There must have been a moment when a cave-dweller first understood that a mark chipped on stone could signify a meaning, and writing was born. Or when he raised his voice in a particular way, and song was born.
For some years now Ed Pegge and Richard Potter have been seeking, and igniting a similar moment in the lives of school children. It is the moment when the mightiness of the spoken word is made known to them, and the joy inherent in exploring it enraptures their young minds.
After that moment, they learn more easily to read, and they write, and read aloud, and recite, and act and sing with pleasure. Unlocking that moment has raised them out of cave man condition into the beginnings of civilisation and humanist enlightenment.
Pegge and Potter believe that children’s response to poetry goes back to the pre-verbal years of babies, whose experimental burblings are a search, through rhythm and sound, for meaning. Their school room engagements, using Banjo Paterson, Dylan Thomas, Yevtushenko, Mary Gilmour, Kenneth Slessor and, wonderfully, poems composed by children themselves, have accelerated literacy in even the mentally challenged, and love of reading everywhere. Spoken English becomes a new playground, its cadenced rhymes new stairways, new Everests to conquer. And the wonder on small faces of hearing their own words read, and sung, by formidable theatrical performers, and there after performing themselves, is a sea change into new being worth witnessing.”             Bob Ellis

They have worked together and individually in over 180 schools over a period of 12 years mostly in South Australia. They were invited to perform and speak at the inaugural Hong Kong International Literary Festival in 2001.

 Edmund has also toured the UK conducting workshops in Libraries based on his book, How to Enjoy Reading Aloud to Young Children  which sold over 30,000 copies.

 Richard and Edmund have twice been short listed for the South Australian Arts and Education Ministers' Arts Educator of the Year Award. They have appeared a number of times in the Adelaide Fringe Festival. and have twice (2002, 2003) been the key note presenters at the Penola Writers Festival.

For a further information please follow this link to the Informing Performing web site and/or Richard Potter's.