Young Actors Studio
The Team 2010/11
Erica Eirian - YAS Course Leader
Erica trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and has
worked in professional theatre, radio and television for the past
30 years. She combines her part-time role as YAS Course Leader with
her career as a professional actor and theatre director. She is
currently filming a new five-part drama for BBC Daytime TV.
As YAS Course Leader she is responsible for creating and
maintaining an engaging and challenging learning environment for
all our students and for the recruitment of the YAS Team.
Anna Fonge - YAS Administrator
Anna is a graduate of the University of Birmingham where she
studied for a BMus. Anna is the first point of contact for our
students and their families and is responsible for providing YAS
with administrative support.
YAS Tutors
YAS tutors are experienced specialist teachers and workshop
facilitators as well as professional practitioners. They are called
upon as and when YAS Acting Courses and YAS Theatre Workshop
demand. Meet some of the tutors who are working with us during the
academic year 2009/10.
Matthew Bailey - Voice and
Acting Tutor
Matthew has worked variously as a performer, a musical director, a
director, a voice consultant and an education animateur for a wide
range of arts organisations in Wales and England. In recent years
these have included: music organisations (such as the BBC National
Orchestra of Wales and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society);
drama organisations (like BBC Radio Drama Wales, the Unicorn
Theatre [London], the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Sherman
Theatre, the National Theatre, Moving Being); and training
organisations (for example, the Royal Welsh College of Music &
Drama and Loughborough University). He has worked on vocal
technique with students as varied as young offenders in prison in
Aylesbury and TV presenters in BBC Wales. Nowadays he works
principally for the Cardiff-based crime-reduction charity Safer
Wales.
Julie Barclay - YAS Theatre Workshop Group
Tutor
Julie trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. In
2006 she joined the Drama Department staff, teaching Contemporary
Text Studies to BA Acting students. She has worked extensively in
repertory theatre and for BBC radio/television. She will shortly be
directing a production of A Kind of Alaska by Harold
Pinter and appearing in The Censor by Anthony Neilson with
The Faction Collective at Chapter Arts Centre. She also works for
Theatr Ffynnon using actor training techniques to help adults with
learning difficulties and physical challenges into employment.
Isaac Blake - Movement Tutor
Isaac completed a 3 year undergraduate Diploma Dance Theatre Course
at Laban and also attended The Martha Graham School of Contemporary
Dance, New York. Whilst at Laban, Isaac experienced working with
various artists and companies including Adventures in Motions
Pictures (AMP), DV8 and Rambert. Since Laban, Isaac has worked with
Ragdoll, the BBC, Chapter Arts Centre, Arts Council, FIND, S4C and
Local Housing and Education Authorities in and around Wales and
London.
Jain Boon - Acting and Audition
Technique Tutor
Jain trained at the Royal Welsh
College of Music and Drama. She has toured extensively with,
amongst others, Theatr Powys, New Perspectives and Quicksilver
Theatre. She has also played Trafford Tanzi with Durham
Theatre Company touring to bloodthirsty wrestling fans in the North
East. Jain is the Assistant Director of Gwent Theatre, one of a
Wales-wide network of eight professional Theatre in Education
companies and has worked as an actor and director with the company
for seventeen years. She also teaches and directs with the Gwent
Young People's Theatre.
Dick Bradnum - Acting Tutor
Dick Bradnum read English at Birmingham University and then went on
to train at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the
Institute of Education, UCL. He was a founder member of The Custard
Factory Theatre Co. Dick's acting credits include Romeo and
Juliet and Macbeth (English Shakespeare Company),
The Office and My Hero (BBC TV). He has appeared
in many radio dramas, and was for seven years a regular MC on the
comedy circuit. His most recent performance was as Malvolio in
Twelfth Night at York Theatre Royal,a performance the Yorkshire
Post described as "a masterclass." He has always worked with young
people,lecturing and teaching. Being around young people
occasionally compensates for his having very little hair and being
middle-aged.
Beatrice Brooke - Voice Tutor
Beatrice gained a first class degree in Italian and Linguistics
from Manchester University, and worked as a storyteller in a London
school before going on to train, again at Manchester, as a teacher
of drama and modern languages. It was during this training that she
was introduced to the world of voice, and she resolved to go to
Central, where she graduated from the Postgraduate Diploma in Voice
in 1996. She has worked at several of the London drama schools,
including Arts Ed, Mountview, C.S.S.D. and RADA, and at The Oxford
School of Drama, in between having her three children. More
recently, her work has also included running singing groups for
women, and music and singing workshops for pre-school and reception
aged children. Beatrice has teaching experience spanning 18 years,
and her students have ranged from 2 to 80.
Caroline Bunce - Audition Technique
Tutor
Paul Clements - Acting Tutor
Simon Harris - Acting and Audition
Technique Tutor
Simon is is a dramatist and theatre
director. Simon trained at RADA and worked as an actor for twelve
years with many of the country’s leading directors and companies.
His first play Badfinger premiered at The Donmar and he
has been under commission at the National Theatre and Soho Theatre.
Until 2007, Simon was Artistic Director of the national company for
new writing in Wales – the multi-award-winning Sgript Cymru, where
he was responsible for a rolling programme of new work including
over twenty productions. Recently, Simon has been writing for
television - an original drama series called Crash for the
BBC and Tony Jordan’s Red Planet productions. In 2009, Simon won a
highly-prized Creative Wales Award to enable him to develop new and
innovative theatre projects. Simon is also a Fellow on the
prestigious Clore Leadership Programme - the first to be selected
from Wales.
Buddug Verona James - Acting Through Song
Tutor
An acclaimed mezzo soprano as well as an actress, Buddug trained at
the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and National Opera Studio.
She has worked with Almeida Opera, Cleveland Opera (USA), English
Pocket Opera, English Touring Opera, Glyndebourne, Lanternhouse
International, Netherlands Opera, Opera Atelier (Canada), Opera
Circus, Opera North, Opera Northern Ireland, Opera Theatre Company
(Dublin), Opera 80, Operavox Cartoons, Mid Wales Opera, Music
Theatre Wales, Siobhan Davies Dance Company, Theatr Genedlaethol
Cymru and theatr peña. An extensive concert repertoire includes
Mozart's Ch'io mi scordi di te with the BBC Welsh Symphony
Orchestra and Jane Glover, Elijah at the Royal National
Eisteddfod with Owain Arwel Hughes, Verdi Requiem with Malcolm
Archer at Wells Cathedral and Dvorak Mass at the Auditorio
Nacional, Madrid. In collaboration with Cardigan’s Theatr Mwldan
and the Arts Council of Wales, Buddug has commissioned two
one-woman shows; Castradiva by Mark Ryan and A Knife
at the Opera by Chris Harris – both plays have toured to
numerous theatres and festivals in the UK and Ireland including
Edinburgh and Buxton. Buddug recently premiered Find Me a
Primitive Man – a revue featuring classics from the Great
American Songbook accompanied by jazz musicians Paula Gardiner,
Richard Roberts and Paul Smith. Since 1999 Buddug has been a vocal
tutor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has
directed Pirates of Penzance, Ruddigore, Acis
and Galatea, Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus in the
Underworld and Hercules for RWCMD. In 2001 Buddug was
honoured with the Druidic White Robe of Gorsedd y Beirdd at the
National Eisteddfod. She is also a Welsh Singers Competition
Winner.
Deborah Light - Movement Tutor
Deborah works freelance as a contemporary dancer, choreographer and
teacher. Her work has recently been recognised through receipt of a
2009 – 2010 Creative Wales award from the arts council. Among
others she has performed for Welsh Independent Dance, Sean Tuan
John, Sherman Cymru, Diversions Dance House, Institute of Crazy
Dancing, Polish Dance Theatre and Transitions Dance Company. She is
developing a strong solo performance practice and this work has
been presented both nationally and internationally. She has also
received choreographic commissions from Welsh Independent Dance,
University of Salford and Polish Dance Theatre. Deborah graduated
from Laban Centre London in 2001 with a BA (hons) and PGdip.
Jennifer MacKerras – Alexander Technique
Tutor
Jennifer is a singer, recorder player and mother. She has worked in
professional theatre as a director and workshop leader,
particularly with children. She first studied the Alexander
Technique when strain-related injuries stopped her form working and
enjoying activities which she loved.
Yvonne Murphy - Acting and Audition
Technique Tutor
Yvonne Murphy read Drama at Manchester University and went on to
train at the RWCMD and later as a teacher of English & Drama at
The Institute of Education, UCL. Yvonne's directing credits include
Sherman Cymru, The Welsh National Opera (Max Dept), The English
Shakespeare Company (Education), The National Theatre (Education)
and BAC. Yvonne also runs Shakespeare Summer Schools, is a script
reader for Sherman Cymru and has worked as an actor in theatre, TV
and radio.
Richard Mylan - Acting for the
Camera Tutor
Philippa Reeves - Acting Through Song
Tutor
Along side her own performance work, Philippa has lectured in
singing in the Drama School of the Royal Welsh College of Music and
Drama for over seventeen years. A classically trained singer, she
has worked in Britain and Europe in a wide range of musical styles,
she has performed with the physical theatre company ELAN in Europe
and the American composer and choreographer, Meredith Monk. She has
gained a reputation for her work in contemporary music, most
recently working with the dancer Tanja Råmon and designer,
film-maker and dj, John Collingswood on a series of improvised
performances culminating in the premier of Virta at the Royal Opera
House.
Through her work as both singer and teacher she continues to
explore the notion of the interdisciplinary singer, an actor singer
who can move effortlessly between the demands of text and music,
and it is this expertise that she brings to her teaching.
Anita Reynolds - YAS Theatre Workshop Group
Tutor and Audition Technique Tutor
Anita trained at the RWCMD and has been a professional actress for
many moons now. She has appeared on various TV programmes such as
Tracy Beaker, Holby City and Doctors and
has acted in many stage shows. Anita enjoys the learning process
that comes with working with young people, and most of all, she
enjoys watching them shine.
Nicola Reynolds - Audition Technique
Tutor
Nicola trained at RWCMD and is now a professional actress with over
15 years experience in Theatre, Television, Film and Radio. Nicola
has been on the audition panel at the college for many years and is
employed as a visiting professional on various projects linked to
the BA course in Acting.
Nicola Rose - Acting Through Song
Tutor
Emma Stevens-Johnson - Voice
Tutor
Emma is a professional actress with nearly two decades of
experience. She has performed in various types of theatre and made
appearances in film and television in programmes such as The
Bill, Casualty and Crimewatch. Teaching
since 2004, she’s worked with organisations such as The Wales
Theatre Company, Script Cymru, BBC Radio Wales, Theatre Royal
(Bath), Hijinx and Barnet Dysphasia Society. With a Master in Voice
from The Central School of Speech and Drama, London, a PGCE from
Cardiff University, plus a diploma in Dramatic Art from The Oxford
School of Drama, Emma brings all this professional experience into
her work as a voice coach.
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Rebekah Davies
Rebekah trained as an actor and theatre practitioner at Rose
Bruford College of Speech and Drama and has since toured the UK in
both Musical Theatre and Theatre in Education productions. Rebekah
graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where she
studied a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Management. In addition to
working with YAS, Rebekah has worked with the Congress Youth
Theatre since the age of 18. From time to time Rebekah provides
cover as YAS Theatre Workshop Group Tutor for the 15s to 16s
group.
John Lovat
John has worked in Theatre and Education since 1977, when he helped
to found 'FairPlay', the first ever Theatre In Education company to
tour the South West of England. He first came to Wales in 1983 to
join Gwent Theatre, where he worked for many years as an actor,
director, writer and tutor. He has also worked in television and
radio and in 1996 moved into teaching. He now teaches English and
Performing Arts at Crickhowell High School and maintains his
contact with the Gwent Theatre Company by working as a freelance
tutor for the Junior Youth Theatre. John has enjoyed teaching
acting classes at YAS over the past two years and looks forward to
continuing his association in the future.
Guest Tutors 2010-2011 - to be confirmed
In addition to our tutors, we employ a number of Student
Mentors drawn from RWCMD Acting Students who assist the
YAS Team and give support and encouragement to our YAS
students:
Stephen Bisland
Naomi Everson (ex YAS Student)
Chris Gordon (ex YAS Student)
Alex Griffin-Griffiths (ex YAS Student)
Clifford Lyonette