Sarah Dearlove, Graduate 2008
JUDITH POLLARD
Acting and Audition
Joint Artistic Director of The Bridge
Judith trained at Italia Conti Stage School and The London School of Dramatic Art and has worked extensively as an actress in theatre and television. Theatre credits include The Diary of Anne Frank, A Taste of Honey, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, Tartuffe, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ruffian on the Stair. Television credits include Blithe Spirit, Testament of Youth, War and Peace, Dr Who, The Onedin Line, Sentimental Education, Wives and Daughters and Little Women. As a designer her work includes productions of Fatale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter’s Tale, Road and The House of Bernarda Alba.
MARK AKRILL
Acting Methods and Voice
Joint Artistic Director of The Bridge
Mark has a degree in Drama, English and Education and studied at Hull. His credits as a director and performer include national tours of Jazz Audience, The Recruiting Sergeant and Poem. Other directing credits include Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Good and Faithful Servant, Road, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Fatale, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, The House of Bernarda Alba, Under Milk Wood and Entertaining Strangers. His most recent writing credits are Fatale and The Mystery Plays (a re-interpretation of the Medieval originals).
ALEXANDER ABBOTT
Singing and Company Administrator
Alexander Abbott studied music at Surrey University and theology at London Bible College. He has worked extensively as singer, pianist, composer, arranger and musical director with performances of his music throughout the world. In addition he has toured Canada and throughout Europe appearing on TV, radio and numerous recordings.
As a teacher he has worked at The Bridge and The Drama Centre, London as well as having numerous private pupils. His students have performed widely on stage, TV and film.
In recent years he has composed several musicals, two of which have been premiered in London venues. Two further shows are in pre-production stage. He has written the incidental music for numerous plays including several for The Bridge as well as Guildford Festival Theatre and The Stables, Wavendon. His most recent major commission is a 20 minute work for choir and orchestra to be premiered in June 2011.
ANDREW ASHENDEN
Stage Combat
Andrew has worked as a fight director over 10 year in television, film and theatre for many major including BBC Wales on the Soap POBOL Y CWM since 2006, Welsh National Opera, The National Theatre of Wales, Bristol Old Vic, Theatre Royal Bath, The Globe (touring Company), Bute Theatre Wales, Birmingham Stage Company, and Harrogate Theatre.
Andrew also works as director. Last year he directed two productions for Chapter House Theatre Company; Merlin the Magician and Romeo and Juliet. This year he directed the national tour of Beauty and the Beast.
DAVID BAUCKHAM
Voice, Accents and Dialects
David trained as a voice teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and has taught voice and accents and dialects at The Bridge for many years. He has also taught at many other drama schools, and coached actors at various theatre companies and individually.
As an actor David’s extensive theatre credits include several West End appearances, as well as roles ranging from Edward Elgar to Roald Amundsen, and most recently Lucky Eric in John Godber’s Bouncers. His many TV appearances include roles in series such as Eastenders, Inspector Morse, The Bill, The Demon Headmaster and Casualty. He has narrated several full length audio books, including Eric Clapton’s autobiography.
MARK BOWDEN
Guest Director
Mark works internationally as an actor, director and producer. His award winning performances include leading roles in five West End shows, many world tours and British premieres, along with numerous appearances on British and USA network television. He has played lead roles in European independent film and supporting roles in Hollywood studio film. Mark has founded three theatre companies, directing and producing across Europe. He has directed a number of feature film and is the author of Winning Body Language (McGraw-Hill 2010)
RUTH BRATT
Improvisation
Ruth is one of the ensemble who form Showstopper: The Improvised Musical. Having just returned from a successful run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival the Showstoppers are about to begin a residency at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington, as well as performing at some of the UK’s leading theatres including the Bristol Old Vic and West Yorkshire Playhouse. With The Sticking Place, she has taken part in 5 improvathons, including one in Edmonton, Canada, with the incredible Die-Nasty troupe who invented the 53 hour Soap-a-thon.
Ruth voiced a runt, a homicidal chicken and a kitten (amongst others) in BBC3′s Mongrels, and was recently one of the regular cast of Sarah Millican’s Support Group on Radio 4; both shows have been commissioned for a second series which will start in 2011. She made appearances in Doctors, Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive, The Slammer and Touch Me I’m Karen Taylor, as well as voiceover for CBBC’s The Pod. Currently developing a sitcom with Big Tree Productions based on her solo Edinburgh show (And On Your Left…), she is one half of the double act Trodd En Bratt.
FRANCESCA JAYNES
Guest Choreographer
Fran works in film, theatre and television. In film she has worked with Tim Burton, Mike Leigh, Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard. Recent films include The Prince of Persia, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland and The Duchess. In theatre Fran has choreographed for the National, London Old Vic, Hampstead and many leading regional theatres including Birmingham Rep, Theatre Clywd, New Wolsey Ipswich and Liverpool Everyman on productions such as The Threepenny Opera, Sugar, Leader of the Pack, Blues in the Night and Little Shop of Horrors.
JONATHAN JAYNES
Animal Studies
Jonathan has worked extensively as an actor in theatre, performing at the National Theatre, Salisbury Playhouse, Watford Palace and Leeds Playhouse. He was in the film First Knight and has worked on many television programmes, including Down To Earth, September Song, Coronation Street, The Bill and Eastenders. He has taught at The Bridge for several years and also currently teaches at LAMDA and London Centre of Theatre Studies.
ANTONY LAW
Acting and Directing
Antony has a Business Degree from Coventry University, and later trained as an actor at The Bridge. Consistently working as an actor he now also produces and directs. He has directed over 30 shows and showcases which include: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Bouncers, Road, New Anatomies, Find Me, 13 Grimms Tales, Under Milk Wood, Closer, Terrorism, Scenes from an Execution, Victory, A Hard Heart, and Oyster Boy.
As an actor his credits include – Theatre: Hurts (Given and Received), Bouncers, Closer, Brief Encounter (National Tour), Shadows on the Sun, A Picture of Alchemy, and 6 Panto’s. TV: Family Affairs (Ch5), Friends and Crocodiles (Poliakoff/BBC). Film: Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton), Gulliver’s Travels (Fox UK).
He is founding Director/Producer of three theatre companies Resister Theatre Co, IFoughtTheLaw, and Antony Law Productions.
DANNIE LU CARR
Text
Known for playing Morli in the Doctor Who spin-offs, Dalek Empire II and III, Dannie is highly experienced in providing a range of voices for characters, adverts and trailers. Her theatre credits include The Blue Room, The Heidi Chronicles, Stars in the Morning Sky, and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Her extensive theatre directing credits include Mother Courage, Whale Music, Death of a Salesman, Summer and Smoke, The Causasian Chalk Circle, Marat/Sade, and Pinter’s Landscape. Dannie also writes for stage and screen.
CRAIG MCDERMOTT
Dance
Craig trained at Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup for three years, gaining a Diploma in Musical Theatre.
Theatre credits include: We Will Rock You (Dominion Theatre, West End), Footloose (West End), Starlight Express (Original UK tour), where he created the role of Hip Hopper 3, Boogie Nights the Musical (UK tour), and Footloose the Musical (original European and UK tours), On Eagle’s Wing (Ireland tour), The Wizard of Oz (Mayflower, Southampton), Saturday Night Fever (London Palladium), Starlight Express (Bochum, Germany).
Craig has also appeared in a number of operas, including English National Opera’s La Traviata (London Coliseum), La Boheme (Royal Albert Hall), and Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute (feature film 2006/Idéale Audience).
TV and videos include: Numerous commercials, Britannia High (ITV), Blue Peter Christmas Specials (BBC), and Sorry (Madonna pop promo).
Craig has also choreographed and taught widely around the UK.
HUW PRALL
Historical Dance
A specialist in Historical Dance, Huw originally trained as a Classical Dancer, going on to study allied dance forms, acting and singing. Huw is Head of Dance for the Education Department at Shakespeare’s Globe.
His first professional engagement was as Principal Dancer in a touring production of Dick Whittington followed by My Fair Lady (New London Theatre). Classical credits include Giselle and La Sylphide with London City Ballet and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in Sir Richard Eyre’s production of La Traviata.
Other performance credits include Amadeus (Kapellmeister Bonno), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Field), Jesus Christ Superstar (Herod), Chicago (Mary Sunshine), Poirot (LWT), Pride and Prejudice (BBC), An Ideal Husband (Film), Rebecca (Carlton), The Yong Victoria (Film).
Choreographic Credits include The Rival (Jermyn Street Theatre) Pygmalion (Theatre Royal Windsor/Albery Theatre), Mansfield Park (Redgrave Theatre Farnham) Carousel (Princes Hall Aldershot) and Kiss Me Kate (Farnham Maltings).
COLIN SKIPP
Radio Technique
Colin gained a scholarship to RADA and won a BBC Drama Student Award. Television roles include Geoff in A Taste of Honey, Cliff in Look Back in Anger and for 6 months Ivan in the T.V. Series United. He has played Tony Archer in The Archers for more than 30 years.
Colin has directed stage plays for Bill Kenwright and Tom Edwards and is Director of Productions for Centenary Players at The Arts Theatre, Falmouth and Manor Theatre, Portland. He directed the premiere of Shakespeare Country by Peter Whelan.
MARK STREET
Meisner, Film and TV
Mark began his career as an actor winning an Olivier Award during his training before working professionally on both stage and screen. As a director his plays have toured the UK fringe circuit while his films have previewed at many of the international film festivals with his latest short film picked to play at The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square.
He was the co-founder of Forbidden Theatre Company, 104 Theatre Company, with which he won an Edinburgh Fringe First Award and From The Streets Productions. As well as teaching at The Bridge he also teaches regularly at The Actors Centre, Central, Mountview, E15 and Italia Conti. He is currently editing his latest short, about to shoot another and in development for his next feature.