Emma Gersch

Personal Statement

Senior Lecturer: Drama and Performing Arts. School of Music and Performing Arts

Senior Teaching Fellow, Performance Lab

Personal Statement:

Emma Gersch joined the Department of Performing Arts at Bath Spa University in August 2005, and was appointed Artswork Senior Teaching Fellow for Performance Lab in November 2007

Since graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1999 Emma has worked as an Actress, Director and Teacher in the UK, Europe and the United States. As an actress, her work has spanned classical and musical theatre, touring and regional work. Emma has also worked in the medium of Film and Radio. In 2002 Emma began working with Howard Barker and the Wrestling School, on an international premiere of 'Gertrude the Cry' which opened at Elsinore Castle in Denmark. She went on to direct Barker's 'Judith' in London. Subsequent directing work included 'The Tempest' for the Franklin Stage Company in New York.

Emma set up Proactive Productions in 2000, establishing a collective of professional actors with the aim of extending the creative work of actors into the industrial and business sectors. Using drama as a training tool, the Company create bespoke role-play training courses for GPs, Psychologists, Executive Coaches and Sales Executives. The Company have also taken drama residencies in schools, facilitating specialist workshops in Shakespeare and Ancient Greek Theatre. Under the banner of ProActive Productions, Emma directed Ionesco's 'The Bald Prima Donna' at London's Kings Head Theatre which was subsequently selected as the Arts Council East's Escalator show, supporting it onto the national touring circuit.

Emma's teaching focus is professionalisation for the training actor, including entrepreneurialism and graduate skills, which forms the basis of her current work with third year Performing Arts students. Emma is module leader for Year 3 'Into Industry' and 'Professional Portfolio' modules, and launched the Masterclass Series in 2007 which enables undergraduates to interface with leading industry specialists. Emma established the annual Graduate Actors Showcase in London, which has in recent years been held at the Tristan Bates Theatre and the Soho Theatre and the Battersea Arts Centre.

Emma introduced the model of students working alongside professional actors in productions at high profile venues. In 2006 Emma directed 'Heresies' by Deborah Levy at the Bristol Old Vic, which featured in Michael Billington's top 5 UK shows, in the Saturday Times.

Between 2003-2005 Emma taught Drama and Performing Arts at Luton Sixth Form College and Luton University; delivering courses at 'A', Btec National Diploma and GNVQ and HND and directing over 20 student productions.

Emma has been Deputy Artistic Director of Full Tilt Theatre Company since 2006, and has directed over twenty full scale touring productions for the company, including the acclaimed site-specific, promenade production of 'Hamlet' for the Bath Shakespeare Festival, ('This is Shakespeare at its best and not to be missed!' Bath Chronicle), which then transferred to the magical Minack Theatre in Cornwall, playing to over 10,000 audience members. 'Macbeth' followed in March 2007, where the audience joined the witches at an outdoor rave, and Malcolm was their DJ. A production of the 'Comedy of Errors' transferred to the Minack Theatre in June 2008, and then toured 12 states in the USA and Canada in August and September 2008. Click here to visit the blog for this tour. Emma is also module leader for the year three Reinvention project, an intensive devising process which over the past years has given birth to radical re-workings of Ancient Greek Classic tragedies. In 2006: Agamemon: Stripped, Re-Loaded, Re-Told (BAC, Theatre Royal Bath), In 2007: Complex: Electra (Camden People's Theatre), and in 2008: Orestes: Re-Examined, University Theatre Bath, and tour of prisons in the South Westas well as a professional run at the Southwark Playhouse.

Professional Qualifications:

Post Graduate Diploma in Acting - Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (1999)
Post Graduate Certificate in Education - Greenwich University (2006)

BA (Hons) Drama - University of Hull (1998)

Membership of Professional Bodies/Subject Associations:

I am a member of:

Equity
The Actors Centre, London
Spotlight

Young Vic Genesis Directors Scheme

Teaching Specialism:

• Reinvention of the Classics

• Devised ensemble theatre

• Elizabethan and Shakespearian Theatre

• Greek Classical Tragedy

• Physical Theatre

• Clowning

• Theatre of the Absurd

• Graduate skills for actors

Key Publications/Exhibitions/Performances:

Between 1999 and 2005, I have performed in radio, film and theatre in over 10 countries. Over this period of time I have refined and developed my performance skills, finding that my specialist areas for performance are classical text based work and physical theatre.

In June 2005 I performed at St. Paul's Cathedral at the John Donne celebration, with Harriet Walter and Michael Maloney.

I convened a Palatine Conference on Site-Specific Theatre in March 2006 and intend on subsequent publication in this area.

Current Scholarship:

My current research interests are

• Transformational teaching - the immersive experience

• Reinvented theatre

• The shifting trends within actor training in the 21st Century; physical versus cerebral.

• The transition from actor training into the Performing Arts industry

• Site-specific and 'Event' theatre

• The 21st Century theatre audience - in an age of autonomy and technology

Other External Roles:

• Founder and Director of ProActive Productions

• Panelist for the Bath Theatre Royal Endgames project, November 2005

• Member of steering committee Theatre Locality Plan for Bath and North East Somerset.

• Invited adjudicator for Drama Competition at Warminster School, March 2006

Recent Professional Updating:

• Erasmus/Socrates teaching exchange to the Department of Drama at Klaipeda University in Lithuania, April 2006

• Led a session on employability skills for students, at University of Surrey's conference 'The Power of the Immersive Experience', January 2008

• Directed 'They Think its all Over' The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath - Edinburgh Show, August 2007

• Invited panelist at Performance Initiative Network's Symposium on innovative teaching, Teatro Technis, June 2006