At Drama Studio London, we are privileged to work with an incredible array of talent from across the industry. Our courses are delivered by a whole host of visiting professionals, alongside our brilliant resident team. This is an important aspect of our training. It keeps the delivery fresh, current and aligned to industry expectations as well as introducing our students to valuable contacts and mentors.
Here’s just a taste, alphabetically, of some of the people we have had the extreme pleasure to welcome to our studios in the last couple of terms.
WILL AUSTIN
Will is an actor, director and filmmaker who runs self-tape.co.uk, creating custom showreel scenes & self-tapes for actors. He trained at Mountview and has a range of credits to his name including British TV favourites; Eastenders and Casualty. His short film Grit won Best Cinematography at the London 48hour Film Project 2022. This year he shot and edited the showreel scenes for our BA and MA graduates. He’s currently filming on an ITV drama set in Scotland after recently filming Sonic the Hedgehog 3, directed by Jeff Fowler. Additionally, he’s soon to be seen in Slow Horses for Apple TV+ and Gangs of London.
ALEX BINGLEY
Alex worked as an actor for five years before training as a voice teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama, gaining an MA in Voice. He now teaches Voice at DSL and several other leading UK drama schools as well as working for Shakespeare’s Globe where he was Assistant Head of Voice from 2013-2018. He’s recently finished a project with students from Washington University for Globe Education.
ALEXANDRA GILBREATH
Working for DSL on several Shakespeare projects over the last year, Alex is an RSC Associate Artist and multi-award-winning actress with extensive theatre, film and TV work including 30 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Recent RSC productions include Cymbeline and The Empress. She can be seen in Becoming Elizabeth for Starz/Lionsgate and has just finished filming The Chelsea Detective for Acorn TV.
JULIA CRANNEY
Julia teaches Writing for Performance skills across the BA, MA and MFA programs at DSL. There was an industry sharing of her new play Attachment at the Liverpool Everyman recently, produced by Toby Parsons Productions, directed by Julia Samuels and starring Paislie Reid. Her short film Measure (co-written and co-directed with Helen Simmons) stars Callie Cooke, Rebekah Murrell, Lydia Rose Bewley and Angus Imrie and is just finishing its festival run, where it’s screened at BIFA, BAFTA and Academy Award qualifying festivals worldwide, including British Shorts Berlin (nominated for Jury Award for Best Short Film), Women X (nominated for Best Director) and Terror Molins where it received the prestigious Méliès Award for Best European Short Film. She will be returning to Molins this year as a member of the jury. She also has a number of TV projects in development including work with Quay Street Productions and Moonriver TV and, as an actor, she voiced the audiobook of Leanne Egan’s Lover Birds (available on Audible here).
EMMA KERSHAW
Emma studied violin and piano on a scholarship at the Royal College of Music and holds a BA in Music and Visual Studies. She has played leads in numerous musicals and actor-musician productions in the West End, UK and international tours. As a solo singer, Emma works with all the major UK orchestras and as a session singer for film, TV, radio and live performances. Notable credits include: Broadway and All That Jazz (BBC Concert Orchestra), Best of the 90s (Halle Symphony Orchestra), the Ella Centenary Concert, Symphonic 80s (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) and the film soundtracks of Beetlejuice 2 and Cyrano (both recorded at Abbey Road Studios). Emma also provided Cher’s guide vocal and dialogue for Mama Mia – Here We Go Again. Coming up in October 2024: ABBAphonic at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. More information can be found on Emma’s website here.
EMILY LOUIZOU
Emily gained her MFA in Theatre Directing from Birkbeck College whilst being Resident Assistant Director at HOME in Manchester, working on main stage productions and running educational programmes. She was Staff Director on OperaUpClose‘s national tour of Puccini’s La Bohème before taking on Resident Assistant Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2020. Since then, she has been Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts London, Visiting Lecturer at numerous leading drama schools and Research Fellow at the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre. Emily directed the MA production of Lulu by Frank Wedekind at the Playground Theatre for DSL this term: her own, new adaptation, with Quentin Beroud. She also recently directed a month-long run of Fabulous Creatures at the Arcola Theatre, again, written by herself and Quentin Beroud. You can read more on her website here.
COLIN SELL
Colin was Head of Music at Rose Bruford where he founding the Actor-Musician Course, then he was Head of Music at East 15. He now works freelance, pursuing his teaching, music, composing and MD work. Best known for being the much-maligned pianist on BBC Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, he was originally an MD working in regional theatre, composer at Theatre Royal Stratford East under Philip Hedley. He has composed a large number of scores for theatre and radio plays from Shakespeare to broad comedy. He has accompanied cabarets, toured as pianist for comedians, performed his one-person shows nationally and, in recent years, has regularly been accompanist for silent films. He’s also taught film history at the University of Essex, in which he has a PhD.
JAMES F SIMPSON
James trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After acting and directing theatre, he wrote and directed Ulysses, a children’s rock opera, which had a sell-out run at the Rainbow Theatre, was filmed for BBC Television and won the Italian International Children’s Film Award. You can find more details about past and future projects on his website here.
GILES TAYLOR
Giles teaches and directs on all three DSL Professional Acting courses and is currently a tutor for PGDip/MA students. As well as being an actor, teacher, and director, he is Text Consultant at the Globe Theatre. He worked on The Duchess of Malfi earlier this year, in the candlelit Wanamaker Theatre. And is now working on an exciting bilingual (English and British Sign Language) production of Antony and Cleopatra for the main stage, directed by DSL Alumna Blanche MacIntyre. You can view the full production details here.
KEVIN TOMLINSON
Kevin trained with Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaullier, Monika Pagneux, Peter Brook, Clive Barker, John Wright and at the Desmond Jones School of Mime and Physical Theatre and at the Royal Court Theatre (as a writer and director, under the tutelage of Stephen Daldry and David Hare). Artistic director of KEPOW Theatre Company and a past winner of the Rose Bruford Trust Directors Award, with writer/director credits on over forty plays in the UK and internationally including the world premiere of Monster at London’s Park Theatre (three Off-West-End Awards nominations). Former writer-in-residence at the Royal Theatre, Northampton, where his play Who? won the Sunday Times Playwright Award. A regular contributor at National Theatre; as comedy consultant for the Education Department and workshop leader. As an actor, Kevin has performed with Trestle, Told by an Idiot and various repertory theatres.