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Darren
Natale
Artistic Director
Bachelor Dramatic Art (Acting) VCA
Cert IV Training and Assessment
Darren is the founder of Verve Studios.
An actor, singer, teacher, director, vocal advisor, theatre
maker and voice over artist, Darren has been a part of the
professional performance industry for many years.
He has appeared on stage in Mame, Sideshow Alley, Sunset
Boulevard and The Pajama Game, on television in Neighbours,
Blue Heelers and was writer/creator of two solo theatre
shows, Audacious and Velvet Tales. He also works in the
corporate sector, using theatre and actor training techniques
to facilitate better communication and performance.
Darren is a passionate and inspirational
teacher and director who has taught and directed in Melbourne
and country Victoria for many years.
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Bree Hartley
Manager
Bree completed her BA in Media Studies at RMIT in 2002. She was the General Manager of The Dog Theatre from 2009 – 2011, helping to establish it as a new independent venue in Footscray. The Dog was the recipient of Best Venue: Melbourne Fringe Festival Awards 2009, and Best New Venue: Green Room Awards 2009. She was the Administrative Assistant at La Mama theatre from 2004 – 2008, participating in the successful national fundraising campaign to buy the building. She first performed at La Mama in Framing Piece (1990) and has since then appeared in over 10 performance pieces there. In 2007 she participated in theatre in decay’s The Lobotomist: A 10 Minute Musical as part of the Short & Sweet Festival at the Victorian Arts Centre.
She is a working musician and currently the drummer for Canadian singer/songwriter Tracy McNeil.
Email
Bree
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Paola
Unger
Senior Acting Teacher
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting
(University of Victoria, Canada)
Bachelor of Education, Secondary
Post Graduate Diploma in Theatre Direction (VCA)
She has been an actor trainer in Canada for 10 years, working
mostly with youth. Throughout her theatre practice, she has
drawn on modern acting practices such as those developed by
Stanford Meisner and Uta Hagen. Paola has worked extensively
in improvisation and with text and movement-based performance.
Most recently, she has completed a Post Graduate Diploma in
Performance Making at the VCA, continuing her interrogation
of different approaches to performance, like those of Lindy
Davies, Suzuki, Viewpoints and Pulse. She loves teaching and
is passionate about questioning and learning. |
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Gary Abrahams
Senior Acting Teacher
A recent graduate of the VCA with a Masters in Theatre Making, Gary Abrahams has worked as an actor, dramaturg, writer and director for many years in Australia, South Africa and the UK. He has worked as a dramaturg at the Playwriting Australia National Script Workshop and was one of two Australians to attend the Lincoln Centre Theatre Directors Lab in New York.
His first production in Australia as both writer and director was the recent Acts of Deceit at La Mama Courthouse (2010 Midsumma Festival). Other directing and performing credits include The Laramie Project: 10 years later (2011 Red Stitch, director), Jerker (2009 Midsumma Festival, director/performer), Something Natural but Very Childish (2006, London, director), Like Stars In My Hands (2008, performer) and Bison (2004, performer).
His writing has been published by the Australian Script Centre, and his works have been performed at The London Institute of Contemporary Art and London Hen and Chicken Theatre. He is currently working as a dramaturg for Red Stitch Actors Theatre. |
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Tamara
Searle
Senior Acting Teacher
Movement / Physical Performance Teacher
Tamara loves Kafka's quote that a good book can be the axe
that breaks the frozen sea inside. She believes that performance
can be this too, that's why she is a theatre maker. Tamara
trained as a dancer at the Australian Ballet School and worked
with the AB in productions of Don Quixote and Manon. She subsequently
trained as an actor at The National Theatre Drama School and
with numerous independent practitioners. She has worked in
theatre (The Winters Tale, 11th Hour theatre), film (The Book
of Revelation, Ana Kokkinos) and TV (Russell Coights Celebrity
Challenge) and leads community theatre projects. She is the
recipient of a 2007 Asialink Performing Arts Award and a 2009
Australian Postgraduate Award for performance research.
“I
find that teaching informs my practice and I feel privileged
to share the form with students.". |
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Ashley Wain
Senior Acting Teacher
PhD (Performance Studies), University of Western Sydney
Diploma of Drama (Acting), Victorian College of the Arts
B.A. (Hons - Theatre Studies), Monash
Ashley Wain trained in acting at VCA and with Leonid Verzub (a long-term student of Maria Knebel). He has worked as an actor, director and teacher since 1994, performing major roles for The Hole in the Wall Theatre. His doctoral thesis explored how the techniques of the Stanislavski and Copeau traditions evoke experiences of essence, presence and Being. He has taught at many schools and universities in Australia and the US. |
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Nadia Townsend
Senior Acting Teacher
Post Graduate Diploma in Performance Creation (VCA)
Nadia has been working as an actress in film, television and theatre in Australia for over 10 years. Nadia began her training in Practical Aesthetics at Atlantic Theatre company, returning home to produce and perform in independent theatre. She continued her studies in viewpoints, Suzuki and voice with the Roy Hart school. Always seeking to expand her practice, Nadia completed a postgraduate in Performance Creation (theatre direction) at VCA. |
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Adena Jacobs
Acting Teacher
Adena Jacobs is an independent theatre maker and director.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (honours) from Melbourne University (2004), and a Masters of Theatre Practice from VCA (2008). She was awarded the Yvonne Taylor scholarship for a female director at the VCA.
Adena is the current recipient of the Melbourne International Arts Festival’s Harold Mitchell Fellowship, under the mentorship of artistic director Brett Sheehy.
Directing projects include: Elektra by Sopchocles trans. by Anne Carson (The Dog Theatre – nominated for 3 Green Room Awards, including Best Direction (Independent)), The City by Martin Crimp (Red Stitch Actors Theatre – nominated for 3 Green Room Awards including Best Production (Companies)), This Is For You (La Mama – nominated for 5 Green Room Awards, winner best Female Performer (Independent)), Cleansed by Sarah Kane (Studio45, VCA), Smashed by Lally Katz (Space 28, VCA), 1989 (St Martins Youth Theatre) and Emergency Exits (New York International Fringe Festival).
Adena has worked as a director’s attachment on Rock & Roll by Tom Stoppard (Melbourne Theatre Company, dir. Simon Phillips), and as an observing director on Oresteia (Sydney Theatre Company, dir. Tom Wright).
Adena has trained with the SITI Company, worked with Playwriting Australia, and taught performance at St Martins Youth Theatre. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.
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Chris
Snow
Voice and Accent Teacher
Cert IV Training and Assessment
Christopher Snow BA, ATCL, Cert TESOL, has been a voice teacher, actor and director in Sydney and Melbourne over the past 30 years. He trained with Yat Malmgren at the Drama Centre London working on integrating voice and speech work with Laban and Carpenter’s Movement Psychology. He has been tutoring in voice and speech at Monash University for the past 11 years and has been a voice coach for many productions there, as well as the creator of the Lifestories series of spoken performances. Recently, he appeared as the narrator in Four Grand Narratives at Danceworks which subsequently toured to Canberra, Wollongong, and Sydney; as the narrator for A Soldiers Tale at the Alexander Theatre; and directed Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwelll Davies for the Music in the Round Festival.
Screen credits include All Saints, Water Rats, and the Midnight Oil music video Redneck Wonderland. Recently, he was the accent coach for Road at Monash, I Love You, Bro at the Malthouse, and Trio at 45 Downstairs. |
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Mel Dodge
Acting Teacher
MA Acting ( ArtsEd, London)
Mel has worked in most of New Zealand’s major theatres over the past ten years. Her credits include Uncle Vanya (winner 2007 Chapman Tripp Actress of the Year Award and The Listener Actress of the Year Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Rabbit and Mammals at Circa Theatre. Who Needs Sleep Anyway and No Moa for Downstage Theatre. Emma, My Heart is Bathed in Blood, The Country Wife, Kiwifruits and Shop Till You Drop for the Fortune Theatre. Blackbird and The Perfumed Garden for The Court Theatre. She is currently playing Ruth for the Eagle’s Nest Theatre production of Cosi. Other credits include Father Familiar, Collected Stories, Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Enchanted Tales and Waiting for Godot. Mel has taught acting for many years to both adults and children at professional and community levels. She has a production company called BRAVE for which she has written and performed Jane Austen is Dead, Fight or Flight, The 1/4 Pounding and Anything to Declare which toured to the Edinburgh fringe in 2006. |
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Judith Chaplin-Fleming
Acting Teacher
Judith studied drama at the University of Tasmania and then at N.I.D.A. graduating with a degree in 1996. She has appeared in many of Australia’s best loved TV programs including Rush, Offspring and Kath and Kim and has produced and acted in a critically acclaimed show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Judi has appeared in numerous stage productions and short films as well as writing and directing her own. Most recently Judi wrote, produced and acted in a highly successful show at the Melbourne Fringe.
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Katerina
Kokkinos-Kennedy
Senior Acting Teacher
Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy
is is a VCA graduate with more than 20 years of experience
as a theatre maker, writer and actor trainer. Katerina’s
theatre work is text and image based and incorporates movement,
video and photography. Katerina’s practice is currently
pre-occupied with interrogating the role of the live audience
and her recent works have experimented with both site-specificity
and audience-interactivity. Katerina won the Ewa Czajor Memorial
Award for directors (1997), the Friends of the VCA Travel
Award (2000) and an Ian Potter Study/Travel Award (2001).
She has worked in a variety of roles including; a VCA actor
trainer and curriculum writer (1998-2003), artistic coordinator
of 96f arts incubator (2002-2004), and as a feature arts writer
for Artshub UK (2005 and 2006). In 2007 she was awarded a
postgraduate research scholarship at Monash University. |
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Petra Kalive
Voice and Accent
Petra graduated from WAAPA (Acting 04), where she developed a love of comedy, character roles and voice. Since then she has diversified into directing, writing and teaching as well. In an attempt to support and encourage new Australian work Petra has formed the production company Two Blue Cherries. Her most recent screen credits include a lead-supporting role in Underbelly, Blue Heelers, City Homicide,Tripping Over and various short films. Theatre credits include; Adelaide Festival Centre, Melbourne Playback, Complete Works, VCA Directors season. As a director Petra has freelanced and worked for St Martins, Short and Sweet (Judges choice) and Holmesglen TAFE. Petra is an award- winning playwright and dramaturge, having adapted a Peter Goldsworthy novel for the stage, written and performed her one-woman comedy show, Afraid People and is currently developing a number of future projects. Her next project is directing The Paul Kelly Project for St Martins Youth Arts Centre. |
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Spencer
McLaren
Film/TV Acting Teacher
Bachelor Dramatic Art (NIDA)
With over 18 years industry experience Spencer is a graduate
of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) full time
acting course. He has also toured the country as a regular
tutor for NIDA and it’s open program. His acting experience
has encompassed film, television, radio serials, theatre and
music theatre. Credits include TV: The Secret life of Us,
City Homicide, All Saints, McLeod’s Daughters and Home
and Away. Film: Out of Order, and BURN (in production). Theatre:
Fully Committed, Julius Caesar, Holding the Man, 12 Angry
Man. Music Theatre: Footloose, Beauty & the Beast, CATS,
West Side Story, Priscilla.
Spencer also works as a film and TV producer with 7 projects
currently in development. |
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Nicholas Coghlan
Film/TV Acting Teacher
Bachelor Dramatic Art (NIDA)
Nicholas has worked extensively in film and television with leading roles in The Secret Life Of Us (Ch. 10), and Orange Roughies (N.Z.1). He has appeared in Star Wars III (dir. George Lucas), Canal Road (CH.9), Carla Cametti P.D. (SBS), City Homicide (CH. 7), and Whatever Happened To That Guy (Ruby Entertainment). His theatre acting credits include: The Threepenny Opera (Company B, Belvoir St Theatre); Blasted (B#, Belvoir St Theatre); Vampirella (Darlinghurst); Hellbent (Red Stitch Theatre); A Man For All Seasons (MTC); and Two (The Melbourne Town Players).
Nicholas is the co-Artistic Director of The Melbourne Town Players. He co-wrote, production managed and produced TMTP’s first production, Sandwiches, and was dramaturg, production co-ordinator and producer of their second production, Attract/Repel, which won the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Kultour award.
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Jenny
Lovell
Acting Teacher
Jenny
has been performing on stage, screen and TV for over 20 years.
TV includes PRISONER, BLUE HEELERS, MDA and SENSING MURDER.
Film work includes PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, GALLIPOLI and DARKNESS
FALLS. Jenny has been performing as an improvisor since 1987
in Sydney, Melbourne and at international festivals in San
Francisco, Seattle, Hong Kong and Edmonton, Canada. She has
been part of the development of Theatresports™ in Sydney
and Melbourne performing on stage and in corporate and school
performances. Jenny is a 2004 Green Room nominee for her performances
in IRON (Red Stitch) and DEAD TRAGIC (which she also produced
for Impro Melbourne).
In 2002 she was an International Fellow to the Globe Theatre
and has trained with international teachers: Andrew Wade,
Rowena Baylos and Stewart Pearce (Voice); Keith Johnstone
(improvisation); Shishir Kurup and Randy Dixon (creating performance). |
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Casual and Specialist Teaching Staff
Louise Siverson (MTC/STC)
Tanya Gerstle (Head of Acting,
VCA Drama School)
John Bolton (prev Head Of Acting,
VCA Drama School)
Geraldine Cook (Head of Voice,
VCA Drama School)
Stephen Costan (VCA Drama School,
BAPA)
Dina Mann (Film/TV Casting Agent)
David Cameron (Film/TV Director)
Lucas Testro (Film/TV Director)
Jenny Kent (Voice Coach - Billy
Elliott)
Tom McSweeney (Film Casting Agent)
Fiona Wiseman (Certified Middendorf Breathexperience Practitioner) |
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