about us

Gunduz Kalic: Artistic Director

Gunduz Kalic is founding Head of the Department of Drama at Bath Spa University, of which he is also Principal Lecturer. During his time at Bath, Gunduz established the Performing Arts programme and Full Tilt Theatre Company, among other things. Previously, he was Co Director of East 15 Acting School, one of Britain's leading theatre schools, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts at Northern Territory University, Australia. Over his long career, Gunduz has trained numerous journeymen and women and a number of stars of UK, Dutch, Australasian and Turkish stage and screen. He has also founded and or run a number of professional theatre companies, including Taking Liberties Theatre Company, which specialised in political theatre and in the development of new audiences. Gunduz has directed over 190 plays and musicals, devising many of these and co-writing several, most notably, 'That's Twice'. Broadly speaking, he works towards and is interesting in returning 'playing' to acting and theatre.

Gunduz Kalic's research interests include theatre pedagogy in higher education, popular theatre, modern British drama, theatre policy and the relationships between theatre and media and theatre and everyday life. His recent theatre based research concentrates upon the usage of stand up comedy in actor training and theatrical performance and upon the creation of (live) popular theatre for television. Gunduz has written many articles on the performing arts for Australian newspapers. He has an MA (Hons) in media and cultural policy from Griffth University.

Emma Gersch: Deputy Artistic Director

Emma is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Bath Spa University, and Deputy Artistic Director of Full Tilt Theatre Company. She trained at the University of Hull and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Emma has worked as an actress, director and teacher in the UK, Europe and the USA. Acting includes work with Howard Barker and the Wrestling School. Directing work includes 'The Tempest' in New York, 'Judith' in London. For Full Tilt, Emma directed an acclaimed site-specific promenade production of 'Hamlet' for the Bath Shakespeare Festival, which transferred to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall last July, 'Heresies' by Deborah Levy at the Bristol Old Vic, 'Macbeth' (Shakespeare by the Lake), and co-directed 'Agamemnon: Stripped, Re-Loaded, Re-Told' with Gunduz Kalic (BAC, The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath, Tacchi Morris Arts Centre).

Emma looks forward to directing Joe Orton's Loot in the Autumn, and to collaborating again with Gunduz on his adaptation of 'As You Like it' for the Bath Shakespeare Festival 2008. Emma is the founder and director of ProActive, whose debut production 'The Bald Prima Donna' enjoyed a successful UK tour, with the support of the Arts Council East, Escalator programme. Emma has recently been awarded a Bath Spa University Teaching Fellowship, and is in preparation for her PhD.

Pat Welsh: General Manager

Pat is a Senior Lecturer in the Drama Department and teaches on the undergraduate Drama Studies and Performing Arts Programmes. He specialises in comedy and has particular responsibility for the comedic elements of the undergraduate programmes. His research interest lies in the role of comedy in actor training programmes.

Pat studied Drama and Theatre Studies at Middlesex University gaining invaluable skills in physical theatre, devising, directing, stand up comedy and mask performance. He subsequently gained a wealth of diverse professional experience touring throughout the United Kingdom as an actor with several different theatre companies, directing productions performed at Edinburgh and Glastonbury Contemporary Arts Festivals and working extensively as a street performer in the international arena and as a stand up comedian on the London circuit.

Heather Johansen: Production Manager

Heather Johansen has acted in over one hundred plays. She began her career in theatre three decades ago and has worked for the Orchard Theatre Company (Devon), The Vancouver Playhouse and the Factory Lab (Toronto), among other companies. Among the parts she has played are: Regan in King Lear, Rona in Kennedy's Children, Esmeralda in Camino Real, Bernarda in Bernarda Alba, Marianne in 'Scenes from a Marriage', Eliza in 'Pygmalion', Helen Keller in 'The Miracle Worker' and Kate in 'Taming of the Shrew'.

Heather was a founder member of the pioneering Twelfth Avenue Theatre Project in Vancouver Canada. She has taught acting in higher education for a number of years, has worked as an Associate and rehearsal director for many HE and small company productions and is an Associate Lecturer in Bath Spa University's Department of Drama. Presently, she concentrates on devoting her vast experience in theatre to production management and rehearsal direction.

Ian McNish: Dramaturg

Ian McNish is particularly interested in the interface between theatre (including virtual theatre) and climate change. He is working solo and collaboratively to adapt and re-author classic works and to produce/develop new works with global warming in mind. His manifesto entitled Boiling Frogs: theatre as (world) citizenship in the age of climate change was presented at IFTR in the summer of 2006 and is due to be published later this year.

Ian is acting Subject Leader in Drama Studies at Bath Spa University, where he also teaches modules in World Drama, Virtuality and Performance and contextual studies for acting students. Current and recent dramaturgical work includes productions of Lysistrata (in progress), A Cool Billion (2006) Hamlet (2006), That's Twice (2005). Work on That's Twice - this play by G Kalic was originally a piece of guerilla theatre smuggled into Australia's Parliament House by Taking Liberties Theatre Company - included extensive re-authoring/updating/dramaturgy by myself in collaboration with the author and cast for presentation at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival. Of the Edinburgh Festival 'That's Twice reloaded' version The Scotsman wrote: 'AN EXTRAORDINARY commedia-meets-political cabaret piece played in relentless, manic overdrive. The seven-strong cast give their all in a wildly over-the-top lampooning of modern politics'.

Previously, Ian was manager and dramaturg for Taking Liberties Theatre Company, Australia's Court Jester, in Australia. Taking Liberties specialised in bringing theatre to non-theatre going audiences and in political theatre, That's Twice being an example of the latter.

Sam Grogan

Sam Grogan is interim Course Director for Performing Arts. He has had a successful career in dance and physical theatre and since graduating from Bretton Hall in 1997, working as a freelance practitioner, touring to more than fifteen countries worldwide as, variously, performer, director, and choreographer. Most specifically, he worked with George Rodosthenous and Earthfall, and was joint artistic director of Raw Dance Company in 2003-2004. During this period, Raw Dance produced four touring pieces, performing in venues such as the West Yorkshire Dance Centre and The Place, London.

The pieces were all composed from theatrically rooted, danced movement and aimed to explore the line between dance and theatre. More recently Sam has directed, acted and toured in two physical theatre pieces through the Department; ‘And the Little One Said’, which toured to theatres in the South West and to the Edinburgh Fringe, and ‘A Cool Billion’ a physical ensemble piece created in collaboration with Gunduz Kalic. Sam is currently undertaking a PhD in Drama at Exter University

Dr. Olivia Turnbull

Dr. Olivia Turnbull is Senior Lecturer in Drama. She gained her Ph.D. from Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA, focusing on the challenges facing British producing theatres in the last half-century and examining developments in British theatre in the context of changing performance practices, cultural and economic policy, and audience trends.

Before coming to BSUC, she lectured in the Performing Arts departments of Emerson College and Pine Manor College in Boston. She also has a directing diploma, and produced and directed numerous works for companies in and around the Boston area.

Mary Steadman

Mary Steadman is a Senior Lecturer in Drama Studies and Performing Arts. She studied Theatre and Dartington College of Arts. She then worked extensively as a freelance actor/perrformer- performing and devising Dance-Theatre and Physical Theatre. This entailed working with companies including English New Dance Theatre, Vincent Dance Theatre and Rivca Rubin Company. In 1992 she was a core member of Spiral Theatre Company, based in London, and gained experience in Grotowski-based training. She then went on to lecture at De Montfort University, Goldsmiths University London, and the University of Northampton.

In 2007 she successfully completed an MPhil at the University of Kent, this practice-based research degree, titled 'The Body as Source' – investigating through practice, mind/body in actor training. Two of the outcomes were devised performances: '(A)Tempting Rage' (2002), based on Martin Crimp's 'Attempts on her Life', and a solo performance '(No) Body (No) One: Home (2005). She has presented papers at both national and international conferences: UIUTA in Italy (July 2006), presenting a performative paper addressing creativity and actor training in the university curriculum and TaPRA (CSSD London, August 2006). Recent papers entitled Remembering Forgotten Acts, and The Ambivalence of Memory were presented at the Improvisation Continuums conference at the University of Glamorgan (April 2007) and at the TaPRA conference, University of Birmingham Sept 2007. She is currently developing a new performance piece, which will tour early Spring 2008.