Meet The Team

This is Geoff, the creative director of T.Y.A. He trained at Brunel and worked as an Associate director with Optik Theatre Company. He has taught drama for 20 years and is Head of drama at Malbank School which is a Specialist School for Performing Arts. He has been a trainer on the P.G.C.E course for Manchester University. His role within the company is to write new material and allow the team to develop and create an environment where innovation can grow. This team looks after your children and this is why we take a long time recruiting to T.Y.A.

This is Linda. She is the business director. She has a great love of theatre and works as an adviser in Cheshire. As a company we passionately believe that every child matters and Linda brings her knowledge to the group. She has worked within theatre in education for 30 years and works on policy and makes sure the organisation is well run. She does an amazing job. If you join Linda will make sure you are looked after are kept up to date with a regular newsletter and will answer any questions for you.

This is Ed. Trained at RADA he has been with the company from the very beginning. He is a highly experienced workshop leader who has developed our Naturalism-Innovation workshop programme. He has won a number of awards for his acting. His performance of the Elephant Man was fantastic. How do we know? because we went to see him. He brings innovation and designs our merchandise.

This is Jess. She has trained with the company for a number of years and is an innovative team leader. The students think she’s FAB. She runs the musical theatre side of T.Y.A and has developed a fresh, crisp and supportive approach to developing voice. The children laugh, have fun and produce great musical theatre. She is currently working on our Easter/summer programme.

This is Mark. He has been working in theatre and education for over ten years. He ran the English Touring Theatres Youth Theatre programme. We have wanted to get him for a while and he joined the company in 2008. We are delighted with his appointment as he brings great experience with him, especially in creative writing. We want Mark to run a play writing programme in 2009 and we hope to be setting up a new writing competition for our three centres which Mark will lead.

This is Sian. She loves to dance and has a great way of getting the kids to express their creativity through movement and physical theatre. She works closely with Jess, and her energy, enthusiasm and commitment has had a real impact on the childrens' confidence. She also has a great singing voice and a real love of theatre.

This is Rosie. She can speak fluent French, is a great performer, kind and supportive, and is very creative when it comes to design. She can make anything and brings the organic side to the business. She is passionate about the environment and works on our recycle programme. She can make magical puppets out of scrap. Her shadow puppets are beautiful. The kids love her work and we love having Rosie working for T.Y.A.

This is Kevin. He works as our outreach worker. He is a highly experienced drama specialist who has been using Drama in Primary Schools for over 30 years. He is a fantastic member of the team and brings his experience and creativity to our company.

This is Jon. He has been helping out at the Malpas Young Persons Project every week for two and a half years, both with the juniors (8-12 years) and seniors (12-16 years). Luckly Jon decided to get involved and he has helped develop our T.Y.A Malpas Drama group programme. Why did we want Jon to work for T.Y.A? Because he brings a real passion for creativity and youth work. We are delighted that he has become part of our team.