Faculty

The Modern European Theatre Program is drawn from the best of Britain's universities and theatre professions.

Currently, the following faculty members are confirmed for the program.

Aoife Monks, Academic Chair
Aoife Monks graduated with first class honors from Trinity College, Dublin and gained her PHD at the Samuel Beckett Centre School of Drama. She has taught at colleges including Trinity College, Dublin, the University of Reading and Birkbeck College, University of London.

She has been a Guest Lecturer for the English National Opera, the London School of Economics, Roehampton University, Goldsmiths College and Queen Mary College, and is currently the Programme Director of the MA Text and Performance with RADA. For Birkbeck, she is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies, Co-designer of MA in Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance and Head of Recruitment and Publicity for the School of English and Humanities.

She has been associate director of the Inis Theatre Company, Dublin, and a reader and reviewer of playtexts for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and remains a theatre director, fundraiser and dramaturg for the playwrighting charity, Scene and Heard.

She is Editor of Contemporary Theatre Review Journal, Co-founder of the Centre for Contemporary Theatre and Co-convenor of Birkbeck Theatre Conversations and Peer reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan, Berg Press and Theatre Research International journal. This year has seen the publication of her first book The Actor in Costume.

Christopher Cook, Senior Tutor
Christopher teaches at the University of Syracuse and Temple University on their London Programmes as well as for BADA. He has recently been re-appointed Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts, London.

Christopher began his career in television, producing for BBC2 and Channel 4. He broadcasts regularly on BBC Radios 3, 4, and 5. He is a regular contributor to BBC Music Magazine and International Record Review. He chairs pre-concert events for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Hallé Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Study Evenings at the Royal Opera House.

Christopher was the Director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in 2004 and is currently Chair of the Cheltenham International Music Festival. He is also a Trustee of the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.

Frances Byrnes, Playwriting
Frances received her BA from Bristol University, her MA at Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, and her MPhil Creative Writing (dist) at Trinity College, University of Dublin.

Her work as a Dramatist has appeared regularly on BBC Radios 3 & 4 and she was a finalist at the Alfred Bradley BBC Drama Awards in 2005. As well as writing original work, Frances has worked on adaptations of Dumas and Maupaussant for Radio 3.

She has worked as producer for BBC Radio 3's Woman's Hour, Senior Features Producer for BBC Network Radio and since 2008, Senior Features Producer for Loftus Audio and Executive Producer/Presenter for Rockethouse Productions. She has also presented documentaries for BBC Radios 3 & 4 and her shows have won prestigious SONY Radio Awards on three separate occasions. On television she directed a production of The Pavlov Ballet for BBC2, shortlisted for the 2001 BAFTA Awards.

Frances is Script Reader for Sheffield Theatres New Writing Team and Artistic Assessor for New Writing for the Arts Council of England. She is a governor of Northern School of Contemporary Dance and Associate Lecturer in Writing For Film at Sheffield Hallam University. She teaches on the creative writing MAs at both Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield.

Sophie Charalambous, Costume & Set Design
Sophie trained at Bourneville Art College, received her BA (Fine Art Painting) at Brighton University, a postgraduate study in Theatre Design from the renowned Motley School and a Drawing Year with the Prince of Wales' Drawing School.

Set and Costume Designs include Class and Corruption (The School, Rye), Charlie and Lola (The Polka Children's Theatre and touring UK and Brazil), Debris (BAC and touring), Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Book (Soho Theatre and touring), The Pied Piper (Opera North Education and touring), Orange (Chapter Arts Centre) and Giselle , which has won many awards, was nominated for an Olivier and has toured internationally for the past 6 years.

Sophie has also designed for The British Museum, The Royal Festival Hall, the Soho Theatre, Greenwich & Lewisham Young People's Theatre and BADA. In 2008 she co- designed Welcoming the World, the first arts event of the 2012 Olympics in East London.

Sophie has worked as Artist in Residence in several schools and has created and taught many workshops for young people and adults. She continues to create and exhibit her own artwork and has won several awards and prizes.

Guy Retallack, Directing
Guy trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD) and worked in the West End at the Old Vic Theatre under Jonathan Miller, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the 1990s he was a founder member and director of Company of Clerks, whose highly acclaimed The Master and Margarita (BAC), was nominated Most Promising Newcomer by Plays International.

Guy has been Artistic Director of Wild Thyme Theatre Company and Literary Manager at Bill Kenwright Productions, working on script development and doing a number of play readings with Simon Russell Beale, Alex Jennings, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack and Richard Griffiths. Just some of his directing work includes Faster -whichplayed in London, as well as touring nationally, internationally, and eventually finishing at the 59E59 Festival in New York in 2005, A new play The Lifeblood - which led to the formation of Lifeblood Theatre Company and further projects including Liberty, at Shakespeare's Globe; and Future Me, which toured the country in 2009.

Recently he has directed Mother of Him at the Courtyard (winning the Kings X Award 2010,) Oedipus Tyranno and Alan Ayckbourn's Drowning on Dry Land at the Jermyn St Theatre.

Previously Guy has directed both The Visit and The Plague for BADA as well as teaching for us regularly.