Led by Director-Scholar, Composer and Practitioner Anna-Helena McLean, MOON FOOL has been hosting international theatre and music exchange with funding from Arts Council England since 2004. The umbrella organisation creates and tours original work rooted in a laboratory style ensemble ethic of practice. Since 2007 the company's educational arm, known as ACT INTERNATIONAL, offers unique performer-training opportunities specialised for professional actors and conservatoire acting students as well as diverse international practitioners. The company produce research-driven music theatre shows for international touring as well as events, training and education. The work centres both local communities, rural set residential practice and urban world tours. MOON FOOL have been supported by Arts Council England, British Council, MacArthur Foundation, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Britten Pears Arts, Icarus Theatre Collective, VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association), The Lossenham Project, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust/Warwickshire Consortium, Diazoma Athens, Society of Theatre Research and Local Education Authorities funding as well as benefitting from former partnerships with South Hill Park, South Street Reading, Trestle Touring, Amy Mueller, Helena Richardson, The Old Truman Brewery, Juju's and Stables Theatre Hastings and White Rock Theatre (see also below). Anna-Helena is currently completing her practice led PhD at Guildhall School of Music & Drama in which she is exploring gender, identity and interpretation in actor/voice/performance training. During her time at Guildhall School she has also co-led the BA Hons Acting Studies course and collaborates with the Innovation Department and Guildhall Ignite as well as Head of Voice.
|
|
ANNA-HELENA MCLEANlead artist and director
|
BA Hons Music & Drama, Royal Holloway Uni of London (2000). Principal of Gardzienice in Poland 2000-2007. Performances include Metamorphoses & Electra. Leader of international music & theatre exchange work worldwide since 2004 leading to the formation of Moon Fool. As composer & ensemble coach, productions include Yerma, with Kathryn Hunter; Arquiem, Periplum (RNT); Nothing Left To Lose, Company Collisions (LIMF); Glasgow Girls (NTS); It's a Wonderful Life, Theatre Ad Infinitum (Bush); Bangarang (Dundee Rep). Former principal of Awake Projects, Awake Love Orchestra and Awake Youth (AWAKE Jackson's Lane). Until recently lead tutor on the BA Hons Acting Studies at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, guest lecturer at Rose Bruford College and supervisor for students on the MA Classical Acting at CSSD. Previously guest director at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland since 2004 as well as NSD, Delhi; DePaul Uni, Chicago; Volda College, Norway; Edinburgh College. Former lecturer in extended voice and performance as well as module coordinator at the Uni of Winchester. As a director, productions include The Lear; Richard III (Aegis Productions); Romeo and Juliet; STORM for Libraries (Shakespeare Week), Mme Butterfly (IJ Productions), STORM (Vaults London and Chicago 2015) and A Voice Lesson (Orla Descends) (Britten Pears Arts 2023). As actor-producer and composer, productions include ill Met by Moonlight, Trestle; Titania - A Solo Cabaret, Inanna A Sonic Return to the Source and The Voice Lesson - A Performative Essay (Britten Pears Arts, VASTA 2022). As an actor-musician productions include King Charles III by Mike Bartlett West End and Broadway (Sonia Friedman Productions) and How To Be Immortal, Penny Dreadful Productions. Recently developed The Wig Show & Resonant Tails with Tract and Touch. Anna-Helena is currently engaged as a Doctoral Candidate in Performance Practice at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Anna is a Britten Pears Residency Artist for two years and most recently secured Arts Council England funding to mount her thesis project under the working title 'Orlando Descends'. Interview on Theatre Mix. Most recent TaPRA nominated publication The act of listening See also The British Grotowski Project TRACES, 2008
|
Niamh Dowling is Principal of RADA and former Head of School of Performance at Rose Bruford College. She has worked extensively internationally as a Movement Director, leading workshops in the UK, Europe, USA, Asia, South and Central America and Russia. Niamh trained as a teacher of The Alexander Technique and in movement with Monika Pagneux in Paris and Ann Bogart, Nancy Topf and Eva Karczag in New York. She has collaborated closely with Teatr Piesn Kozla in Poland for the past fifteen years. Niamh has a holistic approach to education and performance training with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of movement and voice and is one of the practitioners on the recently launched online Routledge Performance Archive.
|
Dr. Alex Mermikides directs the unique doctoral programmes at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, which has a distinctive focus on research in, through and for the performing arts.
Her own research also bridges scholarship and practice, the latter as a director, dramaturg and playwright. She has published on contemporary theatre-making (particularly devised and interdisciplinary performance) and the interface between theatre and medicine in the UK. Her edited books include Devising in Process (Palgrave 2010). Her current project Careful, developed with support from the Arts Council, explores themes of compassion, care and empathy through the perspective of nurses. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Times Higher Educational Supplement and on This Week (BBC Radio 4). |
Erin Nicole Washington. Actor, movement artist, acting & dialect coach for TV/film and theatre. From Inglewood, CA, Erin began her training at Amazing Grace Conservatory to SUNY Purchase then to Harvard ART IATT & is currently in post-grad at ATI-LA. She has studied in Bali, Poland, Russia and Italy. As an advocate for individuals who have the desire to transform their communication, Erin gives you tools that you can employ and adapt throughout your journey.
When she isn’t dancing with dialects, she is collaborating with multi-disciplinary experts & artists from around the world, exploring the embodied body via cultural exchange, seeking to decolonize imagination, tap in to primal processes, a mutuality that tends to link the inherent connection between ancestral wellness, relationship to nature and somatics. We can peacefully coexist because of our differences. Diversity is what makes our species stronger. Erin is in her second year of teacher training at Alexander Technique Institute of Los Angeles and recipient of the Judith Leibowitz Diversity Scholarship. |
Kat Shaw is a performer and theatre-maker from Perth, Western Australia. She has a Cert IV Jazz Music (WAAPA), BA Performance Studies/Creative Writing (Curtin), and completed an Internship Program with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, 2014. She was a founding member of The Open Lid Ensemble (Helena; Risscht! The Little Match Girl Theatre Award Finalist, FRINGE WORLD 2017; Hypatia nominated Best Independent Production, WA Performing Arts Awards 2018; Further to Fall) and was nominated for Best Newcomer, 2018 WA Performing Arts Awards, for her performance in Hypatia. She completed an MA Collaborative Theatre Making in association with Frantic Assembly (UK), graduating with distinction and the Course Tutors' Award. Upon returning to Australia amidst the global pandemic she delved back into music joining local post-punk rock band MK Ultrasound and made her debut as sound designer for Fremantle Theatre Company's sell-out show The Last Train to Freo. She began training with Anna-Helena McLean in London, participating in ACT International Residency in Italy in 2019 and 2023, and also the first 2 iterations of Anna-Helena's 'International Singing Village'. Kat is thrilled to be artistic assistant to the director during ACT International in Italy in 2025.
|
Tania Camara joined Live Art Development Agency ADA in June 2023 as Interim Artist Development Manager. Tania is a solo performance artist based in Manchester and working in different mediums: devised theatre, dance, Live Art, video, voice work and music. Bringing together stories from Cape Verde, Britain, Portugal and Guinea Bissau, her artistic focus is to create work that generates conversations about race relations in Britain, tells untold stories, and brings marginalised lived experiences to the forefront. Tania is inspired by her MA research into the traditional dance/music genre Batuku as a social performance and as a form of holistic healing during the Cape Verdean Revolution. She is a graduate of the University of Amsterdam with an MA in Artistic Research and a BA in Performing Arts (Theatre and Dance). To date, she has been selected for and performed at SPILL Festival, National Platform, Camden People’s Theatre SPRINT Festival, London Big Bang, and she has been commissioned for Push Festival and HOME Manchester. She has been awarded Developing Your Creative Practice funding from Arts Council England and her performance OREO (2020) was awarded a National Lottery Project Grant. Tania is currently a part of the 2022-24 Developed With The Lowry cohort and is working on a new work, As I am Naturally that will premiere in September 2024 with the support of Arts Council England.
|
research participant, access consultant & act trainee (2019-23)Noah Silver is a graduate of the BA World Performance Course at East 15 Acting School. He specialises in devised physical theatre and has trained with the Grotowski Institute’s Studio Kokyu. Noah recently directed the puppetry piece Hermit Crab which was scheduled to run in March of 2020 (now postponed) and appeared as dancer in the music video Tiny Kingdoms by Sable. He has worked with Anna-Helena McLean in an ACT summer intensive residency, weekend workshops, and also in one-to-one settings.
|
ANIRUDH NAIR (india) |
FORMER CORE ENSEMBLE PLAYER & facilitator |
Chris-gerard heyward (USA) |
FORMER CORE ENSEMBLE PLAYER & facilitator |
Wanning jen (CHINA) |
act AMBASSADOR |
Anannya Tripathyi (india) |
ACT AMBASSADOR |
DEMetris zavros |
creative advisor |