Type Drama school Students ~1000 | Established 1968 Location London, England, U.K. | |
Principal Anna ScherBernie Burdis Affiliations St Silas Church, Islington | ||
The Anna Scher Theatre is a community-based drama school based in Islington, north London. It was founded in 1968 by Anna Scher.
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Anna Scher
Anna Scher is the daughter of an Irish mother and Jewish Lithuanian dentist father. Starting out as an actor, her father told her to get a proper job, so she became a journalist specialising in theatre with the Islington Gazette for five years, and reviewed for The Times Literary Supplement.
Scher's philosophy is based on promoting love, peace and understanding through both learning and professionalism. Her heroes are Martin Luther King, Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill. She frequently shares with her pupils various meaningful words or sayings which she calls Winston words after Churchill, but which are not necessarily attributed to him.
In the past, Scher was chairperson of the International Song Contest for Peace also in Ireland, and served on the juries at BAFTA, the Sony Awards and the Royal Television Society.
Since its founding in 1968, Scher has been awarded:
Theatre school
In 1968, Scher started an afterschool drama club at Islington's Ecclesbourne Primary School. 70 pupils came the first week, including future Birds of a Feather stars Pauline Quirke (aged 9), Linda Robson (aged 10) and Ray Burdis (aged 11).
In 1970, the classes moved across the road to a council hall in Bentham Court on Ecclesbourne Road. By 1975 she had 1,000 pupils and 5,000 on the waiting list, so moved to the custom converted mission hall on Barnsbury Road in 1976, when the school was established as a charity.
Scher's teaching style produces what critics call a natural delivery, but Scher comments that she just uses their natural voice. Of her improvisation technique, she told Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian in 2004:
In 2000, Scher suffered ill health and stepped down during her recovery period. Scher was never reinstated as head of the theatre, despite a vociferous campaign led by her and her supporters, The Friends of Anna Scher. In 2005, the remaining staff and board set up a new school but Anna Scher went on to continue her theatre school under her own name at the nearby Blessed Sacrament Church Hall, Islington. Since 2009, the Anna Scher Theatre has been teaching from the St Silas Church in Islington and classes are run 3 days a week by Anna Scher and former pupil Bernie Burdis, who together have taught for over 30 years.
Scher is married to Charles Verrall, an acting and public speaking coach who has also written and directed several stage plays and a musical. He was co-director of the Anna Scher Theatre for many years, and co-authored several of Scher's books on acting. They have one son.