Nicholas Bailey, a professional actor, workshop leader and motivational speaker, was classically trained at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and LAMDA before appearing on stage in such plays as Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, Life is a Dream, King Lear and Mother Courage and her Children. His TV credits include Coronation Street, Casualty, Law and Order:UK, Holby City, Miranda, Doctors, Heartburn Hotel and Manchester Passion. He is probably best known for playing Dr Anthony Trueman in BBC’s Eastenders . Since leaving the show, Nicholas has continued to work in radio, theatre and TV and is now involved in the BBAS as a performer, advocate and consultant. He is active as a creativity consultant in schools and is also working to help improve learner employability. An MBA in International Business from the University of Birmingham, Nicholas recently founded Legacy360, a leadership and communication consultancy which uses the principles of the creative and performing arts to unlock potential within organisations and individuals. He is a BBA Shakespeare Honorary Fellow.

 

Susan Brock is an honorary member of the BBAS team, helping to administer the project. She was formerly Librarian at the Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham), Head of Library and Academic Resources at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and Executive Secretary of the International Shakespeare Association. She came to Warwick in 2005 to work for the CAPITAL Centre, a collaboration between Warwick and the Royal Shakespeare Company exploring the application of theatre practice to University teaching and learning. Since then she has carried forward these ideas as Academic Manager at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning and Warwick Business School’s WBSCreate. She is an Honorary fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies. She has published on Shakespeare, the early modern theatre and 20th century performance history.

 

Suman Bhuchar, an Honorary Research Fellow, has a portfolio career in the arts. A chance encounter with Tara Arts ignited a lifelong passion for theatre and led to her joining her sister, Sudha Bhuchar, who along with Kristine Landon-Smith set up Tamasha in 1989, as a press and marketing consultant. Recent Credits: Jamie Lloyd Productions /Ambassador Theatre Group revival of East is East (2014-15) as well as the original show and others for Tamasha -- East is East; Wuthering Heights; Fourteen Songs & A Funeral. Other credits: A Taste for Mangoes (Tara Arts); Calcutta Kosher (Kali Theatre); Alladeen (Barbican/Motiroti); Midnight’s Children (RSC); Bombay Dreams (Really Useful Group)and Lord of the Rings (Kevin Wallace). She is part of Lucid Arts,(www.lucidarts.org), a production company specializing in new works of opera and theatre. She is a contributor to www.theatrevoice.com and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In April 2014, she co-curated the Multicultural Shakespeare debates at the V&A.

 

Lisa Cook is Support Officer for the project as well as secretary in the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. She has worked for over ten years at the University. She also has an extensive background in editorial work and Public Relations both in the public and private sector. She has a History of Art degree.

 

 

 

 

Tony Howard is the project's Principal Investigator. He is Profesor of English at Warwick University and specialises in the relationship between performance and politics. In 2009 he organised a celebration of Paul Robeson’s career, involving exhibitions and stage and radio documentaries. He is the author of Women as Hamlet: Performance as Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction (CUP 2007). He curated seasons of Shakespeare films from round the world for the Cultural Olympiad and the first Harlem Shakespeare Festival, and works closely with Shakespeare's Globe. He has had plays and (working with Barbara Bogoczek) translations performed at the Barbican, Stratford East, the Royal Court, Riverside Studios and Battersea Arts Centre.

 

 

 

 

Delia Jarrett-Macauley, Research Fellow, has a long-established interest in black British history and culture. She has extensive experience in the arts sector as a consultant, trainer and policy advisor and has specialized in diversity and social change. Formerly the Director of the Independent Theatre Council, she wrote the advisory booklet Race: Policy into Practice (iTc, 1997) and was the National Theatre’s Research Director on Transmission, a pan-European career development project from 1995-7. She is the author of The Life of Una Marson 1905-65 , (MUP, 1998), and the Orwell prize-winning novel Moses, Citizen and Me (Granta, 2005) which recasts Julius Caesar in post civil war Sierra Leone.

 

Jami Rogers, Research Assistant and Honorary Fellow, trained at LAMDA and holds an MA and a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute, the University of Birmingham. Prior to obtaining her PhD she spent 10 years working in public broadcasting in the US, including 8 years at PBS's flagship programmes, Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!, where awards included a Primetime Emmy from the Academy of Arts and Television Sciences. She is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and has taught at the Universities of Birmingham, Warwick and the British American Drama Academy. Her research interests are the contemporary performances of Shakespeare and American drama in the UK. She has published articles in Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare: The Journal of the British Shakespeare Association and regularly reviews performances for the major academic journals. Jami has lectured on Shakespeare and American drama at the National Theatre in London and works regularly with director David Thacker at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

 

Sita Thomas is a research scholar at the University of Warwick and is writing her PhD thesis as part of the AHRC funded project: Multicultural Shakespeare that aims to capture and celebrate a marginalised history of culturally important Shakespearean work. Sita received AHRC funding for her Masters at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Whilst at Central she worked as Movement Apprentice with Struan Leslie at the Royal Shakespeare Company on productions including Julius Caesar (dir. Greg Doran). Sita also works as a filmmaker and has recently produced films on Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet and Othello) for the National Theatre.