Achieve Arts Co - Founders

 Karen trained at Guildford School of acting and is a fluent Welsh speaker. Karen has a long running stage career and is a wonderful asset to the Achieve Arts Faculty.

Theatre credits include: Pirates of Penzance, Midsummer Nights Dream,

Where's Charlie? Cats, Aspects of Love , My Fair Lady, City of Angels , Original

West End cast of Beauty and the Beast, Out of the Blue, Buddy, Esther, The Best of 

Times - A Jerry Herman Revue, The Ballad of Little Jo, High Spirits, Closer Than Ever. 

Concerts include: Carousel, Ragtime and numerous charity concerts and events. 

Television Includes: Pobl Y Cwm, Cerddwn Ymlaen, Caerdydd, Glanhafren, Aml Fai.

Film and Concert work as a session singer for Metro Voices.

Karen is a loved member of the team with both staff and students 

Originally from Leeds, Victoria trained at Mountview Academy of a Theatre Arts where she was awarded The Lilian Baylis prize for acting and gained her BA Honours acting degree. After leaving drama school she worked for Page to a stage theatre company touring Various Shakespeare plays. She appeared in TV commercials, short films and a Sri Lanken Feature film. 

Victoria has been teaching drama, dance and singing to children and young adults for the past 12 years. It is her passion to share her skills and knowledge. She has worked in many Educational and Theatre schools across London and is so excited to be a part of the achieve arts team. 

 Tim is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin where he spent 5 years improvising, acting, directing and completing a Classics degree. He has since spent three years teaching both Latin and LAMDA at Wycombe Abbey School, Arnold House and on a freelance basis.
An aspiring comedy performer, Tim spends a lot of his free time working on creating Fringe shows, podcasts and musicals. Improvisation is certainly one of his greatest passions and he enjoyed three successful runs performing at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Having completed his Grade 8 LAMDA in both Acting and Speaking in Public, Tim has worked with his mentor, a current LAMDA examiner, to ensure that he is able to provide the same brilliant LAMDA experience he had growing up to the children he now teaches. His lessons always look to bring the best out of the students and are always punctuated with plenty of fun and laughs!
Tim is joining Achieve Arts in September and he can’t wait to get started! 

Alison studied music at University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin along with studying voice, piano and clarinet with the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and The Associated Board. Alison has been teaching voice for 15 years with many students winning prestigious vocal competitions, outstanding exam grades and going on to train at top London arts academies. As a performer Alison has worked extensively in the fields of music theatre, opera, short film, TV, VO, concert and cruise production shows. Credits include:

 Lulu/Streisand/Backing vocals in ‘A Beautiful Noise’ (West End and UK Tour),

 Vocalist and vocal captain in ‘Celtic Angels’ (National Tour Germany),

 Charity ‘Sweet Charity’, 

Nancy ‘Oliver’, 

Julia ‘The Wedding Singer-The Musical’,

 Rose ‘Street Scene’ (Opera in the Open), 

Fruma Sarah ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ (The Gaiety Dublin),

 Giulia ‘The Gondoliers (Buxton Opera House),

 ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ (The Helix Dublin), 

’Lucia di Lammermoor’ (The National Concert Hall), 

Vocal Captain/Production Vocalist for Thomson/Peel Talent and Production Vocalist for Celebrity Cruises/Qdos (travelling worldwide including Europe/USA/Caribbean/Africa).

 Alison has performed in many other prominent theatres including Her Majesties Theatre London, The National Opera House of Ireland, The Millennium Forum Derry and The Waterfront Belfast; as well as hitting the stage at all major event venues in London with Motown band ‘The Basie Millers’.

 Awards include: 

AIMS Best Actress 2010 and nominee 2011, 

Permanent TSB High Achiever Award from the Royal Irish Academy of Music. 

Alison is delighted to be joining Achieve Arts! 

Jess grew up in Reading and thrived in dance and drama classes from a young age.
She trained in Musical Theatre at CPA studios and worked professionally in shows up and down the country as well as being part of Street Dance Company Vanquish, whom she toured with for 5years and appeared on Britain’s Got Talent.
Now residing in North London, Jess is the Creative Director of J R Theatre Company Limited that she set up in 2014. She produces and directs several shows a year.
Along side her professional theatre shows, Jess has taught drama, dance and singing to children and young adults for 15+ years and is incredibly passionate about encouraging creativity and building up children’s confidence.
She works in several schools and nurseries across London delivery weekly dance classes and kids entertainment for parties.
Jess also works as an audition tutor and has a 100% success rate for students gaining entry to drama school and West End shows. She currently has students at Arts Educational, Italia Conti, Sylvia Young and Brit School.
Jess is delighted to be a part of the creative team at Achieve Arts having worked alongside both Pamela and Karen for many years.

 

  Izzy Austin,  trained at Rose Bruford Drama School on the BA Acting course and has been teaching children's classes for over 7 years. She has a wealth of experience in the industry and is passionate about passing on her expertise to the younger creative generation. Izzy is experienced in teaching all aspects of LAMDA and her results with Achieve Arts pupils are outstanding . Izzy is a well respected and loved member of the Achieve Arts Team 

Alana lives in London and trained at RADA.

Theatre credits include: Importance of Being Earnest (Duke of York’s), Macbeth (National Theatre), Young Marx (directed by Nicholas Hytner at The Bridge), The Glass Menagerie (directed by John Tiffany at the Duke of York London), A Bright Room Called Day (Southwark Playhouse) for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Off-West-End-Stage Award, Unearthed (UK Tour), Young Bloods (Gielgud Theatre, RADA Festival).

Television credits include: Blitz (BBC), The Crown (NETFLIX), Bulletproof (SKY) Doctors (BBC), Silk and Doc Martin (ITV).

Film credits include: Common People and Belle.

Radio credits include: Number 10, Two Minutes Hate, The Mysterious Death of Jane Austin, The Russian Gambler, Best Q, Heading to Paradise and Burn Baby Burn (all for BBC Radio).

Alana is a valued member of the Achieve Arts creative team and our students are lucky to be guided by her expertise.
 

Susan is a theatremaker from Northern Ireland, based in London. She trained as an actor at East 15 Acting School, with further development on the European Actors Continuous Training scheme run by RADA and The Actors Centre. She also trained in Directing under Olivier award winner Di Trevis. 

As an actor, she worked extensively across the UK and Ireland, touring work with Tinderbox, Primecut, Bruiser and for The Lyric Theatre. She has performed within her own work at The Arcola, The Pleasance, The Battersea Barge and more. Susan has amassed experience working on a variety of directorial roles including with a plethora of new writers, presenting work at Theatre 503, The Arcola, Hen and Chickens, Old Red Lion, St James’s Studio, The Horse Hospital, The George Tavern and Mac Belfast. In 2012 she was an invited member of the Tamasha Developing Writer group, in 2013 an invited member of the Young Vic Springboard Group and in 2014 was invited to the Lincoln Center Director Lab in New York. 

She has developed work for Camden People’s Theatre in 2015 (Calm Down Dear Festival), The Pleasance in 2016 (Litmus Festival) and Eh Voila! European Theatre Festival (2017). In 2019 her piece HATCH was shortlisted for the Pintsized Playwriting Competition at the Bunker Theatre. She is currently developing a solo show and is also an Associate 2020/21 at the Open School East in Margate.

Originally from Nottingham, Marina is an Actor-Musician who trained at the Guildford School of Acting. Since graduating, she played ‘Vicki’ in the It’s Different For Girls UK Tour, and works closely as an associate artist with She Productions- a Hull-based theatre company delivering accessible family theatre driven by the female-voice. She is incredibly passionate about teaching and passing on new skills to the next generation of young performers.  Achieve Arts are delighted to welcome Marina to the team. 

Katie is originally from Scotland and is currently breaking into the industry as a 2021 graduate actor, from the Bristol Old Vic theatre school. With experience working in Theatre and television from a young age herself, she is excited to get the younger generation inspired by theatre, and create fun new ways of using acting and voice techniques to build confidence. Her past theatre credits include multiple tours, the Edinburgh Fringe and more recently “The Three Seagulls” at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre directed by Sally Cookson.  Katie cannot wait to meet the students and become a part of the Achieve Arts Team.  

 Originally from Hull, Danielle trained at Laine Theatre Arts, where she gained her Musical Theatre Diploma  and teaching qualifications. Theatre credits include: Brenda and cover/played Linda in Blood Brothers (Phoenix Theatre, London),  Oliver! (London Palladium), Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show (No.1 European tour), Third Floor (Trafalgar Studios, London), Marty and cover/played Sandy in Grease (No.1 Uk tour), Lorraine in 42nd  Street (No.1 UK tour), Phantom and cover/played Janet, Magenta, Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show (Queens Theatre, London/No.1 UK tour), Beauty and the Beast (No.1 UK tour), Girls Night Out (No.1 UK  tour), Melanie in Jet Set Go! (Jermyn Street Theatre, London), Tina in Bloodbath (The Venue,  London/George Square Theatre, Edinburgh), All Bobs Women (The Arts Theatre, London), Belle in Beauty  and the Beast (Nottingham Playhouse), Whistle Down the Wind (London/Edinburgh Festival, NYMT),  Bugsy Malone (London/Edinburgh Festival, NYMT).  Danielle is delighted to share her wealth of knowledge with our Achieve Arts students. 

Originally from the Midlands, Naomi is a Musical Theatre Performer who trained first at the Arts Educational School London for an Extended Diploma to then furthering her training at the Guildford School of Acting, graduating in 2018 with a BA Hons. During her time at GSA, she got to work with an extensive range of industry professionals who inspired her to not only perform, but to create. During her training she performed a variety of roles from Wendla in Spring Awakening to Jellylorum in Cats! Since graduation and post-lockdowns, she is extremely grateful to have been the lead in a short film Everything is Completely Fine. Naomi absolutely loves teaching as she loves seeing the students growth in confidence and skills!