Teacher Biographies

Omar F Okai

Omar F. Okai is an award-winning director and / or choreographer of over sixty plays and musicals, produced both in London and Europe. He is the Artistic Director of the award winning Okai Collier Company Limited, which has been nominated for an Empty Space…Peter Brook Award / Equity Ensemble category both in 2011 and 2014 acknowledging its body of work. In 2001 Omar received the Best Director award for ‘Ruthless’, which also won four other awards including Best Musical Production [off West End], and was jointly nominated in 2004 for two Whatsonstage Awards [Best Musical Revival and Best Overall off West End Production] for ‘Purlie’. Omar recently won the 2016 International Achievement Recognition Award for Choreography and has been nominated for a B.E.F.F.T. Award, again for Choreography.

Ahmet Ahmet

Ahmet is currently Director of Outreach and Education for The Stage Newspaper. As well as this is he is an Acting Tutor on the Foundation Musical Theatre programme and a guest director on the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre programme at Trinity Laban, as well as lecturing at Goldsmiths University.

Helen Evans

Helen holds a first class BA (Hons) degree in Acting from Bretton Hall University College, and an MA (with distinction) in Performance Practices and Research from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is nearing completion of her doctorate, titled, I Spy: Surveillance, Politicity, and the Participant-Spectator Turn, as a recipient of a Royal Central School Research Bursary.

Helen’s pedagogy has evolved through a combination of university and conservatoire teaching and directing. This includes ongoing and periodic work as Associate Lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, at the University of Chichester, and for Fourth Monkey.  Previously, she has worked at The Musical Theatre Academy (as Head of Acting/Director), Brunel University, and at Bretton Hall College of the University of Leeds. Helen inter-pollinates the different aspects of her career as an actor, singer, lecturer, director and academic.

Scott Harrison

Scott Harrison trained in Musical Theatre at Guildhall School of Acting and the Dance School of Scotland MTC. He is both a highly experienced professional performer and teacher.

Some of the performance work Scott has been involved in includes Butler/Asher in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (National Tour), Doug in the Original Irish Cast Album of Elegies: For Angels, Punks & Raging Queens and The Intruder in See How They Run (Pomegranate Theatre). He originated the roles of Roy in Supermarket! The Musical/Rebels and Retail and Ford Maddox/Hangman in Scandalous! (Nottingham Playhouse) and was in the Ensemble in Only The Brave (Concert), as well as leading man Diamond Jim in The Diamond Horseshoe (Disneyland, Tokyo), Frank Lacey in ITV’s Albert’s Memorial alongside David Jason and David Warner, and Psycho Joey & Sketch regular in BBC’s Life According to Fred alongside comedian Fred McCauley. He is also no stranger to performing in the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, having performed in such pieces as Berlioz’s Te Deum under the direction of internationally renowned conductor Susanna Mälkki with the BBC Symphony Choir.

Lucinda Lawrence

Training: Arts Ed, London

Theatre credits include: Roz Keith in 9 to 5 (UK Tour) & Margaret/1^st cover Violet (Savoy Theatre); Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray (UK Tour); Young Beryl in Liver Birds Flying Home (Royal Court, Liverpool); Fiddler on the Roof (Chichester Festival Theatre); On the Town (Regents Park Open Air Theatre); Cherry Sundae in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (Theatre Royal Dury Lane); Rhoda in White Christmas (Dominion Theatre); Mimi, u/s Adelaide in Guys & Dolls (Chichester Festival Theatre); Rhonda in Cool Rider (Duchess Theatre); Vodka in Drunk (Leicester Curve & Bridewell Theatre); u/s Roxie in Chicago (Leicester Curve); Principle Singer in Gotta Sing Gotta Dance (UK Tour); Kiss Me Kate (Old Vic); Wonderful Town (Original UK Tour); Gladys U/S and played Peggy Sawyer in 42^nd Street (Leicester Curve, Chichester Festival Theatre); Soho Cinders (Queen’s Theatre); u/s Meg and Fleck in Love Never Dies (Adelphi Theatre); Showgirl Within (The Garrick); Dorothy in Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi (Union Theatre); Mary Poppins (UK Tour).

Lucinda is currently the narrator of BBC 1’s Garden Rescue, and can also be heard as a vocalist on cast recordings of 9 to 5, Cool Rider, and Drunk!

Workshops include: Judy (Feature Film); Dare (Polka Theatre); Pippin (Menier Chocolate Factory); Spittin’ Distance (NT Studio); ‘The Last Maharajah’ (Wyndham’s Theatre).

Graham Newell

Training: Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts

Verity Quade

Verity is a seasoned West End performer, having played both lead and ensemble in a variety of musicals. A selection of her credits include: Carousel at the London Coliseum; Kinky Boots at the Adelphi Theatre; Sweeney Todd at the London Coliseum; Sunny Afternoon at the Pinter Theatre; Sister Act at the London Palladium; The Sound of Music at The London Palladium and Jerry Springer, the Opera at the Cambridge Theatre. She is in constant demand as a singing teacher and vocal coach at the highest level and works regularly as a musical director and arranger.

Verity is also an experienced session and concert singer and has sung backing vocals for Dionne Warwick and Josh Groban, performed in three Proms and a national tour with the John Wilson Orchestra, and was a featured vocalist in a collaboration with the English National Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall entitled Strictly Gershwin.

Liesl Dowsett

Teaching Staff – Musical Theatre Dance