East 15 Acting School - History

History

East 15 Acting School was founded in 1961 by Margaret Walker. It grew from the work of Joan Littlewood's famed Theatre Workshop, and the school's name acknowledges its debt - Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop was based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, whose postal district is E15.

Much of the Littlewood approach was based upon the theories of Konstantin Stanislavski, and the company inherited the socially committed spirit of the Unity Theatre movement, which brought many new voices into British theatre for the first time. Theatre Workshop broke new ground, re-interpreting the classics for a modern age, commissioning new plays from socially committed writers, and creating an ensemble capable of inventing new work, such as the now legendary "Oh, What a Lovely War!". Littlewood created an ensemble, who combined inspired, improvisational brilliance with method, technique, research, text analysis, and the expression of real emotions. Over the years, new training methods were evolved to strip actors of affectations, attitudes and ego trips. The quest was always to search for truth: of oneself, the character, the text.

From 1998-2006, the school was led by John Baraldi, former Chief Executive of Riverside Studios, London, who oversaw the development of many new courses and the rapid expansion of the school. Since 2007, East 15 Acting School has been run by Professor Leon Rubin (former Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic, Watford Palace Theatre and Lyric Theatre, Belfast), who has further overseen the further expansion of the school. This has included the acquisition of a Victorian Gothic church in Southend-on Sea, now re-designed at a cost of some £6million as a performance and learning space, and renamed the Clifftown Studios.