Rachel Hodgson (Sarah Smith)

Having trained at Bretton Hall College in the late 1970’s, Rachel joined Wide Angle Theatre Company performing in local schools in West Yorkshire. She then worked as an Educational Projects Officer before landing the job of Head of Drama at Kettlethorpe High School where she stayed for the next 32 years! In addition, she was the director of Wakefield Youth Theatre for several years and had a brief stint with Hull Truck Youth Theatre. She also returned to Bretton to study for an MA in Educational Theatre. Having retired (early!) she became a founder member of SRM and found herself in front of an audience again rather than behind the scenes. When she’s not flexing her acting muscles (and shredding her nerves) she enjoys singing in a Soul Choir, walking, swimming, gardening and spoiling her two cats.

Liz Heywood (Kathryn Sutton)

Liz spent most of her working life leading a brilliant team in a large Performing Arts department at a sixth form college, with occasional teaching at Bretton Hall College. She has directed, among many others, Lope da Vega, Edward Bond, Eugene Ionesco, Ariel Dorfman, Peter Wheelan, Howard Barker, loads of musicals, and has also worked with the Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival, toured Spain with Barker’s Minna, and performed in several other Barker plays with Leeds and Huddersfield University. Started a PhD on Barker: “Women in the Apocalyptic Landscape”, but the content didn’t live up to the title, so was abandoned after a year or so. She retains an interest in transgressive/awkward/political theatre. Likes singing, reading, writing, whisky, gardening, eating and laughing. And sometimes…acting.

Mike Casey (Frank Dudley)

Before moving to Yorkshire, Mike was a founder member of Citizens Theatre, Stourbridge: roles included Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Davies in The Caretaker and Sam in The Homecoming. He taught drama at Bretton Hall College for thirty happy years, specialising in Shakespeare and Commedia dell’Arte. On retirement he took up acting again, joining SRM Theatre (all the company have a Bretton connection). He was a founder member of Plain Quakers Theatre, frequent visitors to Barnstaple TheatreFest, where he has played Morris in The Chocolate Paradox, and Willy Sykes in For Conscience Sake. He has directed Ionesco, Becket, Howard Barker, John Arden and Tom Stoppard, among others. Favourite Shakespeare roles are Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. For TheatreFest 2018 he created Frank Dudley in Swansong-not fade away. Audiences can now find out what happened next…