Meet the Team
Angela El-Zeind
Drama Tutor
Angela is a performing arts lecturer, artistic director of Speak Up! Act Out! cic, and an Applied Theatre workshop facilitator.
Her practice involves working with theatre makers, community groups, charities, corporations, and educational institutes, as well as with individuals as a mentor and coach.
Angela teaches performing arts and production design at Northbrook College, and is a visiting performing arts lecturer at Portsmouth University. In 2019 she was the recipient of a travel Fellowship, researching how Improvisation can be used as a tool to support the wellbeing and mental health of young people.
Angela’s clubs
12-16s Saturday Drama @ BHASVIC
12-16s Monday Drama @ BYC
Graham Shackell
Drama and Stage Combat Tutor
Graham works as a practitioner in theatre, circus, storytelling, and combat. He specialises in creating site-specific and outdoor spectacle events, including theatrical performance, circus, storytelling, film, and moving visual arts installations. He runs Sometime Soon Arts and is also a regular collaborator with the internationally-acclaimed large-scale performance company Periplum. Graham is also a freelance tutor, delivering workshops and educational projects with BTEC and HND students from Northbrook College and North Herts College. He also teaches masterclass residencies in Spain, Greece, France, and Italy with Pavilion Tours to performing arts students at A level, BTEC, and HND level.
Graham’s clubs
Stage Combat @ Blatchington Mill
8-12s Saturday Drama @ Hollingdean
Natasha Higdon
Drama Tutor
Natasha is a director, writer, author, and teacher of Drama. She is a Brighton-based practitioner, who currently teaches at BHASVIC College and ThirdSpace.
Natasha is an author and researcher for ‘We Teach Drama’, ‘Mousetrap’ and ‘Get Up Stand Up – The Bob Marley Musical’. Natasha specialises in physical theatre, total theatre, and cathartic community based projects.
Natasha’s clubs
8-12s Saturday Drama @ BHASVIC
8-11s Monday Drama @ St Luke’s
7-11s Wednesday Drama @ West Blatchington
Bex Milner
Drama Tutor
Bex is a Drama Facilitator, Theatre Maker and Educator. She has an MA in Applied Theatre from Goldsmiths and was recently awarded Arts Council Funding to develop her creative practice in physical theatre. She is passionate about creating spaces for children and young people to play and connect, for their voices to be heard and to access high quality theatre teaching. She spreads her work across Brighton, London and Newhaven. Working for Half Moon Theatre, The Unicorn Theatre, The Primary Shakespeare Company, and The Old Vic. She co runs her own theatre company in Newhaven called Haven Young Creatives.
Bex’s clubs
5-8s Thursday Drama @ Hanover
8-12s Thursday Drama @ Hanover
7-11s Drama @ Crew Club
Sophia Trewick
Writing Tutor
A Brighton-based writer and theatre maker with experience facilitating creative spaces for writers and performers, Sophia graduated from the University of Exeter. She has written several plays and was recently lead writer for ThirdSpace Theatre’s production of BAKKHAI for Brighton Festival. In response to the isolation of the pandemic, she facilitated a fortnightly online creative writing group which brought together artists of all ages. She is passionate about forms of storytelling that are accessible for all and is particularly inspired by contemporary retellings of old tales.
Sophia’s club
Theatre Writing @ BYC
Zoë Alexander
Drama Tutor / Tutor Assistant
Zoë started training with Windmill Young Actors (now ThirdSpace Theatre) when she was 13 and performed in many of their productions including their award-winning Agamemnon (Brighton Fringe, 2017). She has assistant directed two of ThirdSpace’s large scale productions: Romeo and Juliet (2019) and Bakkhai (Brighton Festival, 2023). Zoë studied at the University of Oxford and during her time there and participated in the filmmaking and dramatic societies where she directed a short film (The Classicist, 2022) and wrote and directed a play (Ariadne and the Minotaur, 2020). Since graduating, Zoe has been collaborating on various theatre and film projects in Brighton and now works for ThirdSpace as a drama teacher and teaching assistant. Zoë continues to participate in ThirdSpace Theatre as a student and performer/company member
Zoe’s clubs
5-8s Thursday Drama @ All Saints Centre
9-12s Thursday Drama @ All Saints Centre (Joint Tutor)
Robert McCloskey
Drama Tutor / Tutor Assistant
Robert trained as an actor at Northbrook College for 3 years and then went on to train with ThirdSpace Theatre under Artistic Director Tanushka Marah. Robert has performed with the company in their productions of the Bakkhai and Romeo and Juliet and continues to work with the company as a performer and teacher. Robert has also trained across Europe and the UK at the Grotowski Institute, and with international theatre directors and teachers such as David Glass, John Wright, Paul Hunter, Euripides Laskaridis and companies Spymonkey, Theatre Re, and Studio Matejka, and worked with the director Stephen Harper’s company Corned Beef Croissant which acted as a major inspiration for Robert’s work.
Robert has primarily worked in devised and physical theatre, working with recent graduate companies from East 15 Drama School. Robert creates and directs his own work with his company Theatre Patchwork made up of other members of ThirdSpace Theatre – they have performed in both London and Brighton and received Must See and 5 star reviews, hailed as “perfectly achieved physical theatre” and continue to experiment with different forms of theatre in their Theatre Lab. Robert believes in play and creating a secure, collaborative environment where all voices are able to express themselves as the foundation for the emergence of creativity.
Rob’s Clubs
5-8s Thursday Drama @ All Saints Centre (Tutor Assistant)
9-12s Thursday Drama @ All Saints Centre (Joint Tutor)
Gina Kawecka
Drama Tutor
Gina trained as an actor at the BAFTA Award winning Television Workshop, working as a professional actor on stage, TV & film. She is a lecturer at the Institute for Contemporary Theatre and has a wealth of experience in devising, directing and teaching; her continued and respected work with young people in Drama gives her the insight, sensitivity and sense of humour required to work with younger actors. A practical, positive approach, partnered with a creative and imaginative flair and a love for storytelling in all its dramatic forms. Her film work focuses on character and emotional tone. Passionate about inspiring teams toward a shared vision, and thinking creatively around both content and form. Her first short film ‘Plaster’ was officially selected for film festivals in the UK, Sydney & Mumbai.
Gina’s clubs
12-16s Thursday Drama @ Blatchington Mill
12-16s Saturday Drama @ BYC
Dave Barnstorm
General Manager & Producer
Dave is an experienced producer, change manager, relationship manager, administrator, events and project coordinator having worked in the corporate consultancy and charity sectors, with a history as an organisational lead in the theatrical and arts industry.
He left his Operations and Facilities Manager role at The So & So Arts Club due to COVID-19, and worked with Winston’s Wish from February 2021 to December 2022. Having implemented and change-managed a new method of service delivery, he left Winston’s Wish to join Plain Numbers as Partnerships & Services Manager.
Before moving to Brighton, he was a theatre director trained at the King’s Head Theatre on the Resident Directors’ Scheme and is an Olivier-nominated associate director for King’s Head’s La Boheme at Trafalgar Studios in 2016. He has won awards and received critical acclaim for his directing work including The Soul of Wittgenstein and The Yellow Wallpaper and ran his own theatre company, Another Soup for over 7 years.
The Board of Directors
Our leadership is made up of young people and industry professionals from both the arts and wider sectors, from diverse backgrounds.
Hannah Coxeter – Youth Worker & B.Fest founder
Imber Eames-Dorkings – ThirdSpace Theatre company member, freelance creative, & writer
Dulani Kulasinghe – Member of B&H Council’s Anti-Racist Education team, teacher, & writer
Robin Morley – Managing Director & Artistic Director of Enchanted Places & Artistic Director of Magnetic Events
We are currently actively seeking additional members of the Board, so if you are interested please click here.