Create-Collaborate-Celebrate
Welcome to the home of Deirdre Marshall, Theatremaker. I am a writer, theatre director, performing arts educator and an advocate for youth arts and work with children and teenagers to develop their passion for all things theatre: performing, watching, creating. I believe in nurturing their creativity and providing opportunities for them to collaborate with their peers and develop empathy, patience and understanding, and to celebrate their successes.
My name is Deirdre Marshall and I am a writer, theatre director, drama coach, performing arts educator and an advocate for youth arts. With over thirty years experience teaching performing arts in both school and community settings, my projects for children have involved developing and running drama programs in Stratford and Sale, coordinating school holiday programs in circus, clowning and playmaking, writing and directing plays for children, and partnering with organisations and theatre companies including the Stratford Courthouse Theatre, The Wedge, West Gippsland Arts Centre and La Mama, as well as Regional Arts Victoria, Asking For Trouble, Born in A Taxi, Homunculus Theatre Company and the Australian Shakespeare Company.
In 2010 I founded Groundwork Youth Theatre to provide to provide Gippsland youth with non-school based creative performance opportunities, adapting and directing a number of Shakespeare’s plays for the young actors to perform as part of the Shakespeare on the River Festival in Stratford. These include The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It and an updated version of Romeo and Juliet.
In 2012 I was presented with the inaugural Drama Victoria Regional Teacher of the Year, acknowledging my work in education and youth theatre, and in 2017 I became MAMA Legend, one of 50 drama teachers acknowledged who have spent 30+ years delivering drama and theatre education programs in Victoria.
In 2015, I developed Shakespeare’s Shrew and Other Lies with Groundwork Youth Theatre. The play was picked up by Gippsland Women’s Health to open the White Ribbon campaign later that same year and I was invited to take Shrew to the UK with Groundwork Youth Theatre, where it was performed in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of Shakespeare’s death.
I then developed a collaboration between youth actors from Canada and Australia in an international Shakespearean theatre collaboration to perform The Tempest at the Stratford Sister Cities Reunion in Stratford, Victoria in 2018.
I directed Puss in Boots, Jack and the Beanstalk and Alice in Wonderland for The Wedge in Sale, developing relaxed performances for Jack and Alice to cater for audience members with special needs. I have also worked as a drama coach for the Australian Shakespeare Company’s Gippsland tours of The Wind in the Willows in 2014, 2015 and 2016, auditioning and rehearsing local children for the role of Portly in both Wellington and Baw Baw Shires.
I have written numerous plays including pantomimes and adaptations of Shakespeare’s work for performance by children and teens in Gippsland and Melbourne, and established The Saturday Drama School in 2017. I also developed a playmaking program for school aged children in partnership with Regional Arts Victoria to run in regional schools from 2020.
I often get asked why the performing arts are even necessary. I usually answer with two words. Human experience. The arts play a vital role in nurturing our innate creativity, and in the case of Drama, our empathy, confidence and resilience. Often described as “soft skills”, I would argue that these are, in fact, core …
The Tempest Project represented a collaboration between me and the Stratford on Avon Shakespeare Association and the Stratford Victoria Sister Cities for the Stratfords of the World Reunion in September 2018. The final cast comprised 5 young actors aged 11-17, from Australia and Canada. Rehearsals began in March, using Google Hangouts to bring the actors together online from …
Email: mail@deirdremarshall.com
Tel: 0458450777
