Tracey Linegar
Tracey Linegar is the owner and artistic director of the school and presents and guides each class. Her approach is always based on the individual and with engaging students on a personal level. She approaches classic texts and dramatists in a fresh and irreverent way but is not afraid to teach structure, meter and meaning. She brings her experience of mime and physical theatre to each class, encouraging the shyest and least confident to shed their inhibitions and perform, channeling the excess energy of her more exuberant students towards constructive, creative expression. Throughout her teaching career Tracey feels privileged to have worked with students with a range of abilities, including those with complex needs, integrating them into her weekly classes. Scholarship and LAMDA tuition is conducted on an individual basis, tailored to the age and experience of the student. Tracey is supported and assisted in her classes by a wide group of people, many of them whom trained with her over the years.
Becci Denmark
Becci Denmark began her student life with Tracey as a seven year old in 1994. Even as a child it was obvious that she had the necessary leadership qualities to support any group she was involved with, enhancing their performance and pushing expectations further than originally envisaged. Instantly recognisable as a gifted child actress, she was also a phenomenally talented singer and dancer. By the time Becci left Alma Studios at 18 to enter university life, undertaking Film Studies and Creative Arts she had already achieved her LAMDA Gold Medals at Distinction in every discipline LAMDA had to offer. Becci has returned to us from London as she focuses on ‘Conversations with Barbara’, a one woman show in which she stars.
Becci attributes some of her success to the pastoral care she enjoyed as a member of the school growing up and as a result has a real passion in seeing that continue. She is often the first to ensure that a costume fits perfectly, that a piece of text that has been adapted for a performer is tailored exactly to their needs and that whatever event they undertake with the school is fulfilling and ultimately memorable! She continues to give her all to Alma Studios and juggles this alongside her life as a professional actress. Becci is respected and recognised in her own right as a successful LAMDA teacher with an impressive record to her name, although she regularly undertakes the LAMDA syllabus across the board she delights particularly in supporting our mime and musical theatre students, as these disciplines continue to be two of her grand passions. She is one of the team of writers that contributes to the pool of original writing created within the framework of Alma Studios, both commercially and in house.
Cizzie Rowlands
Cizzie Rowlands became a member of the production team behind Alma Studios in 2013. A young actress training with the school, she was very quick to realise that the more she engaged with everything going on the more she would learn.
Cizzie’s particular gift to the school is in her tremendous affinity with the youngest members. The relationships she has built with these young people has enabled us as team to comprehensively recognise what brings them joy, what excites them and therefore empowered us to put materials in front of them to enhance their classes.
Joe Young
Joe Young became a part of the Alma Studios team, like so many of the others, through being a student, albeit he was a late starter at 14. Gregarious and sometimes annoying, our class clown, it was quite clear he was the comedian!
As the years flew by it was obvious we had much more than that. Joe’s relentless energy translated into him becoming a masterful mime artist. Comedy was always present but he also proved to have great emotional range. Joe, now fully grown up and an actor in his own right still attends Alma Studios both to take class and to support the younger contingent coming up, especially those wishing to study mime and physical theatre.
Katie Knight
Katie trained with Angels Theatre School & Alma Studios from 4 years old and took all her LAMDA exams up to Gold with Tracey. She appeared in her first major professional role in the feature film Alfa Male at 12 years of age and continues to work as a TV & film actress.
Katie took on an administrative and teaching support role for Tracey when she first left full time education. She showed a flare for direction and production through assisting with many of the school’s shows over the years, and is now pursuing these in conjunction with her acting. She returns to Alma Studios when possible to support Tracey in her teaching, help run holiday courses and as an enthusiastic member of the audience for showcases and productions.
Ben Kerfoot
Ben trained with Tracey at Angels and Alma Studios from the age of five. He joined Wings Agency and appeared in his first professional role for the BBC aged 10. He continues to work as an actor on stage & screen, but returns to support Tracey at class on a regular basis.
Ben’s speciality is physical theatre, especially mime, and he has run workshops and helped teach LAMDA students in this discipline, as well as Acting and Verse & Prose. One of his favourite tasks was to help organise and run a week long Shakespeare Course and he always turns up to support the school’s productions, if his filming schedules allow him.
Hilary Knight
Hilary is a professional hairdresser and make-up artist and has been the school’s Hair & Make-up expert, running a team of as many as ten assistants for some of our most ambitious shows for over 15 years. She has also contributed substantially to creating and maintaining our extensive wardrobe, being able to turn her creative hands to many tasks. Hilary runs workshops in stage make-up and has supported students who wish to pursue this aspect of theatre work.
She is also an invaluable member of the back-stage team, offering chaperoning and pastoral support.
Justin Sinclair
Justin Sinclair joined Alma Studios in 2013, a young man on a mission to seek out a carer in the world of television. Whilst studying with Trace he discovered he was also keen to support other young people in their quest towards careers in the industry. Justin is learning the ropes from the ground up and teaching others to this along side him, supporting them in rehearsals, using his voice in productions meetings for the good of the students and finding his way as trainee director.
Sheila Ellicot
Sheila Ellicot who runs Wings Agency, is a regular visitor to our classes, looking for new talent and advising young actors that want to follow a career in the performing arts. She runs workshops on performing to camera (often hardly covered at drama schools), audition technique and advises on dialect and accent development. She also never misses a production or showcase presented by Alma Studios.
Wings Agency has been working closely with Tracey Linegar since its beginning. In fact it is the brainchild of Tracey & Sheila, and was started with the aim of nurturing the talented children of Angels who wanted to work professionally. Sheila was keen that the experience of the children – in what can be a very hard world, was a positive & enjoyable one.
That was 15 years ago & the original Wings actors are now adults; many of whom are still acting successful & represented by Wings. Actors from Wings have appeared in feature films (The Falling, A Monster Calls, Becoming Jane, Jack the Giant Killer to name a few), Holby City, Casualty, Eastenders, Doctors, The Bill, numerous BBC & ITV plays, plus many, many stage appearances.
Wings now represents actors of all ages from all over the UK but still works very closely with Alma Studios & Tracey, who remains very much involved with audition rehearsals. Sheila says that if Tracey recommends one of her students to her for representation they will be a delight & a remarkable talent. Sheila stays very close to all her clients & wouldn’t want it any other way.
