Somalia's success
Somalia Seaton, a final-year BA Contemporary Theatre student at East 15, has won Epping Forest District Council’s Leisure Bursary Award, worth £750. She is the first East 15 student to win this award and was nominated by her course tutor Uri Roodner, who is also a director and a performer working in theatre, dance, film and TV.
Somalia explains: ‘I was in rehearsals for I am Green, a play I directed initially at East 15 as part of our student festival 'Debut'. My Leisure Bursary Award will go towards taking my new show to Edinburgh. This show will be a devised piece featuring myself and other students on my course, Alan Devally, Rachael Boulton and Amy Dolan. Coincidently they were all in I am Green so the money will go towards a production with the same company of people!’
Somalia will receive her cheque at a ceremony at Epping Forest Council on 14 March. She went to St Dunstan's College in Catford and then Hayes Sixth Form College, before joining East 15 in 2004 on the Certificate of Higher Education in Theatre Arts course. She will graduate from BA Contemporary Theatre this summer. BA Contemporary Theatre is a unique course, dedicated to producing articulate and skilled actors who have the competencies necessary to create vital new work and to realise their own artistic inclinations.
One of the UK's most innovative acting schools, East 15 has been providing professional training for those wishing to work in theatre, film, TV, radio and related fields for more than 40 years. It has a campus in Loughton, just 12 miles outside London and, in September 2000, became part of the University of Essex. Since then a strategy has been developed to expand East 15's provision to the University's new campus in Southend-on-Sea.
Alumni of East 15 include actresses Alison Steadman and Annette Badland, Coronation Street star Jenny Platt, playwright April de Angelis, former artistic director of The Bush Theatre, Mike Bradwell, and director Stephen Daldry, who was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his feature films The Hours and Billy Elliott.
Notes to editors:
Photographs of Somalia Seaton and East 15 are available on request. For more information, please contact Victoria Bartholomew, Marketing Manager at East 15, on telephone: 020 8508 5983 (extension: 32) or e-mail: vbarth@essex.ac.uk
For further information about East 15, please contact East 15 Acting School on telephone: 020 8508 5983 or e-mail: east15@essex.ac.uk
East 15, one of the UK's most innovative acting schools, has been providing professional training for those wishing to work in theatre, film, TV, radio and other related fields for more than 40 years. It has a campus in Loughton, just 12 miles outside of London and, in September 2000, became part of the University of Essex. Since then a strategy has developed to expand East 15's provision to the University's new campus in Southend-on-Sea.
