Caro Lewis - Production Manager
Having given up teaching to care full-care for her mother after she came to live with her and her husband Richard, Caro came to help out doing voiceovers for a day in April 2009 and has been with us ever since.
When asked where it all started she says 'I was dragged to a local amateur drama group by a work friend and after a few weeks we thought we'd better get some proper training', so I started taking lessons'. She discovered she was quite good at it and was ultimately persuaded by her teacher to become a teacher herself having gained two diplomas through LAMDA, one of which is for acting and the other she describes as being for 'talking out loud' and then went on to teach speech and drama for more than twenty years. She specialised in teaching intercostal diaphragmatic breathing (essential for actors but also used by singers and some musicians) and also public speaking, helping many managers with their presentations, many of which were given at international conferences, but her favourite part of teaching was with the younger children, helping them grow in confidence and ability as they worked their way through their grades of the LAMDA exams.
Often asked to teach people with individual agendas, she recalls two particular cousins who wanted to 'talk like Vivien Leigh' as they had decided that life in the 1940s was perfect and so dressed and behaved as if it was indeed 1947, even down to calling them Miss Jones (not her real name) and the cousin had to address as Miss Veronica and teaching them breathing was impossible as they both wore whalebone corsets!
She also enjoyed a productive career in amateur dramatics, winning many 'Best Actress' awards in local and national competitions. She has played many parts, from Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream) to The Porter in Macbeth and Caliban in The Tempest – both of which she describes as 'A bit unusual for a woman because they are very unattractive' – both literally and figuratively – The Porter is drunken sot and Caliban is a sea monster, for which she had to have padding and paint herself green!
All in all, she says she has been blessed in life, both in her working career and in her amateur dramatics, and she hopes to go on with both as long as she has breath in her body!
Comments