Sorrel Carson (Mar 1920 - 12 April 2005) was the Irish actress, director and teacher who formed the Academy of Live and Recorded Art in London in 1979.

Early career

Carson trained as an actress in the Ben Greet Academy of Acting, her first professional engagement with the

Sheffield Repertory Theatre The Sheffield Repertory Theatre was a theatre company in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Herbert Prince, a railway clerk, founded the amateur dramatics society in 1919,Frank Long "Sheffield" in Colin Chambers ''Twentieth Century Theatre'', ...

came just before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During the conflict she was a member of ENSA, performing in many plays to entertain the troops.

Acting

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

’s wife

Helene Weigel Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was a German actress and artistic director. She was the second wife of Bertolt Brecht and was married to him from 1930 until his death in 1956. Together they had two children. Personal life Weigel was b ...

invited Carson to join her husband’s Berliner Ensemble for their production of

J M Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play ''The Playboy of the Western World'' was poorly r ...

’s The Playboy of the Western World. She always insisted that this enlightening experience was to influence her work henceforth both as an actress and a director.

ALRA

After a long stint directing plays in the seventies at both the

Mercury Theatre The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also ...

and the

Young Vic The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth. The Young Vic was established by Frank Dunlop in 1970. Kwame Kwei-Armah has been Artistic Director since February 201 ...

she started to teach. In 1979 she set up ALRA in London's Royal Victoria Patriotic Building and with the Patronage of her great friend Joan Littlewood was principal there until her retirement in 2000. ALRA was unique in that its curriculum combined classic theatrical training with both the ensemble modernist approach of Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and acting for camera. This gave its students an advantage auditioning for their first television jobs. Actors such as

Vincent Regan Vincent Regan (born 16 May 1965) is a British film and television actor, best known for his roles in ''300'', ''Troy'', ''Unleashed'', '' Clash of the Titans'' and ''Lockout''. Early life Regan was born on 16 May 1965 in Swansea, Glamorgan, Wal ...

, Sarah Parish and Miranda Hart all benefitted from Carson's "acting is reacting" methodology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carson, Sorrel Irish stage actresses 1920 births 2005 deaths