Profile
Ita O’Brien trained as a dancer at The Royal Academy of Dancing and at Bush Davies, and followed a professional career in Musical Theatre performing on television, the West End and No.1 tours, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Rocky Horror Show and On the Town, where she was assistant choreographer. Ita then gained her diploma in acting from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, working for 8 years in theatre and television, including Pillars of the Community (National Theatre) and Romeo and Juliet (English Touring Theatre).
She gained her MA in Movement Studies in 2007 from Central and has taught since on various courses there, including MA Movement: Directing and Teaching, MA Applied Theatre Practice, and BA (Hons) Acting. Ita has also taught at ALRA, Mountview, East 15 and the Globe Education. She currently teaches at LAMDA, Drama Centre, and Giles Foreman Centre for Acting, as well as BA TP Performance Arts, Gap year, and Diploma course at Central. Ita devised her first play, April’s Fool which performed in 2009, and co-developed a play The Faun about Nijinsky, which performed in 2012. Her most recent work in development, Does my sex offend you? is an exploration of the dynamic of sexual abuse.
Research Areas
- ‘Grounded foot to leaping foot’ with Debbie Green: an exploration and investigation into the training of the feet for actors within a BA (Hons) degree programme
- The movement practice of Jane Gibson (Head of Movement RNT and Associate & Movement director with Cheek by Jowl) and her legacy of movement training from Trish Arnold (Head of Movement at LAMDA and The Guildhall School)
- Research into supporting student and professional actors portraying abuse and material with sexual content in a safe environment
- Movement Psychology for Movers, as developed by Yat Malmgren, taught by Janet Amsden
Qualifications
MA in Movement Studies
City & Guilds PTLLS Level 4
Diploma in Acting from Bristol Old Vic
Other Details
2012 ’Grounded foot to leaping foot’ with Debbie Green, Routledge. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19443927.2011.651536#.VERhEIvF_nJ
Productions
Recent movement direction & coaching work includes: The Winter’s Tale (The Globe); OMG: Ovid Unplugged (Square Chapel, Halifax); Indian Boy (RSC); Othello (Salisbury Playhouse); Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas (Bussey Building); The Sonneteer (Landor Theatre and Edinburgh Fringe); Back At You (BAC); Uncle Vanya (Arts Ed); Machinal, Pillars of the Community, The Women, The Broken Heart, Henry IV (Central); Juliet Stevenson - The Oracle, BBC TV, Atlantis, ep 1.