Anna Richardson (SGCNZ NSSP 2005, SGCNZ TGG 2011)

Anna Richardson is a SGCNZ National Shakespeare Schools Production 2005 and SGCNZ Teachers Go Global 2011 Alumni.

From 2006 – 2009 she completed her Bachelor of Arts and Post Graduate Diploma in Secondary Teaching at Otago University. She then returned to her hometown Rotorua to take up her first teaching role as Teacher in Charge of Drama at Rotorua Girls’ High School.

During her first year of teaching she applied for and was accepted into the very first SGCNZ Teachers Go Global programme. Spending two weeks studying with the world’s leading practitioners in Shakespeare’s work changed the way that she delivers his work in her classroom. She consistently uses the ideas and exercises from these two weeks to improve her own and her students’ understanding of the Bard’s work.

Anna is now working at Epsom Girls’ Grammar School in Auckland, where she is the Arts and Cultural Coordinator and a Drama teacher. She’s found a passion for directing, with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, West Side Story and a range of plays such as Club Asylum by John Retallack, On The Upside Down of The World by Arthur Meek  and Remain in Light by Stephen Sinclair in her growing repertoire. Anna directed Ragtime with both Epsom Girls’ Grammar School and Auckland Grammar School students, to a sellout season and rave reviews. She also helped to facilitate her Year 13 classes involvement in the workshopping process of a new show by Zanetti Productions called Yes Yes Yes, which is based around consent and healthy relationships.

As her educational philosophy and pedagogy develops, Anna has found a penchant for teaching, watching and directing work with strong political or social messages. She believes that theatre as a subject allows her students to develop empathy, compassion and perspective in a changing world.

“I will be forever grateful to the start that Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ has given me with its programmes and the ongoing ties that I have with the organisation.” – Anna Richardson