Susan Tordoff

I am so delighted to be invited to return to NODA Theatre Summer School, where I ran the Actors Technique inspired by Key Theatre Practitioners course in 2023. 

I was lucky enough to attend the Bristol Old Vic for my training; three years of what felt like heaven, doing what I wanted to do and learning about how to hone the skills, some I already learnt doing plays with a lovely amateur theatre company in Leeds. 

Following my training I spent over 30 years working as an actress in theatre and TV. 

Working in theatres such as the Stephen Joseph in Scarborough and the Royal Exchange in Manchester, Salisbury, Watford, Harrogate, Chester and Dundee. 

I also did some TV including: Coronation Street, Casualty, Holby City, East Enders, Sparkhouse, The Bill, London’s Burning – basically lots of episodic stuff. 

I started to teach in 2007, when I moved to Singapore. I realised I needed to formalise my technique as the teaching at Bristol had been very organic and not so linked to specific practitioners. The first couple of years lead to me reading voraciously all the famous books and the not so famous, what I discovered that my training did include all the skills, which are actually based very much in common sense. However, I was able to separate out the practitioners and to teach each of their ideas in separate classes. Which brings me to 2023 and the class I am to teach at NODA 23 Putting into practice probably what you already know but perhaps have not quite considered. 

I currently teach at East 15 School of Acting on the Foundation and BA courses and have also taught at Royal Central School, Mountview and Bristol. 

Occasionally I do the odd commercial, not quite able to ‘give up’ my acting ‘career’.