An Evening with Tarell Alvin McCraney (MIO ’05)

American Friends of BADA President, Lydia Carlston (MIO ’01) hosted a fundraising evening at her home featuring BADA alumnus and Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney in conversation with BADA’s former Dean & Director Ian Wooldridge. Tarell shared stories about his life and childhood, his experience at BADA, and his work

Naturally, performance was never far away. Rehearsals and one-to-one speech work took place whenever we had a spare moment -whether in classrooms, studio spaces or on the banks of the River Cherwell which flows through St Hilda’s. We continued acting classes and presented scenes and speeches amongst the statues of the cast gallery at the Ashmolean Museum. On the very final day we attended the APGRD’s Post-graduate Symposium (hosted with Royal Holloway) and shared a mixture of speeches and choral work which we constructed with Evelyn Miller.

The 2024 GTP cohort were an exceptional and eclectic bunch. The diversity of experiences they brought with them created a powerful mixture which allowed us to examine and perform these plays in the fullest way possible. I learned so much alongside them, and I’m hugely grateful to them, and to all the practitioners and academics who were involved.