The People

Julian Hirst

Julian spent many years in Hotel, Catering and Institutional Management both in the UK and Switzerland prior to becoming a professional actor/entertainer in 1985. Since then he has appeared at theatres, hotels and conference centres, at trade shows and product launches, and at private parties world-wide.

In a parallel career Julian is a former associate of ICL Learning, The Cable & Wireless College and Peritas plc, where he gained a wide experience of effective communication skills and became firm believer in the efficacy of drama based learning solutions. This resulted in his founding Centrestage Partnership in 2001.

Gerri Farrell

Gerri has extensive experience in both the public and private sector, having worked as a team manager and people specialist in many different sectors, from Finance to the Media world.

A founder member of CentreStage, Gerri specialises in design of roleplay and forum-based drama solutions for learning and development. As a professional actress and presenter, she has appeared both on film and television and toured with stage productions all over the UK.

Adrian McDougall

Adrian graduated from Southampton University in modern languages in 1997 before working extensively in media, marketing and PR. In 2001 he became a professional actor and since then he's worked with a number of theatre companies, touring nationally and delivering numerous educational and issue-based drama projects. He is also founder and artistic director of Blackeyed Theatre Company.

As a CentreStage director, his experience includes the delivery of interactive forum and roleplay workshops, as well as presenting and group facilitation. He's also written a number of published articles on experiential learning.

Mark Holliday

Before becoming a professional actor and director, Mark worked for many years as a photographer in the public relations and advertising industry. Acting experience includes roles in film and television, while as a director he's worked with Blackeyed Theatre, Phoenix Theatre Company and numerous companies in Berkshire.

Mark's work with CentreStage includes facilitation and script-writing. CentreStage’s Diversity awareness workshop, the Shared Experience team building programme and Act On It! are some of the current workshops he's involved with.

Pippa Shepherd

After leaving Drama School Pippa trained in hospitality before spending five years working in all aspects of the industry, including hotel conference and functions management. She then crossed the atlantic where she spent six months teaching drama.

Returning to the U.K. Pippa followed her dreams and has spent many years working as an actress on stage, screen, TV and even working on theatre projects with patients at Broadmoor Hospital. She has written numerous plays, including various issue-based plays commissioned by the E.U.

Pippa first became involved in learning and development through roleplay several years ago. She enjoys this work immensely and gets a great deal from helping delegates realise their potential.