MEET OUR TEAM
A MESSAGE FROM OUR CO-FOUNDER & CREATOR, Gabrielle Miles
Welcome to Fusion, the home of a truly unique, challenging and inspiring Youth Theatre. Having worked for many theatre companies and Youth stage projects around the UK, I felt there was a need for somewhere youngsters could enjoy Performing Arts from all perspectives, where every child gets the space to shine and the chance to be heard, regardless of experience.
So myself, Heidi and Charlotte founded Fusion on the principles that we would take notice of and nurture the talent and ambition of all children, setting each one on an individual journey, as important as the next. You will see from the last 6 years we have accomplished this by stretching some of Sheffield’s most talented young performers while at the same time, hugely boosting the confidence and theatre skills of those completely new to this world. And we have done this through a popular mix of challenging original productions and traditional Theatre, with students performing at many venues including The Crucible and The Lyceum.
Fusion offers one of the most diverse platforms of experience as we also work with a professional photographer and recording studio. But it is chiefly the care, talent, experience and attention offered by our main teaching team.
Liam, Jemma and Ross are an extraordinary multi-talented and thoroughly dedicated trio who put a considerable amount of love and dedication into their work. This shows through how much our students enjoy their time with us and the support that comes from our parents.
Please take some time to look around our website, feel the excitement and come join us!
DRAMA DIRECTOR
Ross Bannister
Ross has been performing in one form or another for (what has very quickly become) 26 years. He began learning his trade at Gosforth Youth Theatre, a group which he now co-runs, and has won the best actor award at every level in local competitions whilst performing with them. He achieved a distinction in Performing Arts at Chesterfield College and has recently returned to teach the subject as a part of his PGCE, a job he hopes will continue upon finishing the course.
Ross was offered a place at almost all of the drama schools that he auditioned for but chose to follow a career in music instead. Over the next ten years, Ross' band toured the UK and Europe, featured on prominent radio and TV Channels (Radio 1, Skuzz, Kerrang! Etc.), and released albums in England and Japan, whilst always finding the time to perform in as many plays as possible along the way. Ross is a multi-instrumentalist and a singer, specialising in creating and performing vocal harmonies, so much so that he has featured on best selling international albums (which cannot be mentioned for legal reasons).
Nowadays, Ross performs the majority of his shows with the very respectable Tudor Players and Splinters Theatre Group, consistently featuring in leading roles, to critical acclaim. He has also recently been lucky enough to have two of his own shows performed by Fusion, achieving a lifelong goal, and will always be ready to write another when the inspiration hits.
Ross has a policy about performing and choosing roles. 'If the idea of performing a role scares the life out of you, that's the one to go for'. Recent performances have therefore been as varied as Roger in the musical 'RENT' (Performed at the Crucible in Sheffield), The Fonz in 'Happy Days, the musical', Bernard in 'Yes Prime minister', and (after an 8 month crash course in tap dancing) Bernard in 'Stepping Out'. He has also featured in a number of short films, one of which was very successful on the international film festival circuit and was short listed for a 'Best short' award.
Working with Fusion Youth Theatre has changed Ross' life immeasurably. He could not be more proud to be considered an equal to such talented and dedicated staff, and looks forward to every project and the potential life changing possibilities that they might bring to the students.
DANCE DIRECTOR
Liam Gordon
Liam began performing at a young age, competing in Latin and Ballroom dance with DanceSportUK across the UK and internationally. Alongside this, Liam was trained in musical theatre, performing in numerous amateur and professional performances such as; Welsh Theatre Company’s tour of ‘Romeo + Juliet’ and 2 consecutive UK tours of ‘Rent’ as Angel with BMI. He recently gained a First Class BA Honours at Edge Hill University in Dance & Drama with Physical Theatre and a Masters Degree from Leeds Beckett University in Contemporary Performance. Liam is trained and teaches numerous styles of dance including Ballet, Jazz, Modern, Street, Hip-Hop and Commercial. Currently, Liam is completing his PhD thesis on theatre in education, exploring the psychological, social and health benefits theatre programmes have on youths.
During his degree, Liam trained in contemporary forms of performance and began working as a professional contemporary artist. He has worked as a professional contemporary dancer with Kyuu Theatre Company, Mark Edward Dance Company and VOIDANCE; as a principle dancer taking work to numerous art festivals across the UK including Edinburgh Fringe, Light Festival, MDI and TURN festival. Upon graduating, Liam and his co-founder Tara Pender began Limits Theatre Collective; a professional theatre in education and contemporary performance company, offering contemporary performance classes, creating commercial pieces for events and later touring full scale dance theatre pieces including ‘The Women’ (a physical adaptation of Trojan Women) and ‘Disco Bloodbath’ around the North of England. The later performance later went on to win Best New Interdisciplinary Work 2012 from Great British Art. During his time at Leeds Beckett, Liam has gone on to collaborating with professional artist Lucy Suggate on a new piece and continued to create and choreograph work which has been showcased in up and coming artist performance events such as Landing Party, Orbit Festival, Exchange and HIDEOUT festival.
Liam has taught dance and drama to youth theatre groups in Yorkshire and continues to work as Youth Project Manager with West Yorkshire Playhouse First Floor and Yorkshire Dance during the week. He recently has also begun delivering workshops and lectures to universities across the UK, alongside his new solo performance work 'I Hope You're Sitting Comfortably', in contemporary performance processes and strategies. Liam also works as a professional mentor, offering professional feedback and reflection sessions with developing artists. In his spare time, Liam is a society member of Manor Operatics in Sheffield performing in their yearly summer Musical and winter Pantomime. Liam is thrilled to be back working alongside the excellent staff members and talented students at Fusion.
CENTRE ASSISTANT
Janet D'Roza
Janet is our face of fusion who you see when you first walk through the door. She collect fees, sorts out tickets for shows and is always on hand if any of our students have a problem. She has previously and continues to work with a large number of drama and musical groups in Sheffield mostly specialising in costume, this she also does for fusion. Janet is always on hand at the front line to deal with any questions or concerns our parents have.
LITTLIES DIRECTOR
Jenny Jones
Jenny studied Drama at De Montfort University and graduated in 2012. She then started working as a freelance drama facilitator, working in both schools and youth theatres. She has supported work on a number of projects for the Theatre Royal Wakefield such as 'Show Me the Funny', 'Oliver!' and the Performance Academy showcases. During this time, Jenny joined the Fusion team in 2014 as our Littlies Director. Jenny works passionately with our Littlies, delivering workshops and lessons in drama, singing and dance to help create a fun environment for our performing hopefuls to flourish. During the week, Jenny also works in the Learning Department at the Theatre Royal Wakefield, including their In On The Act theatre/ performance group for 18-30 year olds; a group dedicate to the development of skills in performing arts and theatre making.
Jenny is very happy to be working alongside the staff here at Fusion and getting to watch all our Littlies develop and shine into wonderful young performers.
ASSOCIATE MUSIC PRODUCER
John Sephton
John Sephton is a recording producer who has worked in the music industry for 20 years. As a recording engineer, song writer and musician he has worked alongside the likes of Grammy and Oscar winning producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay, U2) and pop megastars, One Direction.
John writes and records music from his farm-based studio on the edge of the peak district, Old Pig Farm. With Fusion Youth Theatre, John helps producing new music for our musical productions and with 1:1 tuition with our students recording their own songs.
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Jemma Rosenthal
Jemma is a professional performer who specializes in Musical Theatre and Popular Music Styles. She starting singing, dancing and acting at a young age, performing as soloist and in vocal harmony groups as well as having lead roles in many musicals plays and dance performances around Sheffield’s Theatres. After studying a BTEC in performing arts Acting at Norton college, she went on to receive a Scholarship to train at the Urdang Academy in London, gaining a 1st BA hons in Professional Dance and Musical Theatre. She has gone on to work with Bigfoot Arts London schools tour of Aladdin and joined Hype Dance Company in Sheffield to work on the boxing/dance R&D Savage Beauty and is soon to start a new piece working with Alzheimer’s research to be performed at Festival of the Mind. Most recently Jemma worked as a performer in Film performance art piece ‘I am not a Decorator’. Jemma uses her passion for song writing to inspire students to creative work, with her song ‘Alex’s Song’ being used in Fusions original show ‘Musicals the Musicals’. Having gained teaching qualifications with the IDTA and BATD she now works at a variety of companies in Sheffield teaching Dance and Singing. Her varied skill set enables her to draw inspiration from a number of different areas, using her passion for creativity to work on student expression, to bring out the highest potential in every student. Jemma is excited to be working with such a passionate team at Fusion and being able to share creative ideas with both teachers and students.
