Professor Anna McNamara
Director of Manchester School of Theatre
Anna is Director of Manchester School of Theatre. Anna previously held senior leadership roles at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and the Guildford School of Acting (GSA), and has additionally enjoyed engagement at the Surrey Institute of Education.
Working in professional actor training in Higher Education since 2011, Anna has been awarded National Teaching Fellow (NTF) for her sector wide impact and innovation work and is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE (PFHEA) in recognition of her sustained record of effective strategic leadership. Anna was also recipient of the University of Surrey Vice Chancellor's award for Teacher of the Year for her innovative and inclusive practice, and was named as a finalist for Creative Businesswoman in the Great British Businesswoman Awards.
Anna has published and presented internationally on a range of subjects including leadership and management, crisis-management, acting pedagogies, inclusion and the lived experience, disability access to the arts, and gender empowerment and equity. She is the editor of the books Be the Change: Learning and Teaching for the Creative Industries (2022), Inspire: Learning for Teaching in Higher Education (2023), Actor Trainers on Acting: for the Twenty-First Century (2025), with a further edited book underway, titled The Women Who Shaped UK Actor Training. Nationally, her fully funded inclusion projects have brought together multiple partners to focus on enabling access for those from backgrounds currently underrepresented in the creative industries training sector. She has supervised several PhD candidates to successful completion, including theses on the topics of intercultural pedagogies for teaching acting through song in the musical theatre conservatoire, body as metaphor in the British context, and the ecology of practice of performer training in the university conservatoire.
Anna trained in Musical Theatre at GSA before moving into teaching, gaining an MA in Education and a PhD in Contemporary Actor Training. As a performer she appeared professionally in numerous commercials, voiceovers, photographic shoots, pantomimes, concerts, cabarets and galas. As a freelance teacher, she worked with many drama schools, as well as part-time training providers, and is the founder of the Guildford Theatre School. She has produced, directed, choreographed and provided movement direction professionally and enjoyed a long association with the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC).
Press and media appearances and contributions
Connecting Communities with the Creative Industries, Federation of Drama Schools, 2022
Counting the pennies: how can you fund your time at drama school?, The Stage, 20 October 2022
Can Mindfulness Help Improve Your Actor Training?, The Stage, 10 March 2020
Healthy Performance, Royal Society of the Arts Journal, 2018
Research
Edited Books
McNamara, A. (forthcoming) The Women Who Shaped UK Actor Training, Routledge
McNamara, A. (Ed.) (2024) Actor Trainers on Acting: for the Twenty First Century, Routledge
McNamara, A., D. Mahon, V. Papageorgiou, J. Ramdeo (Eds.) (2024) Inspire: Learning for Teaching in Higher Education, Nova Publishing
McNamara, A. (Ed) (2022) Be the Change: Learning and Teaching for the Creative Industries, Nova Publishing, New York
Book Chapters
McNamara, A. (forthcoming) 'Who Tells The Story' in The Women Who Shaped UK Actor Training, Routledge (Ed. A. McNamara)
McNamara, A. (forthcoming) 'Bice Bellairs' in The Women Who Shaped UK Actor Training, Routledge (Ed. A. McNamara)
McNamara, A. (2024) 'Teaching as 'lived experience' or 'living experiences'?' in Reclaiming The Education Discourse, Bloomsbury (Ed. I. Kinchin)
McNamara, A., Gravett, K. and Winstone, N. (2024) 'Why Be Inspired?' in Inspire: Learning for Teaching in Higher Education, Nova Publishing (Eds. McNamara, A., D.Mahon, V. Papageorgiou, J. Ramdeo)
McNamara, A. and Kerbel, L. (2022) 'Gender: Enablement, Empowerment and Actor Training' in Be the Change: Learning and Teaching for the Creative Industries, Nova Publishing, New York (Ed. A. McNamara)
Hanratty, S. and McNamara, A. (2019) 'Student experience: perspectives on learning in the University and the Conservatoire' in Enhancing student-centred teaching through student-staff research partnerships (Ed.K. Gravett, N. Yakovchuk and I. Kinchin)
McNamara, A. (2018) 'Acting' in Exploring Pedagogic Frailty and Resilience (Ed. I. Kinchin and N. Winstone)
Edited Journals
Hartley, J., McNamara, A., Peck, L. and Rodosthenous, G. (eds) (2026) 'Pivotal Pedagogies for Performer Training' [Special issue], Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.
Journal Articles
Valensky, S. and McNamara, A (in progress) 'Sustainability in Student Centred Theatre Production: A Case Study from the UK', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
Ashton, H., Hammond, W., Khamisa, Y., Leaventhall, B., McNamara, A., Salter, D. (in progress) 'Diversifying Representation in Actor Training: A Case Study from the UK', Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
McNamara, A., Mullin, K and Petersen, E. (in progress) 'AI and the Locus of Control in Higher Education Training for the Creative Sectors'
McNamara, A. (2024) 'Intimacy in performance guidelines for legal minors: A case study from the United Kingdom' in Youth Theatre, 38 (7)
McNamara, A. (2022) 'The Locus of Control in Higher Education, A Case Study from Performer Training' in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
McNamara, A. (2022) 'The Lived Experience of Actor Training: Perezhivanie - A Literature Review' in Educational Philosophy and Theory
McNamara, A. (2021) 'Crisis Management in Higher Education in the Time of Covid-19: The Case of Actor Training' in The Journal for Education Sciences, 11 (3).
McNamara, A. (2021) 'Flipping the Creative Conservatoire Classroom' in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 12, (4).DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2020.1864462.
McNamara, A. and Armstrong, E. (2021) 'Toward Accessible Actor Training' in the Journal for Drama Research, Volume 12.
McNamara, A. (2021) 'Playful Learning in actor training: the impact of Covid-19 on spontaneity and intuition' in Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques, 23.
Kinchin, I.M., Derham, C., Foreman, C., McNamara, A. and Querstret, D. (2021) 'Exploring the salutogenic university: Searching for the triple point for the becoming-caring-teacher through collaborative cartography' in Pedagogika, 141(1).
McNamara, A. (2018) 'The Use of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY to Enable Learning Gain In Professional Actor Training' in The International Journal of Management and Applied Research, Vol. 5, No. 4.
Conference Presentations and Panels
McNamara, A. (2025) 'AI and the Locus of Control' at Theatre and Natural Intelligence: ANTS Annual Conference 2025
McNamara, A. and Valensky, S. (2025) 'Sustainability in Student Centred Theatre Production: A Case Study from the UK' at Performance and Environment Conference 2025
McNamara, A. (2022) Panel Discussion 'Overcoming Crisis Blindness' at the QS Higher Ed Summit: Europe 2022 - Crisis Management: Remaking European higher education amid unfolding social realities
McNamara, A. and Kerbel, L. (2022) 'Be the Change: Learning and Teaching for the Creative Industries' presentation at The Stage Future of Theatre Conference
McNamara, A. (2022) 'How can (should) theatre with young and/or student performers tackle issues of intimacy?' presentation at the International Federation for Theatre Research Conference (Reykjavik)
McNamara, A. and Kerbel, L. (2021) 'Gender: Enablement, Empowerment & Actor Training' presentation at the Be The Change: Learning and Teaching in the Conservatoire conference (GSA, University of Surrey)
McNamara, A. and Palmer, C. (2018) 'Finding Your Voice' presentation at The Great Oracy Exhibition 2018 (Voice21 and School 21)
McNamara, A. and Palmer, C. (2018) 'Vocal Confidence' presentation at the Oracy Skills in Higher Education Conference (University of Surrey, in conjunction with University of Cambridge)
Contributions to Books
Bale, R. (2020) Teaching with Confidence in Higher Education: Applying Strategies from the Performing Arts