Anna Scher Theatre

The Anna Scher Theatre is an independent and co-educational performing arts school based in Islington, Greater London. It was founded in 1968 by Anna Scher. It is considered among the first schools of its kind geared towards working class students.

Anna Scher personal life and death
Anna Valerie Scher,, was born on 26 December 1944 in Cork, Ireland, to Irish Jewish parents, Claire Hurwitz, and Eric Asher Scher, a dentist of Lithuanian descent. After starting out as an actress, her father told her to get a proper job, so she became a journalist specialising in theatre with the Islington Gazette for five years, and reviewed for The Times Literary Supplement. Her philosophy was based on promoting love, peace and understanding through both learning and professionalism.

Her heroes included Martin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela, and Winston Churchill. She frequently shared with her pupils various meaningful words or sayings which she called Winston words after Churchill, but which are not necessarily attributed to him. Ubuntu is my favourite Winston word – it means community care, collectiveness. I love that word. It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who taught it to me.

Scher married Raymond Charles Verrall, an English coach, writer and stage director, in Hampstead, London, in 1976. He was co-director of the Anna Scher Theatre for many years and co-authored several of Scher's books on acting. Their only child, John Benedict Verrall, was born in 1980.

Scher was chairperson of the International Song Contest for Peace also in Ireland, and served on the juries at BAFTA, the Sony Awards and the Royal Television Society. As an actress, she appeared in The Battle of St. George Without (1969), You Must Be Joking! (1974), and Anna (2011).

Since founding the school in 1968, Scher was awarded:
 * Community award from the Irish Post
 * Woman of Distinction Award from Jewish Care
 * Peace Person of the Year Award, Ireland, 1999
 * Associate of RADA
 * Honorary Fellow of the Leinster School of Music & Drama
 * Patron of Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam – Oasis of Peace.
 * Freedom of the London Borough of Islington, March 2003.
 * Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), appointed in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to Drama.

Anna Scher died on 12 November 2023, at the age of 78. Her husband had predeceased her by one month, dying in October 2023 at age 79.

Theatre school
In 1968, Scher started an extracurricular performing arts school at Islington's Ecclesbourne Primary School. 70 pupils came the first week, including future Birds of a Feather stars Pauline Quirke (aged 9), Linda Robson (aged 10) and Ray Burdis (aged 11). In 1970, the classes moved across the road to a council hall in Bentham Court on Ecclesbourne Road. By 1975 she had 1,000 pupils and 5,000 on the waiting list, so moved to the custom converted mission hall on Barnsbury Road in 1976, when the performing arts school was established as an independent charity.

Scher's teaching style produces what critics call a natural delivery, but Scher comments that she just uses their natural voice. Of her improvisation technique, she told Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian in 2004: I fell into that quite by chance – necessity is nearly always the mother of invention, and because 70 turned up and because a lot weren't too hot at reading, improvisation fell into place.

In 2000, Scher suffered ill health through depression and stepped down during her recovery period.

In 2005, the remaining staff and board set up a new school but Anna Scher went on to continue her theatre school under her own name at the nearby Blessed Sacrament Church Hall, Islington. Since 2009, the Anna Scher Theatre has been teaching from the St Silas Church in Islington and classes are run twice a week. Anna Scher stepped down as a teacher in 2020, and since then classes have been run by former student, and actor, Dickon Tolson.

Alumni
Alumni include: Henry Paker, Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson, Kathy Burke, Phil Daniels, James Alexandrou and Natalie Cassidy. Other alumni from EastEnders include: Gary Hailes, Martin Kemp, Gillian Taylforth, Patsy Palmer, Sid Owen, Jake Wood, Susan Tully, Tilly Vosburgh, Brooke Kinsella and Tameka Empson. Other alumni include: Adam Deacon, Zawe Ashton, Reggie Yates, and Daniel Kaluuya, Ricardo P Lloyd.

Literature

 * Anna Scher (1988), Desperate to Act, Collins, ISBN 978-0-00-672852-8.
 * Anna Scher & Charles Verrall (1975),100+ Ideas for Drama, Heinemann Educational, ISBN 978-0-435-18799-6.
 * Anna Scher & Charles Verrall (1976), First Act: Drama Kit, Ward Lock Educational, ISBN 978-0-7062-3546-3.
 * Anna Scher & Charles Verrall (1987), Another 100+ Ideas for Drama, Heinemann Educational, ISBN 978-0-435-18800-9.
 * Anna Scher & Charles Verrall (1992), 200+ Ideas for Drama, Heinemann Educational, ISBN 978-0-435-08606-0.