Some of Our Success Stories From The Last Few Years

Rachel Catherall started off her dance training at the age of two here at The Elsber School Of Theatre Dance, then at the age of eighteen, went on to further her dance training at Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre, Liverpool (where she now guest teaches from time to time). After graduating from dance college, Rachel's dancing took her all over the world, from a magic show in Switzerland to cruising the Caribbean, Scandinavia and Mediterranean for various cruise line companies. For four years, Rachel performed in the Irish Dance Sensation, 'Spirit Of The Dance' for 4 years, and has toured the whole of UK, the USA (35 states in 5 months), Europe, Bahrain and Turkey as well as many other random places worldwide including a special performance for the family of the Sultan of Brunei. She was the dance captain and resident artistic director for the European tour and was also assistant choreographer to, Alan Harding. Since leaving professional dancing behind six years ago, she turned full time freelance choreographer and has had great success with shows such as. 'Romeo & Juliet', '4 Seasons' and 'A Chorus Of Disapproval' and 'Arcadia', directed by Terry Hands CBE, 'A View From The Bridge' (winner of the Best Regional Production of the Year Award 2003), 'Hobson's Choice' , 'Flights Of Fancy', 'The Way It Was', 'The Voyage', 'The Grapes Of Wrath', 'Tales Of Europe' and 'Timeless Myths Of The Mabainogion", directed by Tim Baker, all at Clwyd Theatr Cymru. Movement coach for former British Ice Dance Champions, Pam O' Connor and Jonathon O' Dougherty (the ice skating partners in the Robbie Williams video, 'She's The One'), 'Celtic Dreams' (top touring Irish dance show in Menorca for LM Productions), including a special reworked version of the show performed on the MS Asuka for NYK Cruises, various numbers for Karen Weston Productions, routines for the girl band 'Chique' for KP Productions, 10 production shows for Center Parcs, Penrith, 'Peter Pan' and 'Cinderella' and 'Aladdin', directed by David McNeill for the Sands Centre, Carlisle. Rachel was the choreographer and dance consultant for the 2006 nationwide barclays Spaces For Sports Campaign fronted by cricket legend and Strictly Come Dancing winner, Darren Gough for Lexis PR Ltd and many one night productions and corporate events including 'An Audience With Paul Daniels'. Other recent choreography includes a brand new Irish Dance show for 'Main Feature Productions' which is currently touring the large hotels in Majorca all through the summer 2007 and 4 production shows for 'Mirage Productions Ltd' for the Page & Moy cruise ship, 'Ocean Majesty'. Rachel is soon to be choreographing numbers for the Fred Olsen cruise ship, 'The Boudicca' for Mirage Productions Ltd and the forthcoming Clwyd Theatr Cymru show, 'The Cherry Orchard' directed by Terry Hands CBE. Rachel now runs the Elsber School Of Theatre Dance after taking over this year from her mother, Wendy Catherall.

Lydia Griffiths joined The Elsber School Of Theatre Dance in 1994. She always enjoyed a lot of success in festivals and exams and loved performing as the feature roll in many of our shows. In 1997 she won the second series if ITV's "Big Big Talent Show" hosted by Jonathan Ross. Later that year she was invited to perform for the Queen and Prince Phillip on the Royal Variety Show. In the years that followed, Lydia made numerous appearances on television and radio shows around the country including “The Mike Doyle Show”, HTV, “Just up Your Street”, BBC and “Noson Lawen” S4C where she performed in her favourite language, Welsh!Lydia has worked extensively with the BBC, one of her most exciting engagements was with the BBC concert orchestra when she appeared on “Friday Night is Music Night” for Radio 2.Lydia's Theatre credits include Anne Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol” (Theatr Clwyd), “Great Expectations” (Theatr Clwyd), the title role in “Cinderella” (Leamington Spa), “Musical Magic” (UK Tour), Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” (Chester Gateway), understudied and played the role of Clarice in “Napoleon” (Shaftesbury Theatre, London), understudied and played the role of Eponine in “Les Miserables” (Palace Theatre, London), Cosette in 'Les Miserables' (Palace Theatre and Queens Theatre, London), Gerda in 'The Snow Queen' (Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham).She is a regular performer for “Much Loved Productions” and “Dowell Productions” and has performed with some of the countries leading military bands and concert orchestras, namely “The London Philharmonic”, the “Prince of Wales Swing Band” and the “Band of the Royal Life Guards”.In May 2002 Lydia appeared as guest soloist at 'The Royal Albert Hall' in a tribute to the music of Sir Tim Rice and in 2003 returned to pay homage to director Trevor Nunn alongside Roger Moore and Glenn Close. Last year at the Royal Albert Hall she shared the stage with Michael Ball and Cliff Richard.Recently, Lydia has been working on an album of original music and has developed her own show with her childhood friend (and former Elsber girl) Stevie Tate-Bauer, which they hope to perform around the country in the near future.Lydia is currently performing in Carousel at the Chichester Festival where she is playing the role of 'Carrie’. The will also be performing in Jack & The Beanstalk in Hunstanton at Christmas.

Stevie Tate - Bauer, or ‘Stephanie’ left The Elsber School Of Theatre dance in 1999 to continue her training at Arts Educational, London, graduating in July 2002.
Whilst at college, she workshopped a new musical by Gerard Kenny called ‘Beach Radio’ in which she played the role of Nicole. Other favourite parts included, The Witch in ‘Into The Woods’, Gussie Carneige in ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ and Sally Bowles in ‘Caberet’.
Stephanie appeared in the Opening Gala of The Millenium Dome as well as the Remembrance Day Concert held there later that year.
Since graduating, Stephanie’s first assignment was to play lead vocalist for Cruising Musicals Consortium onboard the P&O cruise ship, ‘The Aurora’. In 2004, she played the part of Susan Hershey in the successful UK tour of ‘The Full Monty’. She then went to Kuala Lumpa to performing in the touring production of ‘Oliver’, playing the part of the Rose Seller and understudying the role of Nancy.
Other theatre credits include, Martha Cratchit in ‘A Christmas Carol’ (Theatr Clwyd), Casey Kittredge in ‘Meet Mr Future’ (Cardiff International Festival) and Woman 1 in ‘Something About You’ (Jermyn Street Theatre / The Bridewell). 'Rusty' in the UK touring and West End production of 'Footloose' followed. Stevie can currently be seen in the West End in the new smash hit musical, 'Lord Of The Rings'.

Rosie Taylor continued her training at the Hammond School, Chester and has been very successful as a dancer since graduating. She has enjoyed the life as a professional dancer touring Europe / The Caribbean / North America on board the ‘Seabourn Sun’ for Cunard Cruise Lines, performed for a season at EuroDisney, Paris, danced for a year in Lisa Messham's Irish Dance show, 'Celtic Dreams' choreographed by Rachel Catherall and is spending this year performing in the shows on a 9 month Carribbean cruise for Carnival Cruises.

Rachel Varney went on to further her dancing studies at Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre. Since graduating, she has worked for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines as a dancer touring the Bahamas for four months. She briefly performed in Menorca in LM Productions' shows, 'Disney' and 'Sophistication' until October. She is currentl dancing at Center Parcs, Penrith in their production shows.

Kerry Piper in the summer of 2004 appeared in LM Productions / Rachel Catherall’s ‘Celtic Dreams’ show, an all Irish dance show which tours the island of Menorca. Kerry is a member of the Irish Performance group and by chance a place came up in the show and Kerry was the perfect girl to take the place. She performed the show for 8 weeks and is now furthering her education in university. Kerry hopes that a place will come up in the show again next year where she hopes to join up with the rest of the team. Since then, Kerry also appeared in a special performance of 'Celtic Dreams' onboard the luxury cruise ship, the 'MS Assuka' for NYK Cruise Lines.

Lisa Messham is on her 7th year of running LM Productions and has four successful touring shows in Menorca. During the second year, ex-Elsber girl Helen Shepley enjoyed a season working as a professional dancer along side Lisa in one of her companies, 2003 saw other ex Elsber girl, Rosie Taylor performing in Lisa's new Irish Dance show, 'Celtic Dreams' which was choreographed by our own Rachel Catherall.and other Elsber girl, Kerry Piper joined the show in 2004.

Sarah Russell went on to further her dancing studies at Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre. Since graduating, she was working as a dancer in various production shows touring Madiera, but sadly has had to give up for a while due to injury.

Kate Mackie's first professional teaching job was in Portugal. She then accepted a teaching post at the Hammond School, Chester but later decided to return to Portugal to continue teaching. Kate recent returned to the UK and now co-runs the Elliot Clarke Stage School in Liverpool.

Charlotte Rose graduated the year before last after continuing her studies at Merseyside Dance & Drama Centre and recently finished her first professional job as a dancer on a cruise ship. After 3 weeks rehearsals in Las Vegas, she was cruising in such places as Hawaii, Japan and the South Seas. Charlotte has recently just got her second cruise ship job and will be setting sail to the Far East and Japan very soon.

Yet again, this year, the school has enjoyed a 100% pass rate in I.S.T.D. examinations taken by the pupils.