Faculty Bios
Susan Bracken :
Susan completed her Masters degree in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1993. She has been teaching for Ithaca since 1995 and has been teaching the British Art and Architecture courses here since 2000. Susan teaches Art Appreciation for the London program of Mississippi College. She is also a tutor at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the course ‘The Visual Arts in Europe: High Renaissance to Baroque 1500-1720’ and lectures there on Rococo to Modernism 1720-1920.
Martin Brown
Martin holds a PhD in International History from St Mary's College, part of the University of Surrey and an MA in Central and Eastern European studies from the School Of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at the University of London. His work focuses on policy formation and decision making within the Central Department of the British Foreign Office in regards to the Czechoslovak exiles in Britain during the last war. In addition, he has an interest in the historiography of the transfer/expulsion of the Sudeten German population from Czechoslovakia after the end of the Second World War, and in the causes and conduct of the Cold War more generally. His research also includes Modern European History, 1800-1989; the role of myth in history and the effect of the Cold War on historiography and memory; minority questions in Central Europe and the Communist system in Eastern Europe 1948 to 1989.
Michael Carlson
BA Wesleyan University, USA (English & American Studies) 1972
MA McGill University, Canada (English Literature & Creative Writing) 1977
Michael Carlson has lived in London since 1977, and for the past 15 years has been one of the leading television presenters of American sports to British audiences, most recently as the studio analyst on Channel 5's live coverage of the NFL. His other recent work has included the World University Winter Games for Fox College Sports, NFL Europe for Sky Sports, Euroleague Basketball for Showtime Sport and UK Open Poker for Matchroom and Challenge TV. Previously, he was Vice President, European Operations for Major League Baseball International (1990-94); Director of Programming, Europe for ABC Sports (1982-90) and Sports Editor of the television news agency UPITN (1978-82). He has covered nine Olympic Games, including serving as broadcast venue manager in Los Angeles, Barcelona, and Atlanta, and in Chicago for the 1994 soccer World Cup. He has written studies of the film directors Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and Oliver Stone in the Pocket Essentials series, and the Channel 5 Guide to Baseball, as well as introductions to Octopus Books' Herman Melville omnibus edition and a collection of Michael Connelly's crime reporting. He writes features on the arts and books for magazines such as the Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, and Headpress, and newspapers such as The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, and Financial Times. He has written on sports for most of the British dailies, the International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Pro Football Weekly, First Down, and NFL.COM. He edited the Northern Lights poetry series, and his own work has been published in nine small-press collections, as well as in magazines like Origin, The Mississippi Review, Grand Street, Hollands Maandblat and many others.
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Ashoke Chanda
After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English, Ashoke traveled and taught in France, Austria and India for several years. Awarded an East-West fellowship, he completed a Masters in American literature at the University of Hawaii, before moving to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a two year fellowship to do a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Apart from teaching in the States, most recently as Visiting Professor at Marlboro College ( Vermont), he has taught theatre, drama and literature on various American semester-abroad programs. He also has experience of teaching film theory and European cinema. Currently his research interests are in political drama and the post-colonial novel.
Patricia Doyle
Patricia Doyle trained at RADA and has worked extensively as an actress in Britain and America in radio, television, film and theatre. She was a founding director of the GeVa Theatre in New York and in the UK she has worked with many of the major repertory companies as well as the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. She has done frequent work with the National Youth Theatre. As a director, her work includes Martine at the Salisbury Playhouse, Time and the Conways and Noises Off in Ohio, U.S.A.; Blue Remembered Hills, A Clergyman's Daughter and Bloody Poetry for Terra Firma Theatre Company, and many other productions at various locations. For the Northern Ballet Theatre she was drama consultant and acting coach on Dracula and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and director of Carmen. She conceived and directed their production of new ballet A Streetcar Named Desire and has worked on Wuthering Heights, Swan Lake, and Dangerous Liaisons, in which she performs. She is co-director of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (nominated for an Olivier award 2005) and co-director of Peter Pan at Sadler’s Wells in spring 2005. Patricia teaches for other colleges in London and at The Actors Centre in London on a regular basis.
Bevan Jones
Bevan Jones has a twenty-year career in journalism, publishing, promotions and marketing. He then moved into broadcasting as a contributor and writer in radio and television programming and also in policy-making. He has acted as policy advisor to the Home Secretary, Regional and Local Government, the British Film Institute, and various non-profit organizations.
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Timothy Kidd : Director of Drama Programme
Tim Kidd attended boarding-school in the West Country, and then read English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge. He received a Ph.D from Cambridge University for a thesis on modern American drama, for which he also studied at Yale Drama School and NYU School of the Arts. He taught English and drama for ten years at Cambridge, and then moved to London to organize and teach the Drama Programme for Ithaca College. He is also a qualified London guide-lecturer, and has contributed to magazines and academic journals.
Gary Thorn
Gary Thorn has been with Ithaca College in London since 2001. He received his BA from the University of Kent, his MA., PhD. from the University of Warwick and his PGCE from the University of London. Currently, he is teaching history at Ithaca College’s London Center as well as Urban Communities at another American program in London. He Teaches European and American history at the Open University as well as Modern European History and International Relations at Birkbeck College University of London. In 2000 he published End of Empires: European Decolonisation 1919-1980.
Richard Tudway
Richard Tudway is an economist by training. His career has included spells in central government, the OECD and its affiliates, multinational business and investment banking. His specialist advisory work has in recent years focused on the transitional economies of the former Soviet Union. He has been involved in advising on the development of capital markets in Russia and in the implementation of banking reforms in Ukraine.
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Lee White
Lee White is currently a lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at
Roehampton University. He teaches across a range of subjects in the fields of drama, literature and media studies. His research interests
are in Contemporary Irish and British Drama. He has worked in professional theatre and television and is currently developing and working on research projects with the National Theatre.
Murray Woodfield
Murray Woodfield teaches British Styles of Acting at Ithaca London Centre as well as being Senior lecturer in Theatre Studies at RAIUL. He has also taught acting at Central and Mountview. Originally he trained as an actor at The University of Cape Town and RADA and worked as an actor for 15 years in rep, the West End, film and T.V. before moving into directing, writing and teaching. Murray’s professional directing work includes “Voices from September 11” at the Old Vic, “Shadowless” at the Bridewell Theatre, “Musical Futures” at the Greenwich Theatre, “Yesterday Once More” at the Man in the Moon, “Crimes of the Heart” at the Jermyn Street Theatre, “Come Together” at the Man in the Moon as well as “Blood Wedding”, “The House of Bernarda Alba” and “The Memory of Water” at the Diorama Theatre.
Bret Yount
Bret trained as an actor at the University of Arkansas and the Guildford School of Acting ( UK). Whilst still working professionally as an actor, Bret continued his training in stage combat achieving Master Teacher status with the British Academy of Stage and Screen combat (BASSC) and Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD). Bret is also an member of the Equity Register of Fight Directors. Recent theatre credits include the Royal Court, Liverpool Playhouse, Hull Truck Theatre and Mercury Theatre, Colchester while recent film credits include TROY and CLOSER.
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Courses