Congratulations, Lynne, on becoming a tutor at U3AM. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your professional background.

My qualifications: ATCL – Associate Trinity College, London in Speech and Drama

I have worked as:

• a drama coach to secondary students to prepare them for plays that would be performed during the year and with Year 11 & 12 students, preparing them for the end of year performing arts exams
• an early childhood drama educator
• a drama therapist.

What motivated you to become a tutor?

I have been involved in the theatre all my life. It is a great passion of mine to share what I know with other people, not just adults but also young children, primary school students and high school students.

Could you briefly outline your course, and what would be in it that would be relevant to our members at this stage of their lives?

My course will be presented with a variety of play scripts hired from the Victorian Drama League (VDL). We will discuss each script and the characters the students will be reading about. Depending on the students who have enrolled in the class, I will show how to present the various characters in the script. Some weeks there will be all drama and no play reading, where I shall bring in Shakespearean, Greek tragedy and many other plays. Students will learn how to present the work of various playwrights. For other weeks students could learn to write either the dialogue for a play or monologues that we would present to the class.

The class is very hands on. I would call it a training class. Many of the adult students that I work with, and have worked with, have said that they struggled with reading aloud. This course will help develop more confidence in this skill.

Date and time

The Play Reading / Drama course commences in Term 1, 2026. It runs for 4 terms on Thursdays from 9:45 to 11:00 am in Room 18 at The Pines Learning and Activity Centre.

Shirley Fung
New Course Coordinator