Delilah Gyves-Smart

Delilah’s drama school training consisted of three years of rigorous and intense acting, vocal and physical lessons. During her first year, under the fantastic guidance of Paul Mitchel, Helen Parry and Mark Langley, Delilah waded her way through long hours, intense classes and a tightly packed timetable. The combination of voice classes, singing lessons and the study of phonetics strengthened Delilah’s vocal ability, the jazz, tap, ballet and gym lessons stretched her physically, and the improvisation classes and the historical theatre lectures widened her creative mind, but it was intense acting classes that enthused Delilah the most. She studied Mike Leigh (now one of her favourite directors and writers) and his improvisation methods, as well as Anton Chekov, and in second year under the direction of Pat Truman and Judy Holt she furthered her study of Shakespeare, as well Alan Aykebourne, Arthur Miller and Federico Garcia Lorca.

Delilah’s third year gave her the opportunity to combine her years of experience and training into three performances and a showcase. In her first role she was thrown into a fat-suit and a beard to play the fatherly figure Baptista in an all-female performance of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, directed By Andy Farrell. She then shed the beard, and utilised her Mediterranean appearance to play the wise Spanish Pagen Crone in Lorca’s ‘Yerma’, directed by Pat Trueman. Delilah’s final role at drama school was the strong and determined Doc Marsh in Allan Kenward’s ‘Cry Havoc’, directed by Robert Marsden.

It was Delilah’s showcase performance of Becky from the BBC series ‘Him and Her’ and Rachel from Simon Stephen’s ‘Port’ that caught the eye of Alex Priestly from Rare Talent Agency, and Delilah was quickly signed onto their books. Since graduating Delilah has been busy working in various acting roles (check out her CV) as well as continuing with her script writing. She was asked to help out with Boundless Productions, a theatre and multi-media company based at Studio 25 Manchester, created to perform at the Contacting the World festival. Delilah spent a few months working closely with the group giving guidance and support, and in return learnt a lot back. It was Delilah’s first time helping run such a large and diverse group, and she is still in close contact with many of the company’s members today.

Delilah has recently graduated from The London School of Film Media and Performance after completing her MA in Writing for Screen and Stage. The course stretched her creativly as well as academically, and with seven modules covering the fundamentals of scriptwriting from the initial idea right through to pitching, Delilah now feels fully equipped to progress further with her writing. She feels furthering her script writing skills had helped her to develop as a performer and creator, and she is extremely excited about this new stage of her career. She is keen to meet and connect with industry professionals and hopefully get some collaboration started!