ACtor Training

I am a Movement Director and Actor Trainer with 20 years’ experience working with and training actors at the highest level.

I specialise in Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation, enabling actors to extend their physical language and their emotional and imaginative landscapes, often through a distinctive process of Animal Transformation.

I am a specialist MA Tutor in Movement and Acting at RADA. I have taught at leading UK Drama Schools including Mountview, Arts Ed, Italia Conti, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Bruford, and Central School of Speech and Drama. Former students can be found working in leading theatres in the UK and internationally and on major motion pictures.

I caught up with Director Fay Simpson, Lucid Body Founder, during her recent visit to London and you can catch her interview of me and the work I am doing on a podcast here.

I regularly teach internationally and have delivered residencies as a guest visiting artist to The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Perth, Australia; the Kalamata Drama International Summer School, Kalamata, Greece; Schauspielakademie Elfriede Ott, Vienna; Physical Fest, Liverpool.

I am a member of the Higher Education Faculty at Shakespeare’s Globe, where I work on training programmes with Royal Conservatoire Scotland, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Guthrie Theater Actor Training Programme, Minneapolis. I am also Movement Director for Captivate Action Mocap training Company.

I also lead specialist movement sessions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, have co-taught short courses at RADA with Peta Lily and was a Visiting Associate Lecturer at the University of Kent (2011-2021)

As well as Transformation and Imaginative improvisation (including the element of Animal work) I have taught courses in Movement, Physical Maintenance, Acting Shakespeare, Mask, Physical Theatre, Acting, Foundational Movement, Devising Ensemble Theatre. Laban for Actors. I am conversant in the newly developing languages of consent and co-ordination of intimacy direction.

If you would like Gabrielle to give a masterclass or run a longer process on your Training Programme, do get in touch.

Gabrielle's unique work on Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation stems from the very roots of contemporary training of the actor, with focus on his instrument, his whole body. This outlook, seemingly new to drama training and practice, goes back to the early XXth-century revolutionary work of Jacques Copeau and has been carried on, with growing resonance and in an unbroken line, by three generations of innovators, Michel Saint-Denis, John and Catherine Blatchley (Clouzot) and now Gabrielle Moleta. Gabrielle’s teaching is precise, sensitive and firm, focusing on the inner-into-outer transformation of the actor. It guides the student to revelatory research, refined observation and then focused, cumulative exercise and preparation until transformation is achieved, not only of the actor, but through him, also of the space around him. This transformation then allows the actor to embrace text, song, the environment and fellow performers in a totally fresh, instinctive way, opening the channels for improvisation, surprises, breaking the mould, artistic growth. Gabrielle is a master of the unforced, non-cerebral, organic path to interpretation and stage creation through total immersion.”

- Andrew Visnevski, Artistic Director KADISS, Former Head of MA Theatre Lab, RADA.

As my tutor in Animal Transformation, Gabrielle taught me how to approach character development from the inside-out, giving me a deep and thorough knowledge of the purely physical traits that make up a living being (e.g. tempo, weight etc) and how these connect to the psychology and emotions of a character. A hard-working teacher, she expects the same from her students but always in the spirit of encouragement and nurturing. Her laser-like accuracy at pinpointing the very core of a character/actor’s physical essence is second to none and ensures that everyone she works with receives the specific and individual attention their physical work requires. In her work as a professional movement director, Gabrielle is wonderfully responsive and quick to understand the essence of a show and how that should manifest in the performers’ physicality. Her direction is clear and insightful, but always coming from a place of the actor’s physical experience of their character. The knowledge I have learned from Gabrielle has proved invaluable in my own work as both an actor and a writer/director. Her methods of character development form the bedrock of my understanding of character and she remains to this day the most influential and inspiring of my teachers in the dramatic arts.

- David Cumming, Actor, Writer, Director, Co-Artistic Director of Kill the Beast and Spitlip - Operation Mincemeat

I am truly blessed to have been taught by Gabrielle Moleta. I learnt a new way of working and approaching any character. Her teachings transformed the way I work, working from the inside out, being physically in the right place to layer a character giving it more detail. Her work has inspired me and her teachings have formed part of my daily process as an actor. My character on Ride was challenging as she is much younger then me calling for my physicality to be very different. I was able to work on her with Gabrielle's work. Applying some of the transformation skills obtained from her classes I was able to create a much younger character giving her more life and detail than I could have alone. There's not a lot of time on set or rehearsal periods on TV shows so having quick access to a range of emotions is vital. This work has been so useful.

- Rameet Rauli, Actor (Ride- Nickelodeon)

Gabrielle has been an artistic friend and colleague for 17 years. We met while working at The Globe, when I was a directing fellow under Mark Rylance. I have since directed her in Help I'm Still Alive at the Harold Pinter Studio. After Gabrielle secured funding from the ACE in 2009 , she brought me over to collaborate on a new piece; a confluence of my Lucid Body work and her Transformation work. We created a compelling story of survival with an international cast called The Outsiders and performed at The Quarter House, Folkestone. I am grateful that my artistic collaboration with Gabrielle brought me several times to England, and led to my Lucid Body work being taught regularly in three drama conservatories in London. I have taken and observed Gabrielle's class at Arts Ed and find her a brilliant teacher, whose sensory intuition about her students is keen. Her work uncovering the specifics of each actor's needs and strengths is unique to her.

- Fay Simpson, Founder and Director of Lucid Body, Associate Arts Professor at NYU Tisch