University News Last updated 25 March 2013
A graduate from Birmingham School of Acting, part of Birmingham City University, is celebrating after winning the ‘Best Actress’ award in a New York theatre festival.
24-year-old Danielle Pinnock, from New Jersey USA, graduated from Birmingham School of Acting (BSA) in February 2013 and entered her university dissertation project into The Strawberry One Act Theatre Festival in America to raise awareness of the varying perceptions of body image.
Now in its 23rd season, The Strawberry One Act Theatre Festival is a play competition in which a theatre audience and a panel of theatre judges cast their votes to select the best play, director, actor and actress of the season. Twice a year, hundreds of plays from across America are submitted for the competition. This year’s festival took place at the Hudson Guild Theatre in New York.
Speaking of her play, entitled ‘The Body Image Project’, Danielle said: “Body image has been a topic of interest of mine ever since I was a child. I’ve always had an awareness of my body for as long as I can remember. I recall hilarious memories of my grandmother squeezing me into church dresses and having the misfortune of wearing tights in school ballet recitals.
“Even though I’ve always been the ‘chubby’ girl in school, it has never affected my love and passion to perform. Body image is a topic that I feel needs to be addressed in theatre. When I did the show the New York, a lot of the audience members came up to me and asked me where I trained. I loved my time at BSA.”
‘The Body Image Project’, which Danielle produced, performs in and co-directed in New York with Tony Award nominee Da’vine Joy Randolph, follows Danielle’s quest finding people in the US and UK to share their personal stories on their bodies and is a play based on verbatim interviews. Danielle said: “I’ve been into the English pubs of Exeter, into the embracing arms of Afghanistan war veterans, the hallways of New Jersey hotels and inside the most beautiful homes of Ireland.
“I raised $4,000 in fifteen days to support the project financially. I’ve interviewed about 40 people for the project and I’m going to Chicago at the end of March, where I’m hoping to develop the project into a full length production.”
For more information, visit The Body Image Project Facebook page or contact Danielle at ironprintco@gmail.com.