UK stars pay tribute to legendary Cork-born drama teacher Anna Scher
Cork-born Anna Scher with pupils outside her community-based drama school, The Anna Scher Children's Theatre, on Barnsbury Road, London, in 1977. Picture: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Anna Scher, the Cork-born founder of the Anna Scher Theatre arts school in Islington, London, passed away in the early hours of Monday morning.
Born in 1944, and a former pupil of St Angela's College, Ms Scher was a member of Cork's small Jewish community.
Among the future stars Scher mentored through the years were actors Daniel Kaluuya and Kathy Burke, as well as Martin Kemp of Spandau ballet. When Black Panther actor Kaluuya won the rising star Bafta in 2018, he thanked Scher in his acceptance speech.
Following the news of Scher's death, Kemp wrote on social media: “Anna Scher, you changed so many young lives, including my own, thank you so much for showing me how much fun we could get out of life Rest in Peace.”
BBC radio’s Woman’s Hour dedicated an hour-long show to the memory of Scher in which, among those paying tribute, was Natalie Cassidy (Sonia Fowler in EastEnders), who said: "I learned more from Anna than any school teacher that I ever had."
Scher had been predeceased in October by her husband Charles Verrall, and actor/director Kathy Burke paid tribute to the couple: “These two people were responsible for 100s of us having a better life. We thank you and love you.”
Her grandfather, Dr Isa Scher, was one of the co-founders of the Cork Dental School, who brought the first dental x-ray machine to Ireland in 1922.
Her father Eric had at the beginning of the Second World War, joined local figure Gerald Goldberg in presenting a petition to professorial staff at UCC protesting against the persecution of Jewish professors and students in European universities.
Several more of the Scher family practiced and taught dentistry in the city, while her uncle was late Cork-based peace campaigner Cecil Hurwitz.
Not for her was the family business, however - studying tap dancing under Eileen Cavanagh she performed in pantomimes as a child at Cork Opera House, as well as revues around Ireland.
Later in life, she'd reflect on those early classes in Cork: "Whatever my troubles were at home or at school, I lived for her Tuesday and Thursday tap-dancing classes and danced the afternoons away to my heart's content."
The family moved to London when Anna was a teenager. Her father disapproved of her passions, and his instructions to get a "real job" brought her to teaching, as well as theatre journalism with the and the .
"I wanted to be an actress, of course, or a dancer, but my father insisted that I go and learn a profession. So I went to teacher training college in England and discovered my real vocation," she told the in 2012.
In 1968, Scher started an extracurricular performing arts school at Islington's Ecclesbourne Primary School - with ranks swelling from 75 children in the first year to over a thousand in 1975, with another five thousand on the waiting list. The theatre became an independent charity the following year.
"Eventually, the headmaster told me, very nicely, that we had outgrown the hall," said Scher in her 2012 interview, "so I had children all over the borough looking for somewhere else for us to go."
Scher was renowned for her naturalistic approach to expression and improvisation, and the vernacular of her Leeside roots stood to her throughout her career, with expressions like "There's no point fattening the pig on the day of the fair" summarising her approach to artistic and academic discipline. She was credited with providing a pathway to the world of theatre for many working-class children, in particular.
She was involved in cross-community peace organisations in the North, and also did drama work in Zimbabwe, promoting Aids awareness and children's rights.
In 2000, Scher suffered ill health through depression, and stepped down during her recovery period, with the remaining staff and board setting up a new school. She was awarded an MBE in 2013 for her services to drama.
Scher went on to continue her theatre school under her own name, doing so twice a week until stepping down as a teacher in 2020, with alumni continuing to teach.
