Shelly Quick is originally from Canada, but has been teaching and practising theatre in Singapore for the past fifteen years. Her main interest in theatre is in directing, but she has also worked as a performer and dramaturge in recent years. Shelly began directing whilst attending Queen’s University, where she completed a B.A.H. in English literature and Drama. She later completed her Bachelor of Education at Western University, specialising in teaching Drama and English literature at the secondary school level. She has over ten years teaching experience, mainly in IB schools.
The recent local productions which she partook are: TheatreStray’s Lower Depths – 61 Kerbau Road, a site-specific performance devised around the classic Russian play by Maxim Gorky, Operaviva; SIFAS’ production of Kannagi, an original chamber opera composed by John Sharpley; and World-in-Theatre’s Precious Little, a collection of short plays by Samuel Beckett.
For Shelly, the idea of young people practising theatre arts is a natural one. She herself first experienced the stage as a young girl helping out her parents, who ran their own puppet theatre. At the age of ten, she began to study acting with a local theatre company, Theatre Five, run by RADA graduate Valerie Robertson. She joined the performing arm of the company at the age of fourteen, and spent her teenage years acting in classics and original pieces for schools, hospitals and community halls.
It is Shelly’s hope that she will be able to infuse her students at SOTA with the same sense of enthusiasm, discipline and respect for the arts that her early teachers (including her parents) infused in her.