Mary Jane Walsh, NYU Tisch London program director, is retiring. Known for her stewardship of the program for the last 18 years, Mary Jane was part of NYU Tisch London’s inception, working with up to 40 students each semester. She has helped develop partnerships between Tisch and educational and professional centers and people in the U.K. Her working life prior to NYU Tisch London encompassed theatre, film and television production.
Mary Jane Walsh
NYU Tisch London – The First 18 Years
The NYU Tisch London Program was established in July 1998. It maintained a base at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) until August 2010 when the program moved to the University of London Senate House on a five-year lease. When this expired in summer 2015, the program moved in to the NYU in London premises in Bedford Square.
The NYU Tisch London Program was set up to provide a complete, cultural immersion for a small group of students, to be trained by U.K. nationals, within leading U.K. centers of expertise with significant partners in actor training, television production and dramatic writing.
As of fall 2016, the main conservatory courses are Shakespeare in Performance in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Advanced Playwriting and Advanced Screenwriting. Television Production with the BBC, a unique training course in partnership with Tisch London, was a prestigious project that ran for 17 years until the BBC decided to cease its external training. The dramatic writing courses, originally organized in conjunction with the Writers Guild of Great Britain, have enjoyed close relationships with U.K. playwriting and screenwriting professionals ever since.
Over the past 18 years these major concentrations with the BBC and RADA have been complimented by other partnerships with major U.K. organizations both educational and professional – for example the Arts Council of England, the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company Education Departments, and the Jermyn Street Theatre.
New tracks were created in the spirit of experimentation, for example, Advanced Photography with the Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum; Musical Theatre in Performance with Trinity Laban (the only U.K. conservatory that combines music training and dance training) and Music Producing with the Roundhouse Camden and Rock School for Tisch’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music.
About Mary Jane Walsh
Mary Jane’s undergraduate studies were in languages at the Universities of Birmingham (U.K.) and Grenoble (France) and postgraduate in Film Studies at the University of Westminster (U.K.).
Between1996 - 1997 she was Executive Director of the French Theatre Season in London, a major showcase for the best of French drama including the first visit of the Comédie-Française for 25 years and the Robert Wilson/Marguérite Duras’ production La Maladie de l’Amour with Michel Piccoli. She organized for new translations of classic French including Les Chaises (Ionesco) by Theatre de Complicité at the Royal Court Theatre as well as New Theatre Voices from France, film presentations, talks and publications and educational projects.
In 1996 she was the British representative for the International Filmfestival van Vlaanderen in Gent, (Belgium) preparing a season of new British cinema films including a retrospective of British cinema as well as a producers’ forum and guest visits from directors.
Throughout 1995 she developed a selection of film and television projects including a feature film of The Saucer of Larks, a World War II drama based on a story by Irish playwright Brian Friel (Dancing at Lughnasa, Faithhealer) with an award from the European Script Fund and Folkstown Films in Dublin. The production was to be funded by ZDF but it had to be abandoned when the lead actor essential to the film died just before principal photography began.
Between 1990 - 1993 she created and ran The Screenwriters’ Studio - patrons Michael Powell and later Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker - a film and television industry initiative in screenwriting training for emerging British writers. Run on similar lines to music masterclasses, contributors included Sam Fuller, Istvan Szabo, Karel Reisz, Marcia Nasatir, Lorenzo Semple Jnr, Lynda Myles, Barbara Broccoli, Richard Price, Budd Schulberg, Terence Davies and Christopher Hampton. Student participants who went on to major careers included the late author Sue Townsend, poet Liz Lochead, film directors Jimmy McGovern and Gilles Mackinnon , author Deborah Moggach, actor Meera Syal and screenwriter Jeremy Brock.
In addition to her work as a producer, from 1990 to 1995 she was Director of the Graduate Development Fund at the British National Film & Television School, a fund to assist graduating producers towards their first commercial project.
From 1985 to 1990 she worked as a script reader for Goldcrest Film & TV, as press officer at three Edinburgh International Film Festivals and translated several films for television transmission especially for Channel 4 Television’s French season marking the anniversary of ‘Les Evènements’ in Paris in May 1968.
Starting in 1986 she worked as an independent producer specializing in music and performance programs for television. She combined this work with a variety of related projects, maintaining her links with the film and television industry where she first started work.
From 1980-85 she worked in the British Film Institute’s Production Division, on a variety of productions which included films such as the highly successful The Draughtsman’s Contract by Peter Greenaway, the films of Terence Davies, Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, and others.
In 1975 she joined the Films Department of the British Council where she eventually became Festivals Officer responsible for placing British films in international film festivals.
During all the years in the film and television industry, she has also undertaken the organization of major British film events, retrospectives and exhibitions in the U.K., France and the U.S.A. She also served on several industry committees, film festival juries and as an elected member of the Council of British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
Through her company Palindrome Productions as an independent producer, she has made a wide selection of music and performance programs for Channel 4, BBC 2, WNET/PBS.
Her work includes the following productions:
Steve Reich - A New Musical Language (WNET/Arts Council of Great Britain) a documentary and performance profile of the American composer made for the “Great Performances” slot of PBS Channel Thirteen.
Body Styles (Channel 4 TV)
A popular anthropological series on body adornment and non-verbal communication.
Different Trains (Channel 4 TV)
A concert film of the world premiere of Steve Reich’s multiple quartet for the renowned Kronos Quartet.
The Marriage of Figaro (Channel 4 TV)
A television version of Mozart’s opera by Opera Factory made for the bi-centenary of Mozart’s death.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (BBC2 TV)
A specially commissioned dance version of the Coleridge’s poem by choreographer William Tuckett performed by members of the Royal Ballet, and Sir Anthony Dowell; narrated by Sir John Gielgud.
The Triumph of Beauty & Deceit (Channel 4 TV)
A new opera commissioned specifically for TV. Composer Gerald Barry, conductor Diego Masson and featuring an all male cast.
To Mention But A Few (Channel 4 TV)
A documentary on British women composers past and present and their struggles to get their work heard, published, acknowledged.
Restless in Thought, Disturbed in Mind (Channel 4 TV)
A documentary celebrating the changing role of the female performer in opera with specially staged performances and interviews.
Autism - Bridging the Gulf (Channel 4 TV)
A documentary exploring impact of the condition on parents and the therapies available to a group of children at a special unit in Oxfordshire.