ANDREW GARROD, CO-FOUNDER

Andrew Garrod, Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College where he was previously Chair of the Education Department and Director of Teacher Education, co-founded Youth Bridge Global in 2006 with David Yorio to use drama and art to bridge cultural divides, connect youth across cultures, and provide educational opportunities to under-resourced regions of the world.

A Canadian citizen and a graduate of Oxford and Harvard Universities, Garrod was a public high school teacher in Saint John, New Brunswick in Canada for sixteen years, where his Shakespearean productions with high school students won national and provincial awards. In addition to conducting research in aspects of moral reasoning and faith development in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the last twelve years, Garrod has directed several multi-ethnic, multilingual Shakespearean productions in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of these productions have toured within Bosnia and Herzegovina and to sites in Montenegro and Croatia. With Youth Bridge Global, he and his associates have mounted eight bilingual Shakespearean productions at Marshall Islands High School–these plays becoming a major community and national event. After twenty-five years teaching at Dartmouth College, where he won the college’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991 and 2009, Garrod retired in 2010. He is actively engaged with Youth Bridge Global and his work in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Marshall Islands.

 

DAVID YORIO, CO-FOUNDER

David, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, co-founded Youth Bridge in 2006 with the goal of reaching across cultures and providing uplifting educational opportunities for students in under-resourced school systems.

A filmmaker, artist, and urban high school teacher, David grew up fascinated by images. His first film, Ri-Belle, which looked at volunteer teachers in the post-nuclear Marshall Islands, was selected to the New York Independent International Film and Video Festival. He also completed a second documentary, Mostari, which looked at the segregation and reintegration of schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Agreement.

A US citizen and graduate of Manhattan and Dartmouth Colleges, David has worked as an inner city teacher and coach in Boston, MA; he holds an MBA from Georgetown University where he was a Georgetown Scholar. He currently resides in New York City.

 

JESSICA SWALE, DIRECTOR

Jessica is a London-based Theatre Director, playwright and author of a best selling series on acting and drama games for Nick Hern Books. She is Artistic Director of multi-award nominated Red Handed Theatre Company, which she set up after training at Central School of Speech and Drama and the University of Exeter. Recent productions include Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, The School for Scandal, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Rivals starring Celia Imrie, the London premiere of Palace of the End and The Belle’s Stratagem, for which she was nominated for Best Director in the Evening Standard Awards. Recent work elsewhere includes Bedlam (Shakespeare’s Globe), Winter (Theatre Newfoundland, Canada), House of Special Purpose (RADA), Finding Alice (National Tour), One Turbulent Ambassador (Lyric Hammersmith) and Serious Money (Pegasus Theatre). She is thrilled to be a co-director of YGB, having worked on multiple productions in Bosnia-in-Herzegovina and the Marshall Islands. She is currently writing Blue Stockings, developed at the National Theatre Studio, which will be Red Handed’s tenth production.

 

VINNY NG, DIRECTOR

Vinny graduated from Dartmouth College in 2003 and brings extensive international theater & project management experience to the team. Having served as a Project Director with Youth Bridge Global in Bosnia and The Marshall Islands, he has also been engaged in Israel, North America, and China on theater related youth projects. He has served as Director of Program Development for The China Education Initiative and was the Director of English Language Resources at the International Montessori School of Beijing. He has taught a wide-range of age groups from kindergarten through high school in both public & private schools and in addition to volunteering with Huadan, a Beijing-based participatory theatre NGO, is also a founding member of the Beijing Improv theater troupe.

 

EMILIE BROTHERS, DIRECTOR

Emilie is an experienced Youth Theatre Director, Facilitator and Teacher of Drama. Originally a Canadian, Emilie completed a B.A. in English & Theatre Studies at McGill University in Montreal and moved to the UK to complete an M.A. in Directing for the Theatre at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Since then, Emilie has worked as the Head of Drama in challenging London secondary schools as well as a Director, Writer and Producer for an All-Boys Youth Theatre Troupe in South London. More recently, Emilie has enjoyed working as a Drama Teacher and Applied Theatre Specialist in Manchester. Emilie is also pursuing a PhD in the field of Applied Drama at the University of Manchester, and this year established a franchise of Bigfoot Arts Education in Manchester & Stockport, the UK’s leading Arts in Education Company. Emilie has worked as an Associate Director and Designer in all of Youth Bridge Global’s work in Mostar, Bosnia and she is committed to improving the lives of young people through Drama.

 

JAMES GOODWIN RICE, DIRECTOR

James Goodwin Rice studied acting with Sanford Meisner at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse and with Uta Hagen at HB Studio. A veteran of New York and regional stages, he has also appeared in episodic and daytime television, and films. James is a co-founder of Capital Repertory in Albany, New York, appearing in more than 20 roles at that theatre. He is a member of Shakespeare and Company of Lenox, Massachusetts, where he has frequently acted and taught. A Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, he is now in his 15th year of teaching acting and voice in the Dartmouth College Theater Department. He created a popular course, “Shakespeare in the Schools,” in which he trains Dartmouth students a method to teach and direct Shakespeare’s plays to elementary school children. James is a graduate of Skidmore College and holds an MA in Theater from New York University where he created a performance thesis entitled “Self-Scripted Autobiographical Storytelling: Therapeutic Aspects of an Actor Training Exercise.” James is also a Senior Lecturer at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where he created a new course, “Communicating with Presence.” He is honored to be with the Youth Bridge Global team this summer.