Emma Heron

Emma is a professional actor and director who has worked in theatre, television and film. Trained as an actor at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Emma studied Text and Performance at Masters level at RADA and Kings College London and has worked in further and higher education for over twenty years.

An active member of Equity since graduation, Emma served on Liverpool’s local branch committee for two years and is currently a member of Equity’s Class Network. Throughout her career, Emma has developed her professional acting and directing work in parallel with her work as an educator, maintaining a strong commitment to using theatre skills and techniques as tools of empowerment for education and training.

A member of the Pankhurst Centre’s Heritage Committee from 2018 until the pandemic, Emma was also Artistic Director of Mrs Pankhurst’s Players, Edge Hill University’s feminist theatre collective for female, male and gender non-binary students and recent graduates. This work culminated in a two-week run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, garnering 4 star reviews from British Theatre Guide and the Edinburgh Guide. In 2019, Emma’s work with Mrs Pankhurst’s Players was presented to Her Royal Highness Princess Anne by the university as an example of excellence.

As an academic, Emma’s primary focus has been grounded in the use of acting techniques and feminist theatre practices as a means of reconstructing women’s hidden histories, particularly those of the women in the Liverpool Welsh Community. In 2010, she co-founded Theatr Gadair Ddu, a Welsh-English bilingual theatre company based in Liverpool and Rhuthun, focused on creating theatre that explores the narratives and experiences of traditionally underrepresented communities in the Welsh diaspora.