Gilly East - Actress and Theatre Director

Portrait and interview - 1991

Gilly grew up in Surrey and until the age of nineteen, trained as a ballet dancer.  Her father was a professional artist, and her mother was avidly interested in the theatre.  Gilly’s first coup de théâtre was at the age of four when she played ‘baby bear’.  She traces her passion for the stage back to this early age and says that although she was shy as a child, she always felt confident on the stage.

In those days, theatrical careers were not encouraged for girls, and so Gilly followed the advice of her parents and teachers and agreed to train as a teacher before continuing a theatrical career.  In her final year, she developed TB and was unable to complete her degree.  However, she went on to teach in private schools with responsibility for music and theatre studies.

During her married life, Gilly had various experiences from running a hotel to living on an ocean-going yacht for four years.  Being terrified of the sea, she remembers saying to her husband one day after she had had too much to drink at a party, ‘if I lived on a boat, it would be my home, and I wouldn’t be so frightened.’  He took her at her word and so fulfilled his own passion to live at sea.  It was only when he pressed Gilly for a fifth child that she found a way to end the existence she had never come to terms with.  She agreed to his suggestion but only if they returned to dry land.  They did – and their youngest was born!

Throughout her married life, Gilly remained involved with her first love – acting, and became aware of the number of middle-aged women trying to play juvenile parts.  She decided to avoid the temptation as her fortieth year approached and moved into directing!

When her marriage ended in 1989, she decided to take a theatre degree at Dartington College of Arts.  To a certain extent she went back to acting and appeared in various venues including the Theatre Royal in Plymouth.  During her training, her most memorable experience was working with Contact Improvisation which is a technique of dance developed for the sightless.  She was stage manager in a production at the Riverside Studios in London for two sightless and two sighted dancers.

Update:  Gilly has written and directed two pantos and a full-length play.  One panto, Dick Whittington, upset various elderly supporters of the Operatic Society, as it moved away from tradition and was staged in the Old Vic of Eastenders, which she had re-named the Mucky Duck.  Her play is based on a meeting between Lysistrata and the Greenham woman and explores the different ways in which both work towards peace.