Hello - My name is Teresa and I’m glad you found me!
Please feel free to reach out!
Email: teresaizzard@gmail.com
Phone: +61416530079
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/feetfirstcollective/
www.facebook.com/feetfirstcollective
A theatre director, movement director, dramaturg, creative producer and educator who brings her background in Laban, Viewpoints and Somatic Movement Education together with rigorous directorial processes to create clear visual and physical dramaturgy for challenging, provocative texts and devised works.
Teresa Izzard is a theatre director, movement director, dramaturg, creative producer and educator. She graduated from the UK’s first MA in Theatre Directing (University of East Anglia) and assisted Suzy Graham Adriani (Royal National Studio) and Jatinder Verma (Tara Arts). She studied movement and directing with Lorna Marshall. She was a member of The Young Vic Youth Theatre where she performed and co-directed Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Born in New Zealand, she spent her formative years in Britain and has lived and worked in Perth, Western Australia since 1997. She is a Certified (Laban/Bartenieff) Movement Analyst, a Dynamic Embodiment Practitioner, a trained dramaturg (Playwriting Australia/The Blue Room Theatre) and holds a prize-winning PhD in Theatre Direction (Curtin/WAAPA). She has studied Viewpoints with Anne Bogart, Mary Overlie and SITI Company and directing with Di Trevis and Elen Bowman. She was Head of Movement at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 2014, a Theatre Arts lecturer and resident director at Curtin University until 2020 and currently teaches Movement for Actors into the Music Theatre BA at WAAPA. She is the Artistic Director and Creative Producer of Feet First Collective (FFC), an award winning, critically acclaimed theatre company founded in 2015 and is the lead coach of FFC’s training initiative Feet First Collective Training. Teresa brings her background in Laban, Viewpoints and Somatic Movement Education together with rigorous directorial processes to create clear visual and physical dramaturgy for challenging, provocative texts and devised works. FFC has premiered works in Western Australia, South Australia and Melbourne and was the Theatre Company in Residence at Fremantle Arts Centre in 2021. The company has performed at: Fremantle Arts Centre, The Rechabite, The Moores Building, The Jonesway Theatre and The Blue Room Theatre in Perth; and has toured to The Mill, Adelaide; Theatre Works, Melbourne and Erskineville Town Hall, Sydney. The company’s mission is to create beautiful and brutal theatre that engages audiences with provocative form and content. FFC is known for larger scale, immersive work such as their adaptation of Frankenstein, original work Medusa and Sarah Grochala’s S-27. However, the company’s focus is currently small plays that can have a big impact such as Vivienne Walshe’s This Is Where We Live. In 2025 their award-winning FFC production of James Gaddas’ Shadow Boxing has been programmed for seasons at Theatre Works, Melbourne and Flight Path Theatre, Sydney and has been awarded funding from the WA Department of Culture and the Arts, and Creative Australia as part of the national Australian Cultural Fund’s BOOST matched funding initiative.
My most recent CV is available here: https://issuu.com/tess72/docs/teresa_izzard_artistic_cv_2025
“Teresa has found a living and unique way of incorporating her movement techniques into her theatre practice. This makes her very ‘physical’ theatre performances mesmerising and an edge-of-your-seat experience.” (Silvia Lehmann, Director)
'Teresa's productions stand out in the Perth theatre scene due to their emotional and intellectual impact, she explores humanity, both the good and the bad, with visceral force. The focus in her productions is firmly on the interactions on stage between, and within, the characters. The emphasis on movement and physical presence is a marker of a Teresa Izzard production, it's difficult for the audience to take their eyes off the action. While the attention during a show is drawn to the characters and movement, what I am ultimately left with after seeing a production is lingering questions about our world, past and present.' (Lia DeSousa, Teacher)
'Teresa Izzard is a gift to WA artists and audiences. My experience with Teresa over the past 15 years has been as her student, as a peer and an audience member of her profound works. Her movement training has influenced a generation of artists, giving voice to the body as our most powerful communicative tool. Her teaching in my early training shaped my own professional style as a director combining physical theatre, circus and contemporary dance with text. As a peer, I have borne witness to her practice, an intense collaboration founded on respect for the contributions all artists make to the creation of the work; and as an audience member, I have been moved by the visual power of the images she creates on stage. She is extraordinary.' (Karla Conway – Director, Dramaturg, Theatre-maker)