Guildhall School announces end of year prize winners

Hazel Sharples Memorial Prize

The Hazel Sharples Memorial Prize was awarded to Eluned Banfield, who has just completed the BA (Hons) Technical Theatre Arts (Stage Management) programme.

The prize was set up in 1999 in memory of Hazel Sharples, a stage manager and arts officer who passed away suddenly in 1995. During her career, Hazel worked for the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, and chaired the board of the Warehouse Theatre, Croydon.

Each year her friends and former colleagues contribute towards an endowed prize fund which provides for an annual award to an outstanding Guildhall School third-year Production Arts student, voted for by their peers.

On her win, Banfield said: “I feel so honoured to receive the Hazel Sharples Memorial Prize voted for by my peers. I must thank them all. My time at Guildhall has been so special, and this is mainly down to the kindness, talent and supportive nature of my year group; every single person deserved this award! 

I'm excited now to step out into the 'real world' and hope I can live up to Hazel’s maverick reputation. Now, as a Guildhall graduate, I plan to work as an Assistant Stage Manager in opera; I would love to work on opera festivals and, one day, in the main opera houses. I am also keeping my options open and looking to find live events, concert, TV, film and touring work.

Whilst pursuing my career, I hope to create awareness for the importance of sustainability within the entertainment industry, as looking after our planet is a passion of mine.”

Josephine Hart Poetry Prize

The Josephine Hart Poetry Prize has this year been awarded to two second-year actors - Charlie Beck, who read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, and Alyth Ross who read September 1, 1939 by W H Auden.

The prize is supported by the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation, which celebrates the canon of great classic poets chosen by Guildhall alumna Josephine Hart.

The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation was set up by Lord Maurice Saatchi, Josephine’s husband of 27 years, for the advancement of arts, culture and education, with a particular focus on poetry, literature and dramatic performance. Josephine Hart was a gifted Irish woman who blazed a trail in literary London - she was the first woman director of Haymarket Publishing and wrote six best-selling novels, of which Damage was made into a film by Louis Malle, starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.  An astonishing array of famous actors are part of the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation’s The Poetry Hour Repertory Company including Guildhall School alumni Dame Eileen Atkins, Adrian Dunbar, Freddie Fox, Lily James and Dominic West.