About
Music Theatre Essex
High Quality theatre training
for Performers and Musicians
MTE was formed in the summer of 2017 by Phil, Tim & Hayley. All three of us are industry professionals from different areas of the performing arts world, but with a shared passion to create exceptional, exciting and relevant musical theatre training for young people. We operate entirely in school holidays with multi-day projects, rather than regular classes, and work with both young performers and young musicians, combining their efforts in a shared performance.
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MTE has 3 simple goals :
Meet The Team
Tim Major
Tim trained as a dancer at the London Studio Centre under the Brdiget Espinosa Scholarship and then as an actor, receiving his BA Hons Theatre Studies (Acting) from Rose Bruford College Of Speech & Drama.
He has worked as a performer in Film, Television and Theatre where his credits include The Singing Detective (BBC), The Scar Crow (Winner of Best Horror Film - London Independant Film Festival), No1 National Tour of West Side Story, European Tour of The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
As a director and producer Tim has managed to bring numerous projects to both the big screen and stage. Credits include the feature films UFO (with Jean-Claude Van Damme), Bula Quo (with rock legends Status Quo), Kill Keith (with national treasure Keith Chegwin) and Allies (starring Downton Abbey's Julian Ovenden); In the theatre his work includes Late At Night (musical - Jazz Lines Productions), West Side Story (Limelight Theatre & Elgiva Theatre); And had a tenure of six years with the Broadway Theatre Barking, producing and directing their annual Christmas Pantomime - two of which he wrote.
Alongside this work, Tim has set aside time to focus on teaching and has an enormous amount of experience in using the performing arts to empower and encourage. His long line of work includes 2 years running the Buck Youth Dance Company; Choreographing for Madaction Youth Theatre in Milton Keynes including productions like Little Shop Of Horrors; spending a year as the Youth Music Worker at Inter-Action (MK) producing the Album "A Sound Revolution".
He currently lectures in acting at Northampton University.
Phil Gostelow
Phil trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After a number of years working freelance as a Musical Director, Phil became Assistant MD on Bill Kenwright's production of Blood Brothers in 2007, taking over as Musical Director later down the line, and, eventually leaving the show after nearly 3000 performances in 2017.
In 2018, Phil took on the role of Deputy MD with ‘Shrek the Musical’ on the UK & Ireland Tour.
Other notable work has included working with Tony Award winning writers Maltby & Shire on 'Take Flight' at the Menier Chocolate Factory, a workshop recording with Disney legends Richard and Robert Sherman, and a keyboard player for the UK Tour of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat.
As a composer, Phil has written the scores for numerous musicals and pantomimes, as well as collaborating with Danusia Iwaszko on ‘A Labour of Love’ (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds), ’Nativity Blues’ (Eastern Angles), and most recently, ‘Tough Love’ which received it’s premiere performance in March at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, and was revived as part of the new writing festival at the New Wolsey, Ipswich a few weeks ago.
James Doe
Hayley Gostelow
Hayley has recently graduated from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama completing a degree in Drama Applied Theatre and Education BA (Hons).
As a performer Hayley has worked in the West End, appeared in Music Videos and been photographed for advert campaigns. Her credits include; Cinderella (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds), Billy Elliot the Musical (Victoria Palace, West End), Changed The Way You Kissed Me (Example Music Video) and Milky Way still and Internet viral (US campaign).
Hayley has always had a keen interest in teaching and is very passionate about advocating for Arts in education. A huge part of her work ethic evolves around making drama accessible and using the arts to inspire creativity.
Her teaching work includes; Youth Theatre Leader for The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Participation for The Almeida Theatre (London Theatre of the Year 2016) and Workshop Leader and Performer for The Senate House Library. Hayley also has experience teaching the LAMDA syllabus and has had a 100% pass rate
Rachel Harris
Charlotte McGrath
Charlotte graduated from Tiffany Theatre College in 2019 as a Musical Theatre performer. During her time at college, she was a dancer on the live BRIT Awards for Katy Perry at the O2 and also helped out at the Elstree Studios as a stand in dancer for the Children In Need filming.
Since graduating, Charlotte has been on a few UK Pantomime tours around primary schools playing: Jill in Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella in Cinderella and also Bagheera in The Jungle Book.
Recently, she has performed in two rehearsed readings of the play Tough Love; one at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds and the other at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. The MD and composer for this play happens to be our very own Phil, and Charlotte very much enjoyed working with him on a professional contract, especially after being taught by him at Tiffany’s!
Charlotte first joined the MTE crew back in 2018 and has since caught the bug for teaching and loves being involved in creating and developing the next generation of performers!