The Stage

Jeremy Brett fan enables Central to launch £120,000 scholarship

Published Thursday 15 September 2011 at 16:32 by Natalie Woolman

Central School of Speech and Drama has been given a scholarship fund worth £120,000 by a philanthropist wanting to honour the memory of actor Jeremy Brett.

Brett, who is most famous for playing the role of Sherlock Holmes on TV and on stage, trained at Central.

Pia Trona has given the money to the school to create up to ten scholarships named after the actor this year. These will be awarded to final year under-graduate or postgraduate acting students and are being launched this week, marking the anniversary of Brett’s death in 1995.

Trona said: “Jeremy is my favourite actor - I knew that he attended Central and he was very happy with the course he followed and it was the only way I could immortalise his memory. The students who are awarded the scholarships should put their hearts in their acting, as Jeremy did, because passion that comes from your heart is the most important thing, above any technique you can learn.”

Trona, who did not know Brett personally, said Sherlock Holmes was her favourite performance of the actor’s, but added she thought he was extremely versatile in all his roles.

The gift to CSSD will fund up to ten scholarships for acting students in 2011/12 of around £5,000 and further scholarships for the next three academic years at Central. There may also be a scholarship or a fellowship named after the donor’s father, Angelo Trona. Trona added: “Jeremy is the second most important person and my father was the most important person of my life.”

Applicants to the hardship fund will apply using a scholar-ship application form that is used by most British universities.

Trona’s donation follows the news that Central is to charge its UK and EU students the maximum £9,000 as the standard tuition fee for its higher education courses from next year.

At the time, CSSD made its tuition fee announcement, head of acting Geoffrey Colman said: “I see this charge as a provocation for drama schools to address the widening participation remit as fully as they do training itself. We cannot just be a repository for the privileged.”