Shuna Snow

Beatrice Webb

Shuna’s only previous spell in Vienna was tantalisingly brief and by dead of night – she was en route to England from Bratislava in the sleeper compartment of a train – so she is very glad to be stepping onto Viennese soil at last, in broad daylight and with time to spend.

Shuna studied English Literature at Oxford University but failed to achieve a degree as most of her time was spent discovering life in the theatre rather than writing essays. She left Oxford after three years to enter drama school in London (The Poor School), a form of study to which she was far better suited.

Her very first professional job was in fact in a delightful little gem of Bernard Shaw’s, a two-hander called Village Wooing, performed for Southwold Summer Theatre, in which she played the character known simply as “Z”, a determined young post mistress in rural England.

Since 1999, Shuna has been a member of the Mercury Theatre Company in Colchester where she has been lucky enough to play a great variety of roles including, Sonia in Uncle Vanya; Olga in Three Sisters (Chekov); The Governer’s Wife in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, ensemble player in The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui (Brecht); ensemble player in Oh, What A Lovely War! (co-devised by Joan Littlewood) Emma in Betrayal (Pinter); Sue in All My Sons, The Woman in Death of a Salesman (Miller); Princess Leonide in The Triumph of Love (Marivaux); Clytemnestra in Iph, Pythia in Ion (Euripides); Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet, Cassius in Julius Caesar and Paulina in The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare).

Shuna’s other work includes: for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford upon Avon and in London: Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing, Dr Faustus, Kenneth’s First Play.

Further work in London includes: Mara in Welcome to Ramallah (Arcola); Narrator in The Magic of Michael MacLiammoir (Vaudeville); Nora Joyce in James & Nora (Fortune), Frances Purcell in The Masque of Henry Purcell (Southwark Playhouse) Ursule in On the Playing Fields (Drill Hall), Ellen/Lin in Cloud 9 (Theatre 503) and Clytemnestra in Iphigenia at Aulis (Etcetera).
Work across England includes: Separate Tables (Manchester Royal Exchange); Poor Mrs Pepys (New Vic, Stoke); Absurd Person Singular (Oldham Coliseum); Kaye in Tongues (The Junction, Cambridge).

Shuna’s modest TV career comprises Nurse Josephine in Midsomer Murders (ITV) and Hermione Duxbury in The Royal Today (YTV). She has, meanwhile, performed extensively for BBC Radio Drama – her favourite role here being that of the fractious spinster, Mrs Wititterly, in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby.