Matt Pinches
Ever since donning that notorious tea-towel headdress as the 2nd shepherd in his Primary school nativity play, Matt has been fascinated by the masochistic world of theatre and acting. He left his hometown of Worcester to train at University College Bretton Hall, graduating in 1998 with a degree in Dramatic Art.
Open-air theatre in fact gave Matt his first job, playing D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers in Manchester. Since then he has mainly worked in theatre including Bath Theatre Royal, Manchester Library, Winchester Theatre Royal, Nuffield Theatre Southampton, and Vienna's English Theatre Austria, as well as numerous national tours, including schools and village halls.
It was in 2002 whilst playing the Emperor of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels that he met Sarah (playing the Empress of Lilliput!), his partner and co-founder of Guildford Shakespeare Company.
In 2004, he decided to leave London and relocate to Guildford with Sarah and was instantly at home. The establishment of Guildford Shakespeare Company is something Matt is very proud of and is looking forward to many happy and productive years of site specific theatre in Guildford!
Sarah Gobran
Sarah's passion for theatre and performance began at the age of seven with her discovery of Pam Ayres, regularly subjecting her classmates to a rendition of the latest poems she had learnt that week!
Sarah moved to Guildford in 1995 to train at the Guildford School of Acting and since graduating has performed in a variety of theatre and film, including a spell at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Alan Ayckbourn's Sugar Daddies . Sarah has also worked for many local theatre companies including The Phoenix, in Bordon, playing Bathsheba in Far From The Madding Crowd, and for Proteus in Basingstoke, as Wendy in Peter Pan . For both companies she toured to local communities in Surrey and Hampshire.
Sarah is delighted to have set up Guildford Shakespeare Company and by the tremendous response that they have received from the community, who appear to be as passionate as she is about Open-Air Shakespeare coming to life in Guildford!