Welcome!
Gerda trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, where she won the Vanbrugh Award. She has worked as an actor, director and writer for over 30 years on stage, television, radio and film throughout Britain and abroad. Her recent BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Sir Walter Scott’s epic novel THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN (in which she played the heroine Jeanie Deans), was nominated for the 2008 Sony Awards.
She was nominated for the 2007 CATS awards in the Best Actress category (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland), for her performance as Nancy in FROZEN by Bryony Lavery.
She received a BAFTA Best Film Actress Award for her performance in Margaret Tait’s feature filmBLUE BLACK PERMANENT (co-starring with Celia Imrie and Jack Shepherd), appeared in BRAVEHEART as the mother of Murren, and played a leading role (Anne Muir) in THE BOYHOOD OF JOHN MUIR,an American film for PBS TV. She has appeared with John Nettles inITV’s MIDSOMER MURDERS, and is a regular in the current TV series HEARTBEAT.
Gerda has directed productions in theatre, opera, film, and radio, and is a regular director at Glasgow's lunch-time theatre venue ORAN MOR.
In 2006, she directed THE MEMORANDUM, by Vaclav Havel, a co-production between Communicado and Perth Repertory Company. (See Communicado's website: www.communicadotheatre.co.uk)
In winter 2005/6, she co-wrote, edited and directed a large-scale community drama, PENTLANDS AT WAR, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of the 2nd World War. The script of this play, with an introduction by Gerda, was published by Scottish Borders Council Art Services, in 2007.
Following the success of BBC Radio 4’s The Sullivan Mystery, Gerda was on the airwaves once more this summer, playing the role of Steve again - wife of Paul Temple, in The Madison Mystery, a new BBC recording, part of the legendary PAUL TEMPLE MYSTERIESseries. More exploits of Paul and Steve to follow!
She has written several drama serials broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and is a published writer of poetry, prose, and children's stories. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Scotsman; Cencrastus; Spectrum; Parnassus: Poetry in Review (New York); Cleave (Two Ravens Press), and The Eildon Tree. She was runner up in the latter’s Wilderness competition, and published in the subsequent competition anthology.
Gerda is a trustee of the Scottish International Education Trust, was the founder of Stellar Quines, and is Associate Director of Communicado.
Photographs on this website by:
Richard Campbell
Graham Hart
Sean Hudson
David Lyon
Douglas McBride
Murdo McLeod
Barbara McDermitt
Eamonn McGoldrick
Murdo MacLeod
Gerda Stevenson
