Drew Mulligan is an actor, director and higher education leader specialising in actor training, directing, and performance pedagogy. He holds a degree in Geography from the University of Edinburgh, trained as an actor at RADA, and later completed an MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London.
He is Senior Fellow and Head of Acting at the Institute of the Arts Barcelona, where he leads the BA (Hons) Acting programme and oversees acting training across Foundation, BA and MA provision. His work combines programme leadership with teaching and directing, and includes curriculum development, assessment design, production planning, staff coordination, casting, and external partnerships, with a focus on rigorous actor training, ensemble practice, and preparing students for the contemporary profession across stage and screen. His specialist teaching areas include Stanislavski-based scene study, Shakespeare, comedy of manners, audition preparation, and preparing actors for the profession.
He developed and continues to lead the Semester Abroad programme between IAB and the Sands College of Performing Arts at Pace University in New York, now in its sixth year, and has also built a collaborative partnership between the Acting programme at IAB and the MA Directing programme at ESCAC Film School. He has additionally undertaken wider institutional leadership responsibilities, including standing in for the Principal during periods of leave.
Before joining IAB, Drew taught acting at RADA and worked with the education departments of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. He has also guest lectured at the National Film and Television School, Drama Centre London and Birkbeck, University of London. His directing credits include the National Theatre tour of People by Alan Bennett, originally directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, and Doctor Faustus for the Cambridge University Marlowe Society at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. He was also Resident Director on Untold Stories in the West End and Resident Assistant Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As an actor, he has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Donmar Warehouse, Sheffield Crucible, and the Old Vic, and has appeared in film and television, including Peter Greenaway’s The Tulse Luper Suitcases, with Part One: The Moab Story selected in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003.
