In 2025, Emily Croft completed QSE’s Apprentice Program training in Shakespearean performance and played Puck in their 2025 mainstage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was lucky enough to sit down with Emily and talk about her time with QSE.

Emily was born in Jersey, an island in the English Channel, but moved to Bournemouth on the south coast of England when she was two years old. She started singing lessons and got involved in the performing arts not long after. “I think I was always just, like, performing, singing around the house and my mum was like, right, yeah, let’s go somewhere that she can do that without irritating me all the time,” Emily joked about her first foray into the arts. Emily’s interest in the performing arts continued further into her education, being driven towards more creative subjects which resulted in her studying dance, art and history as part of her GSCEs. Following this, she completed a foundation degree in musical theatre and then went on to achieve a degree in acting from East 15 Acting School, graduating at the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, before going on to work in children’s theatre and pantomime, touring in the southwest of England.

Emily had never worked closely with Shakespeare beyond the odd dramatic monologue in her studies before QSE, and she jumped at the opportunity to get involved when she heard about the auditions for the Apprentice Program shortly after arriving in Brisbane. “I have always wanted to do more Shakespeare,” she admitted, “so I thought that could be perfect.” A highlight of Emily’s time at QSE was the trip to Stradbroke Island the Apprentices and Core Ensemble take at the beginning of the year, a time to introduce everyone to each other and do some intensive training together. “Since you’re living together, you have time where you’re getting to know people quite quickly,” Emily said. “Everyone was really friendly and everyone’s very professional, so, you know, in the room when you’re doing an exercise it can be very personal, or it might be an exercise that involves a group, and then you’re all cooking together and eating together. You can really build a bond. I always said that when the apprenticeship ended, I wish we could all go to Stradbroke Island now,” she added. “Because of the development of the relationships and how we’ve all got to know each other even more, it would just be so fun to go back there.”

I asked Emily about some of the skills she’s learnt and developed while working at QSE. Having never worked intensely with Shakespeare before, it was like having to “learn a different language,” she said, getting used to the rhythm and cadence of Shakespearean dialogue and “the technicality of Shakespeare,” as she described it. She also talked about the physical side of training in Shakespeare, and the changes it has made for her. “Our body is obviously a vessel,” she says, “so, like, all the different techniques that we do in training and then in the warmups just make overall such a huge difference. I’ve noticed that my projection and clarity of thought and everything is just coming together stronger than it was before.” Developing these skills became useful in Emily’s role as the mischievous fairy Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who serves the fairy king Oberon, a role which was both challenging and rewarding for Emily.

“I was struggling in the beginning [with Puck],” she admitted. “I didn’t really feel the flow… I was like, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, I don’t know how to walk’. I also struggled with the fact that Puck is not a human being, so I was struggling with, you know, thinking that I’m being a bit more over the top… But then I [remembered] Puck is a shapeshifter. So actually, like, there were things that made sense in context but that were really different from one scene to another… I think that the workshop where we were doing physicality where we had to walk around the space helped, and once we did that workshop, I knew how Puck thought and acted and that feeling just changed the energy of what I’ve been doing so far. Things started to make more sense.”

What drew Emily to QSE was the community-driven culture of the company. “How they work for the community is something I really loved,” she said, “and what I thought was inspiring about their company was how it was all ensemble based and everything. When I started reading up about what they did for the community, that was definitely something that called me more to them and wanting to work for them… Ever since being in drama school and everything I always wanted to do my work for the community as much as I can.” This culture carried over into Emily’s within the company itself as well, working with the Core Ensemble being something Emily also noted as a highlight of the program. “The Core Ensemble are really amazing because they just help guide you… You’re doing all the training with them and you’re learning how they prepare and all the things that they do,” Emily said. “They’re very inspiring – it’s just a really cool process of how you all integrate to become one ensemble straight away.”

After speaking with Emily, it’s evident that her time with QSE was both a formative and highly enjoyable experience, and our talk certainly gave me an insight into the unique experiences the QSE Apprentice Program offers to young actors and actresses. Thank you to Emily for sharing your experiences with me, and I wish you all the best in the future, wherever it may take you!