AN aspiring actress brought up in Lindley gets the biggest test of her career tomorrow.

Greta Wray, 20, will step out on stage at the historic Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in front of a 1,000-strong audience.

But she’ll be getting a lot of moral support for her starring role as Katherine in The Taming of The Shrew – the director Mike Hayden is also from Huddersfield.

Former All Saints High School pupil Mike, who was brought up in Oakes, has taken on the challenge of directing the piece as part of the Sam Wanamaker Festival at the Globe.

Established in 2007, the festival was set up to reflect the mission of the Globe’s founder, American actor and director Wanamaker, for the theatre to be a training ground for scholars and actors.

Greta certainly fits into that category as she is hoping to graduate in June from the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, in London, one of the country’s top drama schools with Dame Judi Dench as president.

Greta was born at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and educated at The Gleddings School in Halifax.

She began studying at Mount view three years ago and said: “Tomorrow looks set to be my biggest role so far. I performed a few weeks ago at The Criterion in London in a showcase from the Mountview and that was in front of a few hundred people.

“But I know when I step through those doors at The Globe tomorrow and walk on stage, I will be confronted by about 1,000 people.

“I’m in a scene with Tom Pritchard, another student from Mountview, and we had a run through the other day.

“The director is also from Huddersfield and he put me at my ease.

“It’s a busy time at the minute for me. As well as The Taming of The Shrew, I’ve got a role in a well-known northern drama. I’m going to play Rita in Andrea Dunbar’s drama Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which we are going to put on at The Caramel Club in London.

“It’s what I have always wanted to do so I hope tomorrow is the start of something really good”.

It could not be in a better setting.

Shakespeare’s Globe is a replica of the 1599 theatre used by the great playwright.

The new theatre was initiated by the American actor, director and producer Wanamaker after his first visit to London in 1949.

Twenty-one years later he founded what was to become the Shakespeare Globe Trust, dedicated to the reconstruction of the theatre and the creation of an education centre and permanent exhibition, and it opened in 1997 – sadly after Wanamaker had died.