Index

DIRECTORS

2006

 


Tessa Leong
Adelaide

 
  Tessa Leong wrote, directed and starred in her first show in a year one assembly. It was about martians. She has sinceworked on many shows during her time as a directing studentat Flinders University Drama Centre and since her graduation in2006. Directing highlights include Best We Forget and Make Me Honest, Make Me Wedding Cake which won the 2009Adelaide Fringe inSPACE Development Award both with isthisyours?, a company formed with other graduates of the Flinders Drama Centre. Her work with Sydney Theatre Company, Vitalstastix, State Theatre Company of SA, Restless Dance Company, Country Arts SA and Real Time Collaborators has fed her love of new and challenging work. She is currently working on Audio Commentary with isthisyours?.

Corey McMahon
Adelaide


 
 

Corey initially trained as an actor before moving into directing at Flinders University Drama Centre. He graduated in 2006 with 1st Class Honours and completed his Master of Creative Arts in 2007.  He has worked as a director, producer, dramaturg, tutor and assistant director and is the founder and artistic director of five.point.one.  In 2008, Corey undertook an internship with U.K. new writing theatre company Paines Plough.  His most recent credits as director include Osama the Hero (five.point.one), Citizenship (Drama Centre) and King of the West End (Feast Festival).  Corey has worked as assistant director on Ghosts (STCSA), the world premiere of Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat by Mark Ravenhill (Paines Plough U.K.) and The Hulk Project (AFCT/InSpace).  He has also worked as tutor and assistant director for Urban Myth Theatre of Youth. In 2009 Corey will teach and direct for both Flinders University Drama Centre and A.I.T. Arts.  For more information on five.point.one click HERE

2005    

Toni Main
Adelaide

 
  Toni graduated from the directing course at the Flinders University Drama Centre in 2005 with honours.  Her theatre directing credits include Two by Jim Cartwright (2006), Out of the Boot for Urban Myth Theatre (2006), The Bank Job by Alex Vickery-Howe (2006). Harm’s Way by Mac Wellman (2005), Dreaming by Peter Barnes (2004), After Dinner by Andrew Bovell (2004) and Dreamtown by Melissa Reeves (2003). Film credits include; On the First Day, Director, Jean & Julie, Assistant Director and Angela’s Decision, Set Dresser. She has a strong passion for mask performance of which she has directed and co-created two performances using the Libby Appel mask performance technique: The Hidden Family of Her (2007) and Everybody go to the Left Side of the Room (2006).
 
2004    

Justin McGuinness
Adelaide

 
   
2003    

Tait Muller
Adelaide

 
  Tait has worked in the television industry for 17 years, and in that time has written, directed and produced a variety of television programs.  Recent credits include the Out of the Ordinary series for NWS9, Savvy TV for the TEN Network, plus a collection of vignettes for the ABC.  Tait graduated from the Flinders University Drama Centre in 2003, with First-Class honours, and was awarded the inaugural Adelaide Bank Helpmann Academy Award.  Since graduating, Tait has developed a number of projects for television and corporate interests, he has completed his fifth short film Fluffy Dice, and is currently collaborating with a writer on a feature length script.
 
2002    

Ali Gordon
Sydney

 
  Director, performer, teacher and arts innovator, Ali has a passion to create work for chldren. With fellow graduates Sarah Lockwood and Carolyn Ramsey, she is creating Drop Bear Theatre for children and families with their first show touring in 2010.  Ali is driven by the comic and the unusual.  Her directing credits include Director of the Windmill Street Performance Troupe, Assistant Director with State Theatre SA’s Proof, Associate Director to Nigel Jamieson for Windmill’s Brundibar, assistant to Neill Gladwinn and Peter Wilson for Windmill’s Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge.  In Adelaide Ali worked closely with Patch Theatre Company’s Purple Patch and as a teacher with Scotch College and The Wilderness School.  In a stint as Marketing Services Manager at the National Maritime Museum, Ali produced Caleb Lewis' 2008 AWGIE best interactive media project Who Iced Otzi? and various other online projects.  In 2008 and 2009, she also worked for Belvoir St Theatre as Marketing Manager.  She currently works in education at the Powerhouse Museum.  Ali's studies were in Arts Management at UniSA and with the Drama Centre at Flinders University.  She likes puppets and riding her bike.
2001    

Geordie Brookman
Adelaide




  Since graduating from the Flinders Drama Centre in 2001, Geordie has worked as a director, writer, dramaturg and producer and has showcased work around Australia and the UK.  His recent theatre credits include Tender (nowyesnow / Belvoir), Fewer Emergencies (UOW Creative Arts), Hot Fudge (State Theatre SA) 4.48 Psychosis (Brink), Tiny Dynamite (Griffin Stablemates), Marathon, Morph, Disco Pigs and The Return (Fresh Track), Love is Pain, Mt Ragged (Sydney Theatre Company Blueprints), Brecht Explorations, Absurdist Explorations (Sydney Theatre Company Education), Reformation (Aus. Fashion Week), Immaculate Confection (National Tour).  Geordie has also directed for other companies including Queensland Theatre Company and has assistant directed on many productions including Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (Company B), 12 Angry Men (APA), The Real Thing, Holy Day, Endgame and Life is a Dream (STC).  Positions held include Affiliate Director at the Sydney Theatre Company, Artistic Associate at Fresh Track and Artistic Development Coordinator at QTC.  Geordie is also a board member for World Interplay.  He is currently the co-Artistic Director of the performance group nowyesnow and has been appointed as the 2008-2009 Associate Director at the State Theatre Company of South Australia.  Awards include an Advertiser Best in Fringe Award for The Return, Sun Herald Best Independent Production for Tiny Dynamite and nominations for an Adelaide Critics Circle Award and the Stage’s Best Ensemble Award.
 

Ross Ganf
Melbourne

 
   
2000  

 


Sam Haren
Adelaide




  Sam works primarily as a director, often designing and creating video for his own work.  Sam is a founding member of The Border Project and has directed/co-directed all of the company’s work and his directing credits with them include Highway Rock ‘n’ Roll Disaster (Adelaide Fringe 2006), Please Go Hop! with Ingrid Voorendt (Adelaide Fringe 2004 and Next Wave Festival), The War (Gorge ’03 at the AFCT), Despoiled Shore Medea Material Landscape with Argonauts, and the creative development of Disappearance. Sam has also founded the Remote Telemetry Dialogues, an ongoing creative conversation with director Steve Mayhew, and created and manipulated Super Dimension Fortress One (Feast Festival 2004). In 2001, Sam directed Fronteras Americanas (American Borders), which toured to Singapore later that year, and was part of Kultour 2003 around Australia. Sam was awarded the Dame Ruby Litchfield Scholarship for 2002 and undertook a three-month internship with The Wooster Group in New York, working on their production of To You, The Birdie! and observed Forced Entertainment’s research and development of The Travels in the UK. He has also worked with Leigh Warren and Dancers and the Australian Dance Theatre as a dramaturg and researcher. He has worked as an Assistant Director to Simon Phillips on The Tempest (Melbourne Theatre Company), to Rosalba Clemente on Holy Day (State Theatre Company of SA/Playbox) and to Mary Moore for The Memory Museum (Centenary of Federation).
 

Christopher Hurrell
Sydney

 



  Christopher is the Director of the 2007 Actors at Work for the Bell Shakespeare Company, creating education productions based on Hamlet and King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night and Macbeth. These productions tour nationally throughout 2007.  Christopher directed the world premiere production of Mr. Bailey’s Minder by Debra Oswald, for Griffin Theatre Company in 2004.  This production toured throughout Australia in 2006.  Other world premiere Australian works include The Department Store by Justin Fleming (based on the novel Au Bonheur des Dames by Emile Zola) for Parnassus Den at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, and Navigating Flinders by Don Reid at the Ensemble theatre.  For his own company, Tangent Productions, Christopher directed the 2003 Sydney premiere of Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America by Stephen Sewell (as well as its successful 2005 revival), Edward II at the 2002 Adelaide Fringe and The Nightmare at the Darlinghurst Theatre.  Other productions include Don’s Party (James Cook University) What the Umbrella Did Next (Australian Theatre for Young People), Angels in America – Perestroika, Dreams of Clytemnestra, Death and the Maiden, M. Butterfly, Westside Story, The Game of Dice and Hate (Flinders University Drama Centre) He is the Literary Manager of Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company.  As assistant director, he has worked on the musical Eureka as part of the 2004 Melbourne International Arts Festival, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest for the Bell Shakespeare Company, Buried Child and What the Butler Saw for Company B Belvoir, Presence for Griffin and Art for the State Theatre Company of SA.
 

Eddie Knight
Adelaide

 
   

Claire Butler
Denmark
 
 

 


Dominic Golding
Melbourne

 
   
1999    

Rod Idle

 
   

Bill Magee

 
   

Alison Robb
Adelaide

 
   

Richard Back
Adelaide

 
  Richard began his career in theatre and film in the early eighties, studying cinematography at university and working for theatre companies all over Australia on the technical aspects of performance. Since 1994 he has specialised in the interface between electronic and live performance firstly working in a creative partnership with Lisa Philip-Harbutt in their company d.pix images and later through projects associated with the Flinders University Drama Centre. He has worked with choreographers Graham Murray, Jonathon Taylor and Leigh Warren and with theatre companies including Vitalstatistix, Patch and Adelaide & Melbourne Festival on projects that integrate moving images with live performance. Richard worked with Mary Moore on The Masterkey presented at the 1998 Adelaide and Perth Arts Festivals and on the 2000 production Exile, which was presented at the Sydney Spring and Shanghai International Arts Festivals.  He continues to work as a cinematographer, mainly in short films, and is currently co-Vice President of the Australian Cinematographers Society, South Australian Branch.
 
1998    

Anne Thompson
SA/VIC

















  Anne Thompson was a founding member of Dance Works; the company established in 1983 by Nanette Hassall to develop Australian contemporary dance choreographers.  She worked for the company as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and community artist.  During that time she co-founded the theoretical journal, Writings On Dance, with Elizabeth Dempster and Jude Walton and taught contemporary dance in tertiary institutions in Victoria.  She was thus involved in the importation of American post-modern dance ideas and techniques to Australia and in establishing a theoretical dialogue between feminist ideas, contemporary cultural theory, philosophical theories of the body and contemporary dance.  She started part-time lecturing in movement for actors at the Victorian College of Arts Drama School in 1988 and became Head of Movement in 1990. She was nominated for a Green Room award for her Daughter Solo in 1990.  She also completed a Graduate Diploma in Movement and Dance and was part of a pilot dance therapy program in Melbourne.  In 1994 she moved to Adelaide to complete a MA in Directing at Flinders University with Professor Julie Holledge.  In the theoretical component of her Masters she focused on how theories of subjectivity which locate the body at the centre of the ‘self’ were being used in contemporary dance practice.  In the practical component she studied directing text based theatre.  She has also worked at Flinders as a Lecturer in Theories of Performance, supervisor of student productions, coordinator of the movement course and researcher. She works in the theatre industry as a dramaturg and director primarily in visual and physical theatre and with independent artists and small companies.  She has worked with Garry Stewart, Artistic Director of ADT as a dramaturg on three projects. She has reviewed dance in Adelaide for Real Time. She has also been on the Artistic Advisory team for Vitalstatistix since Maude Davey became Artistic Director.  In 2001 she co-founded the Eleventh Hour Theatre project in Melbourne with William Henderson, Fiona Todd and David Tredinnick.  The company has focused on juxtaposing poetic and dramatic language in theatre performances and reframing classic texts. It has presented seven shows.  In 2006 the company won two Green Room Awards (the Victorian Industry Awards) for their 2005 productions of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Shakespeare’s King John - Best Adaptation and Best Drama Production. In November 2005 she was awarded her Ph.D. which examines the project of Reconciliation from a white Australian perspective including how nationalism, the arts and the government’s political agenda too often intertwine to perpetuate a ‘white Australia’. In 2007 she was appointed a part-time Lecturer in directing and acting at Flinders University Drama Centre and Eleventh Hour won four Green Room Awards in the Independent Theatre category for their 2006 homage to Samuel Beckett – Best production, Best director, Best male actor (Peter Houghton) and Best design (Julie Renton).
 

Adele Chynoweth

 
   
1997    

Kellie May
Brisbane

 
  Kellie completed her Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Drama in 1997 and graduated as a Director majoring in theatre direction from Flinders University Drama Centre.  As a component of her graduating component she was Assistant Director for The Red Sun performed in Japan and at the Adelaide Festival of Arts.  In 1997, she was Assistant Director for Company B's production of Black Mary and for the State Theatre Company of South Australia Production of Tales from Arabian Nights.  Her experience includes stage management for the Adelaide Festival Centre's Compagnie Maguy Marin and Venue Co-ordinator for the Festival of Ideas in Adelaide as well as for The Telstra Adelaide Festival of Arts 2000.  Kellie went on to hold the position of Venue Sales Co-ordinator at the Adelaide Festival Centre.  During this time she was responsible for venue contracting arrangements working closely with the Australian Ballet Company, State Opera of South Australia, State Theatre Company of South Australia and national and international theatre producers.  Kellie joined Queensland Theatre Company in 2002 and is currently their Operations Manager.
 
1995    

Benedict Andrews
Sydney



 

Benedict Andrews is a major new talent in the Australian theatre. He works with the most contemporary of aesthetics, but with a deep understanding and respect for theatre tradition.  Born in Adelaide in 1972, Benedict graduated with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Arts, from Flinders University Drama Centre.  Benedict has directed a significant number of productions since he graduated in 1995.  His early work included the Australian premiere of Wounds to the Face by Howard Barker, in which he received an Award for Best Production in the 1996 Adelaide Fringe and the Australian premiere of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo, which won Best Overall Production in the 1998 Adelaide Fringe.  In 1998, Benedict was awarded the Gloria Payten & Gloria Dawn Fellowship which he used to travel to New York, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, Weimar, Hamburg, and Paris to observe the processes of leading European practitioners. He was appointed resident director of the Sydney Theatre Company between 2000 and 2003. In 2000, he directed Marivaux’s La Dispute, which won the inaugural Helpman Award for Best Director of a Play.  Since 2002, Benedict has been a regular guest at Berlin’s prestigious Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz, developing work and staging moved readings.  Two of his productions continue to play in the repertoire of this company.  He also directed the production of Marius von Mayenburg’s Eldorado for the Malthouse Theatre in May 2006.
 

1992    

Joh Hartog
Adelaide

 
  Joh first moved to Australia in 1965 and worked as a director with Q theatre in Sydney in 1969. He then returned to Holland where he worked with several companies until 1974 when he took up work with the Music Hall in Neutral Bay, NSW. He continued to work on and off in theatre in NSW until coming to South Australia where he completed a Bachelor of Arts at Flinders University in 1992. The work he did for his PhD thesis, a cultural audit on events at the Festival Centre, translated into a national project, which eventually became AusStage. He is a senior lecturer at Flinders University, where he has directed numerous productions including The Housekeeper, Massacre Games, Attempts on her Life, Mad Forest and Three Sisters. Productions outside the University include Dark Matter – A Diapasonic Trek (original work), And I’ll Give You All The Diamonds In My Teeth and The Bald Primadonna. His most recent endeavour has been to help set up Short Theatre, which is designed as a coming together of local talent to review, discuss and present 10 minute works.
 
1991    

Ellen Freeman
 
 
 
1990    

Steven Mayhew
Adelaide

  For the past few years of his arts career, Steve has concentrated on the development of new theatre based works as a director, writer, designer, composer, dramaturg and creative producer. In all circumstances Steve has worked with many artists, community members and young people to devise works which attempt to tell stories with unusual and unconventional structures. Recently he developed a 150 Celebration utilizing the community of Melrose, exploring the use of sound as a preliminary point to tell stories in his Come Out project 7.15 took shower, 7.35 ate breakfast, along with Urban Myth’s 2002 work in progress, Brave.  He has helped develop Risky with Junction Theatre as well numerous shows with young people in Urban Myth and Riverland Youth Theatre. Steve has also worked as an advisor and mentor to students studying at the Drama Centre and as a dramaturg with The Border Project's Disappearance.  As an Arts Manager and Coordinator Steve has worked for Carlcew, Tasmanian Regional Arts, Comeout 02, Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Brink Productions.  He was the Artistic Coordinator of Riverland Youth Theatre from 1996 to 1998 and the Manager of Artistic Programs for Junction Theatre from 1998 to 2000.
 
1989    

Charles Parkinson
 
  Charles has spent a sustained part of his working life breaking down the barriers in touring, particularly in getting a great variety of touring product out to small towns through the HotHouse Theatre Regional Touring Circuit.  Charles trained at Flinders University Drama Centre and has worked in Australia and the USA as a director, lighting designer, actor and arts administrator. He has directed shows for the Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne Festivals and was Artistic Director of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus for five years.  He was Artistic Director of Breadline Theatre and CIRKIDZ and Administrator of Mainstreet Theatre.  Charles directed the Twentieth Anniversary Show for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and most recently co-directed a HotHouse Theatre and Flying Fruit Fly Circus co-production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Kim Walker.  Charles has been a member of the Australian National Playwrights Centre's Artistic Advisory Panel and a member of the Regional Advisory Panel for La Trobe University. He was the inaugural Chair of the Victorian Regional Arts Fund, a director of the Border Trust Community Foundation and an executive member of the Regional Arts Board of Albury Wodonga.
 

Peter Douglas

 
 
 
1988    

Catherine McKinnon
  Catherine studied to be a director at Flinders University Drama Centre and then became a founding member of the Red Shed Theatre Company. Over a 9 year period she worked for the Shed as a director and writer and for several years as a co-artistic director.  With company members and writers she helped develop many new Australian plays including Sweetown and Storming Heaven by Melissa Reeves and All Souls by Daniel Keene. Her own plays for the Shed include Immaculate Deceptions, A Rose By Any Other Name, Road to Mindanao and Eye of Another.  During this time she also freelanced to the State Theatre Company of SA.  Her directing credits there include Diving For Pearls, Barmaids, Three Birds Alighting On A Field, Spring Awakening and Morning Sacrifice.  On leaving Adelaide she completed a Masters in Creative Writing at UTS Sydney and is currently finishing her first novel, The Swordfish Tales Most recently she has been working for April Films, writing stories and filming interviews, about the making of Jindabyne, a new film by Ray Lawrence, written by Beatrix Christian.  Recently she won the Penguin/WW 2006 prize for short story writing and is finishing her first novel The Accidental Apprentice.
 

Glen McGillivray
Sydney
 
  Glen McGillivray has worked professionally in theatre for over fifteen years.  He was the Artistic Director of Theatre of Desire, a contemporary performance company producing original material, which included: Rites of Memory and Desire (1993-1996), The Frankenstein Twist (1995) and Customs (1998), which the company commissioned from Perth-based writer Josephine Wilson. Glen has also been the Artistic Director of ATYP, an Associate Director and dramaturg for the State Theatre Company of South Australia and has worked extensively as a freelance director.  In addition to his work as a director, Glen has had a long association with the development of new writing for the theatre.  In 2002, he was the Australia Council funded dramaturg at the Banff PlayRites colony in Alberta, Canada and he worked as a script assessor for the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre.  Glen has also taught acting at the Actors’ Centre Australia and run classes for the NIDA open program, the NSW Conservatorium of Music and the Actors’ College of Theatre and Television.  In 2004 he completed a PhD in performance studies and currently teaches at the University of Western Sydney and Sydney University.
1986    

Antonietta Morgillo

Sydney
 
Antonietta Morgillo has worked as an actor/writer/director. She studied Drama at Flinders University, where she gained a Bachelor of Arts ( Hons) degree majoring in Drama, Cinema Studies and Feminism. She founded the Red Shed Company (1987), acted for it and worked as a management committee member. Later she was actor/writer/director and workshop leader for Doppio Teatro. She was a theatre assessor for the Australia Council in 1992.
 
1985    

David Carlin
Melbourne

 





 

David is a writer and film-maker who has also worked as a theatre and circus director.  He has written for both screen and stage, and produced and directed a number of documentaries and short dramas.  His work has been screened and performed in festivals in Australia and internationally.  In 1996 his short film Mister Bawky won multiple awards internationally.  In 1997 David directed Circus Oz for a six week sell-out season on 42nd St in New York City.  He was writer/director of the documentary Out of Our Minds in 2000 and was invited to screen in competition at the prestigious Amsterdam International Documentary Festival in 2001.  He has also been the Artistic Director of Arena Theatre and a founding member of the theatre collective Red Shed Company in Adelaide.  He has directed numerous premieres of Australian works including Melissa Reeves’ In Cahoots, John Romeril’s Black Cargo and Mary Morris’ Blabbermouth.  His own play Frankenstein’s Children (1990) premiered at the Adelaide Festival and has since been produced around Australia and in translation in Germany and Venezuela.  Most recently, he was a producer of the documentary series The Lifestyle Experts which screened on SBS TV in 2006.  David is currently completing a PhD at the University of Melbourne, investigating questions of memory, trauma and narrative in an interdisciplinary project spanning creative writing, literature, cinema and new media forms.  Other current research interests include the theory and practise of documentary film and video production; and digital storytelling as a tool for pedagogy and community development.
 


Tim Maddock
Wollongong

  Tim has worked in the theatre for almost 20 years as a Director, Designer, Actor and Educator.  He was a founding member of Adelaide's Red Shed and eventually became Artistic Director.  For the Shed he worked on a number of world premieres for the Adelaide Festival including The Architect's Walk by Daniel Keene.  Tim was part of a group that successfully established the South Australian theatre company Brink Productions.  He went on to direct numerous productions including (Uncle) Vanya by Howard Barker at Belvoir St.  In 2000 Tim co-directed with UK playwright Barker the epic 8½ hour production The Ecstatic Bible, involving the UK's The Wrestling School and Brink Productions.  This was a major feature of Robyn Archer's 2000 Adelaide Festival and a triumphant artistic success.  Over many years Tim has produced works for the Drama Centre including Cultureshock - an intercultural collaboration between Australian and Okinawan students performed both in Japan and Australia.  At the Drama Centre Tim has also supervised on over 20 productions.  Recently he directed Cosi for a graduating production at NIDA and in August he will direct a new work conceived by independent film-maker and composer Andree Greenwell for The Studio at the Sydney Opera House.
 
1981    

John McConchie
Adelaide
 
  John specialised in Directing for Film and Theatre, and graduated with Honours in 1981.  Remaining in Adelaide, he worked on several independent productions in film, video and theatre in various capacities, including dramaturg and co-producer for Mad Love's production The 1,000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse which won the Adelaide Festival Fringe Award in 1994.  He also worked with the Media Resource Centre as a Programme Director for a number of national independent film festivals, and chaired the organisation from 1995 - 1997.  John completed a Masters degree by research on Alfred Hitchcock at Flinders in 1991. Currently, he lectures in Screen Studies at Flinders, and is the Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Creative Arts which covers the Drama Centre's course, as well as Screen Production, Creative Writing and Digital Media.

Christopher Bell
Melbourne
 
 
 
1975    

Scott Hicks
Adelaide

 
  Scott Hicks graduated from Flinders University of South Australia (BA Hons.) in 1975 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1997.  Scott was propelled to the forefront of international filmmakers in 1996, following the release of his film Shine starring Geoffrey Rush.  A box-office hit, Shine sealed Hicks' reputation when it earned seven Oscar nominations, including directing and writing nods for Hicks, and Rush won for Best Actor.  Before Shine, however, Hicks made his mark as a documentarian.  He won an Emmy in 1994 for Submarines: Sharks of Steel and a coveted Peabody Award in 1989 for The Great Wall of Iron.  His film Snow Falling On Cedars (1999) received kudos for its lush cinematography and Hearts In Atlantis (2001) featured A-list star Anthony Hopkins.  Scott Hicks works and resides in Adelaide with his family.
 
     
Index   Other Directors - Mario Andreacchio, Anthony Maras, Craig Lahiff, Ron Saunders

 

Revised: 15-08-2010