Wish You Were Here

Sanaz Toossi

Mehhma Malhi

Mehhma Malhi is an up-and-coming director. She has experience in philosophy, bioethics, and journalism and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Politics from New York University and a Master of Science in Bioethics from Columbia University.  

At NIDA she held the Animal Logic Entertainment scholarship. Her directorial work includes Ephemera By Anchuli Felicia King ‘23, Poof! By Lynn Nottage (Actors Centre Australia and NIDA ‘23), Dragonfly – Peach Fur Music Video (Triple J ‘24),  ALL BOYS by Xavier Hazard (KXT Storytellers Festival), The Mountain Remembers by Daley Rangi (Lysicrates Prize ‘24), Kufa the Hero by James Elazzi (Martin Lysicrates ‘24), ALL BOYS (KXT -Full Season ‘24), Amber by Nikita Waldron (Old Fitz ‘25), Fitz Happens by Melanie Tait, Mary Rachel Brown, Louis Nowra, Kate Mulvany, and Nicholas Brown (Old Fitz ‘25) and she acted as assistant director for Jessica Arthur in Kindness by Matthew Whittet.  

ALL BOYS (KXT – full season 2024) was nominated for best ensemble at the STA awards, and Mehhma won for best emerging director at the 2025 KXT awards. Dragonfly won Best Music Video in the Prague Music Awards, Best Director in the LA Music Awards, and was officially selected in the 2024 London Music Video Festival.

In between directing, Mehhma undertakes producing, note-taking, director’s attachments, and production roles for film and theatre companies across Sydney.

She is currently in development for two tv shows  with Screen Australia and is a director’s attach on a STAN documentary. Further she is Belvoir St Theatre’s Andrew Cameron Fellow. 

Mehhma is passionate about sharing everyday stories that often go unheard, inspiring empathy through the narratives she presents, and bringing ethical dilemmas to the forefront. Mehhma hopes her work will draw together all elements of community and excite audiences who otherwise would not engage with the theatre.

Ayah Tayeh

Ayah Tayeh is a Sydney-based theatre maker and dramaturg and is currently the Literary Associate at Belvoir St Theatre. She has worked with Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Darlinghurst Theatre Co, CAAP productions as an assistant director, producer, stage manager, and dramaturg. 

Ayah was a participant of Australian Plays Transform’s inaugural Developing the Dramaturg program, as well as ATYP’s Cultivate program. 

Her Belvoir credits include: Orlando (Assistant Director, 2025), Lose to Win (Dramaturgical Consultant, 2024), Counting and Cracking (2022, 2024), The Jungle and The Sea (2022), The Boomkak Panto (2021), A Room of One’s Own (2021) and My Brilliant Career (2020). Other credits include: The President (STC), Constellations (7 Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), Breaking Glass (Sydney Chamber Opera), and Double Delicious (Contemporary Asian Australian Performance with Sydney Festival).

Violette Ayad

Belvoir: POV, Son of Byblos (25a Belvoir). Other theatre: Sydney Theatre Company: Oil. Ensemble Theatre: Nearer the Gods. Black Swan Theatre Company: Oil. Hive Collective: Elektra/Orestes. Monkey Baa: Where the Streets had a Name. Bell Shakespeare Company: The Players. KXT: Mercury Poisoning, Coram Boy. Old Fitz. Film: Hero, Seads of God, Breaking Plates, Nekrotronic. Television: Prosper. Awards: Fringe World Emerging Artist Award (My Father’s World) 2014.

Minerva Khodabande

Keerthi Subramanyam

Keerthi (she/her) is a set and costume designer, living and working on the lands of the Gadigal and Gamaragal people of the Eora Nation. Keerthi is a National Institute of Dramatic Art, BFA (Design for Performance, 2019) graduate, and a member of the Australian Production design Guild.

Keerthi’s work as a set and costume designer includes Belvoir and MTC’s The Wrong Gods, Belvoir’s Nayika A Dancing Girl and Lose to Win, Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Murder for Two at Hayes Theatre, Chewing Gum Dreams at the Old Fitz, Chop Chef at Riverside Theatres, and her work as a costume designer includes Belvoir’s At What Cost and Never Closer.

Keerthi has been an associate designer on a wide range of theatre shows including Belvoir’s The Jungle and the Sea, Wayside Bride, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Boomkak Panto, Cursed!, Sydney Theatre Company’s Grand Horizons, and Hayes Theatre Co’s Young Frankenstein.

Keerthi’s film credits include working as a design assistant on Operation Buffalo, as production & costume designer on various short films and music videos and as an art director on SBS’s mini series Appetite.

Madeleine Picard

Madeleine is a sound designer & composer working on Gadigal land. Combining her backgrounds in technical theatre and music, she is interested in storytelling through sound and in being part of the creation of new Australian theatrical works. Recent select credits include: The Weekend (Belvoir); Life is a Dream, The Edit, Hot Tub, Shitty (Belvoir 25A); Julius Caesar (Bell Shakespeare); Dial M for Murder, Emerald City (Ensemble); Amber, All the Fraudulent Horse Girls (Old Fitz); Scab (ATYP). She has also recently worked as associate sound designer and/or realiser for a number of productions including The Wrong Gods, Song of First Desire (Belvoir); The Talented Mr Ripley, Julia (Sydney Theatre Company); Whitefella Yella Tree (Griffin); and Ride the Cyclone (Hayes). She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) from NIDA.

Hamed Sadeghi

Born 1983 in Iran, Hamed Sadeghi is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Sydney, Australia. He studied Persian classical music in Tehran and master of sound engineering in Malaysia before he moves to Australia in 2013.

His recent professional highlights in theatre, dance and film include Sami in Paradise Belvoir 2018, Stop Girl Belvoir 2021, The Boomkak Panto Belvoir 2021, Cloe Fournier’s Tout Ce Sa at Sydney Dance Company 2022, Opening Night Belvoir 2022, Ryuichi Fujimura’s How I Practice My Religion Riverside Theatre and Melbourne Dance House 2023, Amin Palangi’s Tennessine Sydney Film Festival 2023 and William Zappa’s The Iliad at Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and Fourwinds festival 2019 – 2022.

As a composer Sadeghi has released 4 albums to critical acclaimed and has earned recognition through nominations for ARIA Awards 2021 for best world music album and best jazz album He has been a finalist at APRA Art Music Awards and have been nominated for best original score of mainstage production at Sydney Theatre Awards 2019.