LOSE TO WIN

Mandela Mathia

Mandela was born in South Sudan and spent the majority of his childhood years in the north of the country and in Egypt, due to the civil war in Sudan. He arrived in Australia in 2008.

Since graduating from NIDA he has appeared in Sami in Paradise, The Cherry Orchard (Belvoir); The Rolling Stone (Outhouse Theatre Company); Prize Fighter (National Tour with La Boite); Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Nights (Sport for Jove); Macbeth (Sport for Jove) and played Hamlet in Sydney Foreign Actors Association in the production of HEMLET.

Mandela has shown interest in not only performing on stage, but also playwriting. He co-wrote a short film with emerging successful filmmakers out in the industry, which he has starred in some of these films such as I Am Emmanuel and Kill off. Mandela has starred in All These Creatures short film that won a prestigious awards the “Palme door “ at Cannes Film Festival and the 2018 AACTA Award. With the film All These Creatures’ success, Mandela have been nominated for best leading role of Mel in the Reel-good Film Festival early in 2019. In 2022, Mandela made his debut on Australian TV on the show The Twelve starring along side some of Australian most acclaim actor Sam Neil.

Mandela was nominated for best supporting role in 2018 for the play The Rolling Stone. By the following year, he was nominated for best leading role of Mel in the Reel-good Film Festival early in 2019 for All These Creatures short film

Jessica Arthur

Jess Arthur is one of the most prolific main-stage theatre directors. Her productions include The Wolves for Old Fitz and subsequent 2019 Belvoir season. Jess was Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company 2018 – 2022, directing productions Chalkface, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Wonnangatta, Banging Denmark, Mosquitos and Home I’m Darling.

Jessica also worked as Assistant Director on The Harp In The South Part I and Part II, Dinner, Chimerica and Endgame for Sydney Theatre Company, as well as Miss Julie for the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Her most recent production was the world premiere of The Dictionary of Lost Words for State Theatre Company South Australia and Sydney Theatre Company, which had a sell-out season in 2023 and a return season in Melbourne 2024.

Mandela Mathia

Mandela was born in South Sudan and spent the majority of his childhood years in the north of the country and in Egypt, due to the civil war in Sudan. He arrived in Australia in 2008.

Since graduating from NIDA he has appeared in Sami in Paradise, The Cherry Orchard (Belvoir); The Rolling Stone (Outhouse Theatre Company); Prize Fighter (National Tour with La Boite); Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Nights (Sport for Jove); Macbeth (Sport for Jove) and played Hamlet in Sydney Foreign Actors Association in the production of HEMLET.

Mandela has shown interest in not only performing on stage, but also playwriting. He co-wrote a short film with emerging successful filmmakers out in the industry, which he has starred in some of these films such as I Am Emmanuel and Kill off. Mandela has starred in All These Creatures short film that won a prestigious awards the “Palme door “ at Cannes Film Festival and the 2018 AACTA Award. With the film All These Creatures’ success, Mandela have been nominated for best leading role of Mel in the Reel-good Film Festival early in 2019. In 2022, Mandela made his debut on Australian TV on the show The Twelve starring along side some of Australian most acclaim actor Sam Neil.

Mandela was nominated for best supporting role in 2018 for the play The Rolling Stone. By the following year, he was nominated for best leading role of Mel in the Reel-good Film Festival early in 2019 for All These Creatures short film

Malin Sylla

Keerthi Subramanyam

Keerthi is a Sydney based set and costume designer for live performance and film. Keerthi is a National Institute of Dramatic Art, BFA (Design for Performance, 2019) graduate, and a member of the Australian Production Design Guild.

Keerthi has designed set and costumes for 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 designed the costumes on Belvoir’s At What Cost and Never Closer. 

Keerthi has been an associate designer on a wide range of theatre shows including Belvoir’s 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 most recently as an art director on SBS’s mini series Appetite. 

Keerthi is one of Belvoir’s Artistic Associates and has also worked as their props supervisor since 2023.

Brendon Boney

Brendon’s work includes At What Cost?, Belvior Theatre, The 7 Stages of Grieving, The Sydney Theatre Company- (Design Associate), Black Ties, Illbijerri Theatre- Musical Director & Composer, Winyanboga Yurringa, Black Cockatoo, Dubboo, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Gods of Wheat Street (ABC1), Redfern Now (SBS), Offspring (Network 10), Winners & Losers (Seven Network), Underbelly Chopper (The Nine Network) & Musical Contributor plus providing lead character Willie’s singing voice in Bran New Dae (2009).

Brendon Boney is a Wiradjuri/ Gamilaroi man who grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales and is now based in Ettalong Beach on the Central Coast of New South Wales. He’s been a recording and performing artist touring the world for the past decade and is an APRA PDA winner. He’s performed Bluesfest Byron Bay, Woodford Folk Festival, Sydney Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brisbane Festival, Friendship Festival (Seoul, Sth Korea) & The Aussie BBQ (UK). Brendon’s written for and collaborated with artists such as PJ Harding, Jaguar Jonze, Becca Hatch, MXWLL, Tessa Thames, Xavier Dunn & Tasman Keith and his work has over 80 000 Spotify streams.

Kate Baldwin

Kate Baldwin is a disabled, Japanese-Australian lighting designer, who lives and works on the lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation.

Since graduating from NIDA in 2019, some of her credits as Lighting Designer include: Forgetting Tim Minchin (25A); Girl Band (National Theatre of Parramatta and New Ghosts Theatre Company); Lose to Win (Red Line Productions); The Great Australian Play (Red Line Productions and Montague Basement); Nothing (National Theatre of Parramatta), Tom at the Farm (KXT); Albion (New Ghosts Theatre Company, Secret House & Seymour Centre); Top Coat (Sydney Theatre Company); The Box Show (Critical Stages Touring & Junkyard Beats); Guards at the Taj (National Theatre of Parramatta); Chewing Gum Dreams (Green Door Theatre Company and Red Line Productions); seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Green Door Theatre Company); and House at Boundary Road, Liverpool (Bontom).

She completed a residency at Sydney Theatre Company as Design Associate (Lighting) in 2021 and 2022. She was also a part of Ka-llective, which had residencies with PACT and CPAC in 2021 and 2022.

Mehhma Malhi

Mehhma Malhi recently directed Amber (The Old Fitz) and All Boys (KXT on Broadway). Other theatre credits include directing Poof! By Lynn Nottage (Actors Centre Australia and NIDA), Ephemera by Anchuli Felicia King (NIDA), and as assistant director for Jessica Arthur on Kindness (NIDA). Mehhma was awarded the 2024 KXT Excellence in Directing award.

Mehhma is a graduate of the MFA program at NIDA where she was awarded the Animal Logic Entertainment scholarship. She also holds a Masters of Science in Bioethics from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s Degree from New York University.

Mehhma directed the music video Peach Fur for band Dragonfly which won Best Australian Music Video in the Prague Music Awards, Best Director in the LA Music Awards, and was an Official Selection for the London Music Video Festival.

In between directing roles, Mehhma works in production and producing roles for theatre and film companies. 

Véronique Benett

Véronique is a lighting and set designer, and costume designer.  In 2019, Véronique completed a Master of Fine Art (Design for Performance).  She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) from NIDA.

As a lighting designer, Véronique’s credits include: THE JUNGLE AND THE SEA, TELL ME I’M HERE, THE WOLVES (Belvoir); BANGING DENMARK (Sydney Theatre Company); THE GREAT DIVIDE (Ensemble Theatre);  SACRE (Circa); THE SMALLEST HOUR (Griffin Theatre); JOHN (Outhouse Theatre Co.); LUMEN MACHINE, PSYCHADELLIC FRENZY (Ensemble Offspring), ETERNAL LIGHT, PLEASURES OF VERSAILLES (Pinchgut Opera).

Véronique’s associate lighting designer credits include: SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE ERA designed by Nick Schlieper (Belvoir);  JULIA designed by Alexander Berlage (Sydney Theatre Company); CURSED! designed by Chloe Oglvie (Belvoir); HUMANS 2.0 designed by Paul Jackson (CIRCA); PRIMA FACIE designed by Trent Suidgeest (Griffin Theatre); CRY-BABY directed and designed by Alexander Berlage (Hayes Theatre Co).

​She has received four Sydney Theatre Award nominations: for Best Stage Design of an Independent Production for EXIT THE KING and ULSTER AMERICAN; Best Lighting Design of an Independent Production for HAPPY DAYS; and Best Lighting Design of an Independent Production for JOHN.

Véronique participated in Melbourne Theatre Company’s WOMEN IN THEATRE Programme in 2020. 

Christopher Starnawski

Christopher Starnawski is a Sydney-based Stage Manager & Photographer.
Credits include, as Company Stage Manager: GATSBY At The Green Light (Caper & Crow &
Sydney Opera House); Much Ado About Nothing (Bar’d Work).

As Stage Manager: True West, The Queens Nanny Tour, The Heartbreak Choir, Colder Than
Here (Ensemble Theatre); An Ox Stand On My Tongue (Belvoir 25A); Amadeus (Red Line
Productions & Sydney Opera House); Losing It (Megan Bennetts); The Player Kings, Venus &
Adonis, Macbeth, Henry IV, Richard III, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night (Sport For Jove); Chef
(2022 & 2023), Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard (Virginia Plain Productions); Chop Chef
(Blush Opera); The Turn Of The Screw (Tooth & Sinew); Pride & Prejudice (Dream Plane
Productions); The 7 Deadly Sins & Mahagonny Songspiel, Hand To God, Happy Days (Red
Line Productions); Symphonie Fantastique (Little Eggs Collective); Herringbone
(Squabbalogic).

As Assistant Stage Manager: Uncle Vanya, Ulster American, Midnight Murder At Hamlington
Hall (Ensemble Theatre); Scenes From The Climate Era & Tiny Beautiful Things (Belvoir St
Theatre); La Traviata (Opera Australia); The Lovers (Bell Shakespeare); Angels In America
(Apocalypse Theatre Company).

As Production Assistant: Jekyll & Hyde (Hayes Theatre).

Christopher also venue manages KXT on Broadway, and was the Production Administrator at
Belvoir St Theatre. He also works in film in both the camera and art department, with notable
features including Head Above Water; Kairos; Ritual; Staying The Night; I’m Here Too; 17
Minutes; Life After Man; Pseudomonas and Vector. Short films include Disarmed, Deep
Pockets Empty Hearts, An Eight Letter Word Starting With A, This Town Ain’t Big Enough For
The Both Of Us. Music videos for the bands In Hearts Wake, Amalia and Rayn.