WAYSIDE BRIDE

Alana Valentine

Belvoir audiences have warmly embraced Alana’s work as a playwright in The Sugar House (2018) Barbara and the Camp Dogs, co-written with Ursula Yovich (2017/2019), Parramatta Girls (2007) and Run Rabbit Run (2004).

In October 2021 The Sugar House was given an acclaimed UK premiere at Finborough Theatre in London and in August 2021 Steamworks productions in Perth remounted a 20 year anniversary production of Savage Grace (with the same cast) at the State Theatre of WA. Having worked with Bangarra Dance Theatre for ten years as dramaturg, in 2022 Alana was the co-writer, with Stephen Page, of WUDJANG: Not the Past, music by Steve Francis. At the 2022 Adelaide Festival Alana was the co-librettist, with Christos Tsiolkas, of WATERSHED: The Death of Dr Duncan, music by Joe Twist, directed by Neil Armfield.

Alana won the 2021 Australian Writers Guild Award for Music Theatre for her libretto Notre Dame, was nominated in 2020 for her libretto Flight Memory and was also nominated in 2019 for her co-written libretto, with Ursula Yovich, for Barbara and the Camp Dogs. BACD also won Helpmann Awards in 2019, including Best Original Score and Best Musical, and 2020 Green Room Awards, including Best Original Score and Best New Australian Work. Alana and Ursula Yovich are working on a screen version of BATCD to be produced by Bunya Productions.

Her plays are published by Currency Press, including a book about her verbatim/close work practice – BOWERBIRD: The art of making theatre drawn from life. In 2019 the Seymour Centre in Australia presented Made To Measure, a commission from the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, where Alana was Writer in Residence. In September 2022 she will collaborate with erth visual and physical theatre on a new work arc.

Eamon Flack

Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. He is a director, writer, dramaturg and script developer for stage and screen.

 Eamon was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He has a BA (English and History) from the University of Queensland, and trained as an actor at WAAPA from 2001 to 2003. He has worked around Australia and internationally, from the Tiwi Islands to Sri Lanka and the UK. He has led Belvoir’s new work development in various guises since 2006, and has commissioned and developed many of the company’s most acclaimed new works over the last 15 years.

His productions of The Glass Menagerie, Angels in America and Counting and Cracking won the Helpmann Awards for Best Play in 2015, 2016, and 2019. 

His key directing credits include: Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan, winner of the Helpmann Award for Best Direction of a Play and nominated for the Sydney Theatre Award Best Direction of the Mainstage Production), The Jungle and the Sea (co-directed with S. Shakthidharan, winner of Best New Work and Best Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards), Angels in America, The Glass Menagerie, Into the Woods, Tommy Murphy’s Packer & Sons, Rita Kalnejais’s Babyteeth, Alana Valentine’s Wayside Bride (co-directed with Hannah Goodwin), Tom Wright’s adaptation of Brecht’s Life of Galileo, Eamon’s own adaptations of Hendrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov (Sydney Theatre Awards Best Production and Best Director), as well as The Rover, The Blind Giant is Dancing, As You Like It, and Beckett’s The End. His other directing credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bob Presents/B Sharp) and Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui by Jason de Santis (Darwin Festival).

His writing and adaptation credits include: Associate Writer of S. Shakthidharan’s Counting and Cracking (winner of the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Victorian Literary Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama, Helpmann for Best New Work), co-writer with S. Shakthidharan of The Jungle and the Sea (Winner, Best New Work, Sydney Theatre Awards 2022); a stage adaptation of Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children; Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov, Gorky’s Summerfolk, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Ghosts; co-adapter with Leah Purcell of Ruby Langford Ginibi’s memoir Don’t Take Your Love To Town; and co-deviser of Beautiful One Day with artists from ILBIJERRI, version 1.0, and the community of Palm Island.

For orchestral concert he has adapted and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside Mendelssohn’s score for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Belvoir St Theatre conducted by Simone Young, and directed and co-created Beethoven and Bridgetower with Anna Goldsworthy, Rita Dove and Richard Tognetti for the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Hannah Goodwin

Hannah Goodwin (she/her) is a director who lives and works on Gadigal land. She is currently Resident Director at Belvoir Street Theatre. Her work includes Wayside Bride by Alana Valentine (Belvoir), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire by Caryl Churchill (Belvoir), The Sorry Mum Project by Pippa Ellams (National Theatre of Parramatta, Bondi Feast), A Girl in School Uniform (Walks into a Bar) by Lulu Raczka (Kings Cross Theatre), and The Carousel by Pippa Ellams (Shopfront Arts Co-op, Downstairs Belvoir, Merrigong X, Kings Cross Theatre). As assistant director: Black Brass by Mararo Wangai (Belvoir), Stop Girl by Sally Sara (Belvoir), My Brilliant Career by Kendall Feaver (Belvoir), Packer and Sons by Tommy Murphy (Belvoir), and Love by Patricia Cornelius (Darlinghurst Theatre Company).

Hannah was the 2020-2022 Andrew Cameron Fellow at Belvoir and the 2019 recipient of the ATYP Rose Byrne Leadership Scholarship.

Arkia Ashraf

Arkia is a 2020 graduate of the Actors Centre Australia. Since graduating, his theatre credits include: You’re Not Special (RogueProjects/KXTBakehouse), Christmas-19 (Loose End Productions), Experiments in Theatre and Cinema (Riverside Theatres), Smoke and Glass (KXT/Montague Basement Development). His credits at the Actors Centre include: Twelfth Night(dir. Adam Cook), The Rover (dir. Claudia Barrie), Our Country’s Good (dir. Adam Cook), Burn This (dir. Anthony Gooley), The Motherfu*ker with the Hat (dir. Troy Harrison), Love and Information (dir. Olivia Hall-Smith), What Falls Away (dir. Anthony Skuse/Julia Cotton) and The Trojan Women (dir. Adam Cook).

Maggie Blinco

Maggie has had an extensive career spanning four decades, with leading roles in Australian film, television and theatre. In 2020 Maggie was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sydney Theatre Awards.

Her most recent theatre credits include; John for Outhouse Theatre at the Seymour Centre, Omar and Dawn for Apocalypse Theatre & Green Door Theatre at KXT, Dead White Males and Summer of the Aliens both for STC, One Day of the Year for Melbourne Theatre Company, Oliver!, An Ideal Husband, A Little Like Drowning, Child Dancing and numerous productions for the Playbox Theatre Company. Other theatre credits include: The Greening of Grace for Wildie Creative Enterprises, The Embers Tour with Hot House Theatre as well as Kiss Me Like You Mean It at the Fitzroy Theatre in 2008 and in 2009 as Mag Folan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane for Wildfire Productions.  This production was extended for a second season at the Seymour Centre.  Maggie played Agnes in the Australian tour of Biddies for Christine Dunstan Productions and Big Edie in Grey Gardens the Musical for Squabbalogic. 

Maggie has also appeared in an innumerable amount of iconic TV shows as well, including: Harrow, Doctor Doctor, Bent 101, Rake, All Saints, The Moodys, The Wicked, Blue Heelers, White Collar Blue, Above the Law, McLeod’s Daughters and Escape of the Artful Dodger.  Her film work includes: A Stitch in Time (lead role), Crocodile Dundee 1 & 2, Cheek to Cheek, Flirting, and The Man Who Sued God.

Maggie was nominated for Best Actress in a Short Film in the 2012 Los Angeles Comedy Festival for her performance in the film Boo (AFTRS). In 2016, she was also nominated for Best Actress at the Madrid Short Film Festival for her performance in Solitude.

Rashidi Edward

Rashidi trained at the Adelaide College of the Arts. Most recently he performed in the State Theatre Company South Australia’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a season that also included the Sydney Festival and Queensland Theatre. Other productions with the company include Hibernation, A Doll’s House, Macbeth, Sense & Sensibility, In The Club. Additionally, he performed in Theatre Republic’s Lines, Adelaide Festival’s  Allope and  Essential Theatre’s  Romeo and Juliet. He is thrilled to be making his Belvoir debut with the exciting undertaking that is the Rep Season!

Marco Chiappi

Marco is a very accomplished theatre performer with many credits to his name across Australia.

Previous Belvoir Theatre credits include The Rep Season, Bliss (a Belvoir co-production with Malthouse). Other theatre credits include Bernhardt /Hamlet, The Father; His Girl Friday; Grapes of Wrath; Macbeth; The Rover; Dealer’s Choice; A Doll’s House; Closer; Death of a Salesman; Duchess of Malfi; Tempest (for Melbourne Theatre Company). Away, Love & Information (co-productions between STC and Malthouse); Pygmalion; Jerusalem (Sydney Theatre Company). Edward II; Woyzeck; A Pacific Union; Jerusalem (Malthouse). Phedre; Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Richard III (Bell Shakespeare). The Lower Depths; Ninth Moon; Funniest Man in the World; Scissors; Paper; Rock (Keene/Taylor), Popcorn (Black Swan). Torrez (Griffin Theatre). The Misanthrope; The Real Thing; Noises Off; The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (STCSA). Dreamers; The Lower Depths (Fortyfive Downstairs). Reckless (Theatreworks). Television: Wentworth, Deadline Gallipoli; Parer’s War; Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries; Upper Middle Bogan; The Mystery of the Hansom Cab. Film: Holding the Man; The Boy Castaways; Amy; Mr Reliable.

Marco is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

Emily Goddard

Emily Goddard graduated from Ecole Philippe Gaulier, Paris in 2010, supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and Empire Theatres Bursary. Recent theatre credits include Wayside Bride and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Belvoir St), Australian Realness (Malthouse), Noises Off, The Boy at The Edge of Everything & Elling (Melbourne Theatre Company), Angels in America & The Lonely Wolf (Dirty Pretty Theatre), Lamb, You Got Older & Glory Dazed (Red Stitch), Hamlet (ASC), Inner Voices (Red Line/Old Fitz), Mess (The Bush/UK National tour/China Plate), The Unspoken Word is Joe (Brisbane Festival/MKA), Moth (Arena), The Walls (Attic/Erratic) and Os Pequenos Nadas (Ultimo Comboio Teatro, Barcelona). Screen credits include Clickbait, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Neighbours, Newton’s Law and Twentysomething. Also a Theatre maker, her critically acclaimed solo show This is Eden (Hothouse/45 Downstairs) was winner of the 2018 Drama Victoria Award and will tour nationally in 2022. She has been nominated for three Green Room Awards for Outstanding Female Actor, most recently for This is Eden. She is currently completing her Masters of Screenwriting at the VCA. 

Sandy Greenwood

Sandy is a First Nations Actor, Writer, Producer and Cultural Consultant from the Dunghutti, Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung tribes of New South Wales. She has a Bachelor of Theatre, (Honours) from the Queensland University of Technology and has trained at The Atlantic Acting School in New York City, and The Groundlings in Los Angeles.  

Sandy has performed in productions with a number of Australia’s leading theatre companies, including Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Wayside Bride (Belvoir Theatre); Stolen and Taboo (Sydney Theatre Company); Taboo (Ilbijerri Theatre Company) and Dogged (Griffin Theatre Company). Sandy has also performed on the international stage at Seattle Children’s Theatre Company in Afternoon of the Elves.

In Australia, Sandy is perhaps best known for her critically-acclaimed one-woman show, Matriarch, which she wrote, produced and performed. She was recognised with a Green Room Award for Best Actor and nominated for Best Writing in Independent Theatre. 

Sandy will next be seen in the upcoming series The Messenger for ABC and the upcoming feature film The Appleton Ladies Potato Race for Paramount+.

Sacha Horler

Sacha is one of Australia’s most loved and respected actors. Her theatre credits for Belvoir include The Sugar House, Peribanez, Blue Murder, The Birthday Party, Hamlet, Svetlana in Slingbacks and Cursed!. Sacha’s other theatre credits include Other Desert Cities (Melbourne Theatre Company); and Mariage Blanc, God of Carnage, The Removalists, The Crucible, Pygmalion, Three Sisters, Far Away, Life After George (Sydney Theatre Company). Recent screen credits include season two of the acclaimed ABC / Netflix comedy The Letdown, the second season of Foxtel’s political thriller Secret City and the big budget Sony film sequel Peter Rabbit 2. In 2018 she played the title role in ABC comedy series Sando and appeared on the big screen in the original Peter Rabbit. Prior to that she appeared in two award winning Foxtel series’, The Kettering Incident and the first season of Secret City and opposite Kate Winslet in Jocelyn Morehouse’s hit film The Dressmaker. She had the unprecedented joy of winning two AFI awards on one night for the lead role in Praise and supporting role in Soft Fruit, she won her third AFI award for best supporting actress in Travelling Light. Sacha’s other screen work includes The Letdown season one, The Moodys, Jack Irish, Catching Milat, Old School, Black Comedy, Beaconsfield, Hawke, Love My Way, Offspring, Dance Academy, Crownies, Rake, Small Time Gangster, Home And Away and A Few Less Men. She received AFI Award nominations for My Year Without Sex, Secret Bridesmaids Business, Russian Doll and Grass Roots.

Rebecca Massey

Rebecca Massey is considered one of Australia’s most versatile and accomplished film, television and theatre actresses. She’s been nominated and won numerous awards including a Green Room Award for Best Actress, and two Helpmann nominations.

Rebecca has appeared in starring roles for flagship theatre companies all over Australia. Her company Club House Productions produced 44 Sex Acts in One Week, as part of this year’s Sydney Festival. She performed Dance Nation for the State Theatre Company of South Australia, The Misanthrope for The Bell Shakespeare Company, Kill Climate Deniers for Griffin Theatre Company, and Chimerica, Dinner, After Dinner, Perplex and Travesties for the Sydney Theatre Company. Belvoir credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Book of Everything, Exit the King, It Just Stopped, Stuff Happens, The Underpants, Macbeth, Cloudstreet, The Small Poppies amongst others.

Rebecca has a string of both comic and drama television credits in award winning shows including, Metro Sexual (Seasons 1 & 2), Deep Water, Total Control, Upright, The Principal, Chandon Pictures (Seasons 1 & 2), Lowdown, (Seasons 1 & 2) and Utopia (Seasons 2 – 4). Her film work includes Bad Girl, Accidents Happen, The Black Balloon and Backyard Ashes. She is soon to be seen in ABC’s yet to be released Barons and Del Kathryn Barton’s feature, Blaze.

She is the voice of ‘Mary’ in the Kate’s serial podcast Slushy and ‘Special Agent Maddie Rigs’ for Working Dogs’ adult animation, Pacific Heat.

Brandon McClelland

Brandon graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2012. Brandon’s theatre credits include: Wayside Bride, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, and Packer & Sons, with Belvoir; The Deep Blue Sea, A Cheery Soul, Saint Joan, Three Sisters, The Present (Broadway Season), A Midsummers Night’s Dream, The Golden Age, The Present, Suddenly Last Summer, and M.Rock, with Sydney Theatre Company; Girl in the Machine, and Flight Paths, with National Theatre of Parramatta; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Ensemble; Little Borders, with Old 505; Fracture, with New Ghosts Theatre Company; and A Town Named Warboy, with ATYP.

Brandon’s film credits include, Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, Roger Pulvers’ Star Sand, James Vanderbilt’s Truth, and Darby Deck’s short films Waking Moon and Walk Right In. His television credits include Significant Others, The Moth Effect, Doctor Doctor, The Other Guy, Black Comedy, Operation: Buffalo, Here Come the Habibs!, Love Child, Anzac Girls,and Devil’s Playground. Brandon can most recently be seen in Fremantle Media’s Totally Completely Fine as ‘Hendrix’. He is also a founding member and performer with comedy troupe ‘The United States of Kensington’. Brandon was twice-nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Mainstage Production from the Sydney Theatre Awards for Packer & Sons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. He also received a 2015 Logie Award nomination for Most Outstanding Newcomer, was shortlisted for the 2015 Heath Ledger scholarship, and won The Equity Award for an Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, both for Anzac Girls.

Angeline Penrith

Angeline is a Wiradjuri and Yuin woman who grew up in the Redfern/Waterloo community.  Making her acting debut at 12 years of age by opening for ABC’s BlackOut, Angeline has gone on to perform in countless film and theatre productions from development to performance.  Her theatre credits include Boori Pryors My Girragundji (Canute Productions), The Dreaming – Wake Up Australia (STC), and Winyanboga Yurringa (Moogahlin Performing Arts). Her Television credits include Cleverman and Black Comedy. 

Angeline has also been involved in numerous play readings and workshops for Belvoir St, Yellamundie First People’s Playwriting Festival. and The Sydney Theatre Company, and has worked alongside talented directors such as Chris Canute, Leah Purcell and Andrea James.

As a community advocate Angeline believes in self-determination and revival of culture which she demonstrates in her MC work for NAIDOC at the 2018 Flag Raising Ceremony at NCIE, as well as Yabun Festival. Angeline hopes her performance career sets an example for young Indigenous actors and that she can continue to be a role model through her recent NITV Quit Smoking campaign and future projects.

Ákos Armont

Since graduating NIDA, Akos Armont has worked extensively in theatre, film and television.

Akos’ theatre credits include Triple X (Queensland Theatre Company/Sydney Theatre Company), Neighbourhood Watch (Melbourne Theatre Company); Romeo and Juliet, Spring Awakening, The Lost Echo (Sydney Theatre Company); Strange Interlude, As You Like It (Belvoir); A Midsummer Nights Dream and Tooth Of Crime (Arts Radar); The Lovebirds for Idolize Spiegel Tent (Strut and Fret); The Kid (Griffin Theatre Company); No End of Blame (Sport for Jove); A Life in the Theatre (Darlinghurst Theatre Company); and The Web (Black Swan Theatre Company).

Television credits include House Husbands, Winter, Janet King, Spirited, Rescue Special Ops, Panic at Rock Island, Home and Away, The Strip and HBO’s The Pacific.

Film credits include Harmony, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Andy X and Jonathon Teplitzky’s The Railway Man.

Other credits include writing and directing the documentary feature film Brabham (2020), co-writing the HarperCollins published biography Brabham; The Untold Story of Formula One (2019) and co-writing the Screen NSW Emerging Filmmakers Fund & AACTA winning short film The Tender Dark (2015).

Akos served on the Actors Benevolent Fund managing committee between 2014 and 2018. In 2008 Akos received a Sydney Theatre Award nomination for Best Newcomer for his performance in The Kid.

Merridy Eastman

A NIDA graduate, Merridy’s television career began with a five-year stint on Playschool, followed by roles on everything from Blue Heelers to Rake. She was a regular cast member on award winning series Always Greener and Packed to the Rafters for Channel 7, as well as Back to the Rafters for Amazon Prime.

On stage Merridy has worked for all the major Australian theatre companies including the Sydney Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox, Malthouse, the Ensemble Theatre, the Australian Shakespeare Company, and the State Theatre Company of South Australia to name a few, and spent several summers leaping about botanical gardens across Australia bringing Shakespeare to the masses. Most recent performances were the popular new Australian comedy The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race! (Ensemble Theatre) and Hand to God (Old Fitz Theatre).

Merridy’s written work includes the national best-selling book There’s A Bear In There (And He Wants Swedish!) as well as Ridiculous Expectations and How Now Brown Frau, all published by Allen and Unwin. She has also written short stories published by Pan Macmillan and Penguin, and radio plays commissioned by the ABC. Currently she is writing her fourth book, I Knew We Weren’t Spanish!, about the discovery that her great-great-grandfather was not a pirate, but a Worimi man from Paterson, New South Wales.

Abbie-Lee Lewis

Abbie-Lee Lewis is a Kalkadoon actress who trained on the Aboriginal Theatre and Acting courses at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth.

Her credits include Seanna Van Helten’s Fallen, directed by Penny Harpham, for Sport for Jove; Our Town, directed by Clare Watson, for the Black Swan State Theatre Company of Western Australia; a national tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Hermia) for Bell Shakespeare; and Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree, directed by Ian Michael at the Blue Room Theatre, Perth. Her television credits include Black Comedy for ABC. In recent years she has also worked as an assistant director, collaborating with Peter Evans on Hamlet for Bell Shakespeare and with Jena Prince on Charlie Pilgrim for the Australian Theatre for Young People.

This year she has joined the team at Belvoir as the Andrew Cameron Fellow and will make her directing debut with Bruce Pascoe’s Cutter and Coot for the Moogahlin Performing Arts, NSW.

Based in: Kalkatungu Country, Australia

Matilda Ridgway

Matilda is an award winning actor, theatre maker and arts educator. She is a proud member of MEAA.

Matilda’s credits at Belvoir include Rep Season (2022), Artists at Work (2020), and Jasper Jones (2016). Her other theatre credits include Just Macbeth!, Hamlet, Henry IV, and The Players (Bell Shakespeare); The Norman Conquests Trilogy, Proof, Seminar, My Wonderful Day, Rain Man, Brooklyn Boy, Ruby Sunrise (Ensemble Theatre); Platonov, and Sweet Nothings (ATYP); The Merchant of Venice, A Doll’s House, The Crucible, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Much Ado About Nothing (Sport for Jove) The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Kayak, Cock and Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre).

Her film credits include the TV series Hiding (ABC), Bump (Stan) and the films June Again, Book Week, Disclosure, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Guests and Memorabilia.

The Guests was nominated for the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film festival. Disclosure was nominated for the ‘Best Indie Film’ at the 2021 AACTA Awards. Matilda won ‘Best Performance in an Australian Short Film’ at the Flickerfest International Short Film Festival for her role in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. She has been nominated for three Sydney Theatre Awards and won for her performance of Nora in A Dolls House.

Christopher Stollery

Christopher Stollery is a graduate of NIDA and of AFTRS. He has played Hamlet opposite John Bell, sung with Tim Minchin in a musical (This Blasted Earth 2004), performed with John Cleese at the Sydney Opera House (Just For Laughs, 2012) and toured theatres of Europe with Cate Blanchett (Gross und Klein for Sydney Theatre Company, 2012) danced the choreography of Meryl Tankard (VX18504) and directed Steve Smith, the test cricketing legend, in a TVC.

He was a Sydney Theatre Award nominee for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Ear to the Edge of Time (Sport for Jove, 2018) Of Mice and Men (Sport for Jove 2015) and won for his performance in Killer Joe (2009).

Other theatre credits include Hurt, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, Death of a Salesman, The Power of Yes, Ruben Guthrie (Belvoir Street Theatre); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Our Town, The Vertical Hour (Sydney Theatre Company); City of Gold (QTC & Griffin); Speaking in Tongues, October (Griffin Theatre Company); His Girl Friday (Melbourne Theatre Company); Good People, Great Falls, Harp on the Willow (Ensemble Theatre).

Christopher has been a series regular on many television (Wild Boys, Sea Patrol, The Flying Doctors, Frayed and The Bondi Hipster‘s Soul Mates)

Other television credits include Top of the Lake: China Girl, House of Hancock, The Moody’s, Wakefield and the upcoming Netflix series Thai Cave Rescue.

His feature film credits include The Nightingale, Truth, Last Cab to Darwin, Predestination, The Rage in Placid Lake and Transmission.

He has also written and directed many short films that including “dik” and “No Budget” that have won over 30 awards internationally.

Contessa Treffone

After graduating NIDA in 2012, Contessa has had an extensive career in theatre.

Her theatre credits include; TRIPLE X (STC/QT), DEATH OF A SALESMAN (STC), DEEP BLUE SEA (STC), FULLY COMMITTED (Ensemble Theatre), LORD OF THE FLIES (STC), ANATOMY OF A SUICIDE (Redline Productions), HARP IN THE SOUTH: PART ONE & TWO (STC), TOP GIRLS (STC), THERE WILL BE A CLIMAX (Redline Productions), THREE SISTERS (STC), THE KITCHEN SINK (Ensemble Theatre), THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX (Darlinghurst Theatre), ALL MY SONS (STC), MINUSONESITER (Griffin Theatre) and many more.

For her performance in HARP IN THE SOUTH: PART ONE & TWO (STC)Contessa was nominated for Best Female Actor in a Mainstage Production in the Sydney Theatre Awards.

Contessa’s television credits include THE PM’S DAUGHTER and DOCTOR DOCTOR S5, and her film credits include HERE OUT WEST, JUNE AGAIN, and POWDER TRAIN. 

Charles Wu

Charles Wu is one of Australia’s most exciting actors of stage and screen. Charles graduated from NIDA in 2014 and is well known for his work on popular series Doctor Doctor. Charles’ other television credits include Summer Love, The Letdown, Harrow, Here Come the Habibs, and Secret City. He was also seen in feature film Australia Day, and web series Liberty Street.

Charles’s theatre credits include The Cherry Orchard alongside Pamela Rabe, An Enemy of the People, Jasper Jones, Samson, The Overcoat: A Musical (Belvoir), The Lifespan of a Fact, Mosquitoes, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Three Sisters, Chimerica (Sydney Theatre Company), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Darlinghurst Theatre), Golden Blood (Griffin Theatre), and Torch the Place for which he won a Green Room award for Best Actor(Melbourne Theatre Company). Charles was most recently seen on stage in Bernhardt/Hamlet as ‘Edmond Rostand’ for the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Ella Butler

Ella is a Sydney-based designer for theatre, film and live performance.

In film, Ella has worked as the series Set Decorator on ‘Born To Spy’ (SBS, Aquarius), ‘While The Men Are Away’ (SBS, Arcadia) and Art Director on the experimental, operatic film ‘A Delicate Fire’ with Pinchgut Opera. In collaboration with CATSinAM, The Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Nurses and Midwives, Ella designed the Wardrobe and Production Design for ‘In Our Own Right; recounting Black Australian Nurses’ and Midwives Stories.  In theatre, Ella was nominated for Best Stage Design of A Mainstage Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards for her work as Set and Costume Designer on ‘First Love Is The Revolution’ (Griffin Theatre Company). 

Previously, Ella has worked with Belvoir in costume design for ‘Tell Me I’m Here’ Directed by Leticia Caceres and The Rep Season directed by Eamon Flack and Hannah Goodwin. Ella styled Tim Minchin and his band for his return to the stage with the National Tour of ‘BACK’, as well as Styling and Production Designing Minchin’s most recent album launch, a live recording of ‘Apart Together’. Ella’s work in theatre has been received internationally after designing ‘Enter the Underworld’ as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

Ella is a graduate from the National Institute of Dramatic Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design for Performance).

Michael Hankin

Michael is a NIDA trained Set and Costume Designer for theatre, dance, opera and film. His credits for Belvoir include Hir, Ghosts, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, The Sugar House, Jasper Jones, My Urrwai, The Great Fire, Ivanov and The Glass Menagerie, Twelfth Night, The Dark Room, A Christmas Carol, Angels in America, The Boomkak Panto and Rep Season. 

Michael’s other theatre credits include designs for Ireland’s entry to Eurovison; Bourgeois and Maurice’s musical Insane Animals (Manchester’s Home Theatre, UK);  Memorial (Barbican Centre/Adelaide Festival/Brisbane Festival/Brink productions);  The Aspirations of Daise Morrow (Adelaide, Edinburgh Festival, Brink Productions); Three Little Words (Melbourne Theatre Company), Jumpy (Melbourne Theatre Company/Sydney Theatre Company); The Merchant of Venice, Othello  and As You Like It (Bell Shakespeare); Ich Nibber Dibber (Sydney Festival/Campbelltown Arts Centre); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Theatre Royal); 247 Days (Chunky Move/Malthouse /Netherlands tour); Tartuffe (State Theatre Company South Australia); Golden Blood (Griffin);  Ugly Mugs (Malthouse/Griffin); Songs for the Fallen (Sydney Festival/New York Music Theatre Festival); Lake Disappointment (Carriageworks); You Animal You and Flock (Force Majeure); Fool for Love (Company B); Miracle City (Hayes Theatre); The Boat People (TRS/The Hayloft Project); The Lighthouse, In The Penal Colony (Sydney Chamber Opera); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Liberty Equality Fraternity, Great Falls (Ensemble); The Hypochondriac, Deathtrap, Miss Julie, The Paris Letter, Macbeth (Darlinghurst Theatre); The Peasant Prince (Monkey Baa); Rust and Bone, The Ugly One (Griffin). Film projects include Weapons Designer and Co-Ordinator for Three Thousand Years of Longing, Production Designer for National Geographic’s Limitless,  ChallengeDesigner for Survivor Australia (S6), Production/Costume Designer for short films Julian and The Amber Amulet (both winners of the Crystal Bear, Berlin International Film Festival). Michael has been nominated for a number of Sydney Theatre Awards, winning Best Stage Design for Hir in 2018,  BestIndependent Stage Design for Of Mice and Men (Sport For Jove) in 2015 and Truckstop (Q theatre/Seymour Centre) in 2012.  He was the recipient of the 2018 Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship for Design in the Performing Arts and has worked as an Associate Lecturer of Design at NIDA. 

Nell Ferguson

Nell Ferguson is a Sydney based artist, designer and illustrator working across theatre, film, television and print media.

With a BFA from the National Art School and a diploma of screen design from AFTRS, Nell has used her training in both art and film making to cultivate a rich visual language in approach to collaborative creative processes. 

Over the past 10 years she has bridged her second home in the San Francisco Bay Area, returning in 2016 to Sydney as a production designer and art director for Sydney’s Bus Stop Films. Since then, she has worked on productions for the ABC, SBS, Fremantle Media, and Nutopia among others. 

She is currently working in collaboration with Russh Magazine and upcoming Sydney Fashion Week, and is pleased to be welcomed to Belvoir Theatre as the Associate Costume Designer. 

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 Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, Chewing Gum Dreams at the Old Fitz, Chop Chef at Riverside Theatres, and designed the costumes and was a set realiser on Belvoir’s At What Cost.

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

Keerthi has also worked as a props supervisor on Belvoir’s Into the Woods and Blessed Union. 

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. She is currently working across theatre and art installation. 

Damien Cooper

Damien designs lighting for Dance, Theatre, Opera and Film.  Designs for Belvoir include Into the Woods, Light Shining In Buckinghamshire, Wayside Bride, Things I Know To Be True, Counting and Cracking, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, The Dog/The Cat, Radiance, The Glass Menagerie, Coranderrk, Miss Julie, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Peter Pan, Private Lives, Conversation Piece, Strange Interlude, Neighbourhood Watch, The Seagull, Gethsemane, Keating!, Toy Symphony, Peribanez, Stuff Happens, The Chairs, The Spook, In Our Name, The Underpants, The Sugar House, A Taste of Honey, The Ham Funeral, Exit the King (with Malthouse Theatre, and Broadway transfer). 

Designs for Sydney Theatre Company include Blithe Spirit, White Pearl (with National Theatre of Parramatta), Top Girls, Dinner, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Disgraced, Arcadia, Orlando, The Golden Age, Suddenly Last Summer, The Women of Troy, The Lost Echo, Riflemind, Tot Mom, King Lear, The Shape of Things, These People, Morph, Thyestes, Far Away, Bed, This Little Piggy, Julius Caesar, Summer Rain, Boy Gets Girl, The Metamorphosis, The Cherry Orchard, A Hard God, Fat Pig, A Walk With the Goons, Self Esteem, The Art of War, The Great, The Duel, Honour, Oresteia, Zebra!, Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, Blood Wedding, Bloodland (with Queensland Theatre, Adelaide Festival and Bangarra), Pygmalion, Under Milk Wood, The Splinter, Storm Boy, The Long Way Home, Children of the Sun, Cyrano de Bergerac, Arms and the Man. 

Other theatre highlights include Queensland Theatre: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (with Belvoir), Away; Bell Shakespeare: The Tempest; MTC: Golden Shield; Ensemble Theatre: Kenny, Honour.

Damien also designs lighting for other forms of performance art, including over 150 opera, ballet and dance productions. He has been awarded Three Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Lighting; Three Green Room Awards – Best Lighting; Two Australian Production Designers Guild Awards – Award for Best Lighting Design Der Ring des Nibelungen; Award for Best Lighting Design The Glass Menagerie.

Alyx Dennison

Alyx Dennison is a singer, composer and sound designer living and working on Gadigal Land. She is a fierce advocate for equality in education and the arts, with a particular interest in work which illuminates (and works to dissolve) systems of class, power and hierarchy.

She cut her teeth on experimental pop duo kyü, who toured extensively and released two critically acclaimed albums (Popfrenzy/Inertia) before disbanding in 2012. She continued her study of classical and experimental vocal traditions abroad as well as some studies in Interactive Composition at the VCA before joining Nick Wales’ ensemble for Shaun Parker Company’s Am I (as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist) which toured internationally. In 2015, she released and toured her self-titled solo LP (Popfrenzy/Caroline) which was lauded as an evolution from her previous work. 

She has performed at Meredith Music Festival, Mona Foma, Carriageworks, The State Theatre and played with acts such as LAMB (UK), Sarah Blasko, Juana Molina (Argentina), Xiu Xiu (US) and Deradoorian of The Dirty Projectors (US).

Alyx’s composition and sound design credits for stage include; Grey Rhino by Charmene Yap and Cass Mortimer Eipper for Sydney Festival/Carriageworks 2022, Limbic by Cass Mortimer Eipper for Australasian Dance Collective 2022; The Mother Project a multi-disciplinary work directed by Clemence Williams 2022; for Agatha Gothe-Snape; The Outcome is Certain 2020 and Wet Matter 2020 (lead by Evelyn Morris) for MUMA, Double Beat by Sara Black for Form Dance Projects 2019-2022; for Griffin Theatre Company: Splinter by Hilary Bell and directed by Lee Lewis 2019 and Superheroes by Mark Rogers and directed by Shari Sebbens 2020 (associate to Dave Bergman); for Karul Projects: Mi:wi by Taree Sansbury for Next Wave Festival 2018, WOLLUMBIN / / WARNING 2017 and CO_EX_EN by Thomas E.S. Kelly for Dance Massive 2019, Story Club Solo by Zoe Norton-Lodge for Sydney Opera House 2017. Film credits include; Nataptedi by Yolanda Lowatta for Art_Apart 2022; Liminal for Australasian Dance Collective 2020 and ID for Transit Dance Company 2020 – both choreographed and directed by Cass Mortimer Eipper; a series of short films born of Liverpool Girls’ Highschool’s Refugee Art Project, and Outbreak Generation by Brooke Goldfinch which premiered at Sydney Film Festival in 2017.

She has performed in works by internationally renowned artists such as Agatha Gothe-Snape, Oliver Beer (UK), Patricia Piccinini, Lauren Brincat; and has performed alongside legendary new music vocalist Joan La Barbara (NY), and has appeared in works presented at The Art Gallery of NSW, The Bienale of Sydney, Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, National Gallery of Australia, MONA and Opéra National de Paris.  She has cultivated a practice that enables her love (and compulsion for) experimentation, connection and collaboration, and is honoured to be joining the Belvoir family for Rep Season.

Steve Francis

Steve has worked extensively in theatre, dance and screen. His Belvoir credits include Cursed!, My Brilliant Career, Packer & Sons, Things I Know To Be True, Winyanboga Yurringa, Every Brilliant Thing, The Sugar House, The Book of Everything, The Power of Yes, Ruben Guthrie, Baghdad Wedding, and Capricornia. His other theatre credits include The Children, The Weir, The Sublime (MTC); No Pay No Way, Appropriate, Still Point Turning, The Father, The Hanging, Disgraced, Battle of Waterloo, Switzerland, The Long Way Home, The Secret River, Machinal and Bloodland (STC); Hamlet, Henry V (Bell Shakespeare); and Between Two Waves, This Year’s Ashes, Speaking in Tongues (Griffin). For dance, Steve has composed music for Wudjang, Sandsong, Dark Emu, Bennelong, Belong, True Stories, Skin, Walkabout, Bush (Bangarra Dance). His awards include Helpmann Awards for Best Original Score in 2012 and 2003 and Best New Australian Work in 2003 and Sydney Theatre Awards in 2011 and 2014.

Elle Evangelista

Elle Evangelista loves dancing. Her BELVOIR choreography credits include The Cherry Orchard, The Boomkak Panto, The Rep Season and A Midnight Summer’s Dream with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Her other theatre choreography credits include Twelfth Night (Bell Shakespeare), A Very Expensive Poison (NIDA) and How To Catch A Star (Australian Chamber Orchestra).

As a dancer she has worked for Force Majeure, KAGE Physical Theatre, Opera Australia and she has been awarded residencies to create new work by Ausdance NSW, DirtyFeet, Critical Path, March Dance, Brand X and Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance. From 2019 – 2021, Elle was an Artist Representative on the Board of Critical Path and in 2022 a Belvoir Artistic Associate.

Elle has a Bachelor of Arts in English from UWA and a Bachelor of Arts in Dance from WAAPA. She was raised on Boorloo/Perth by her Filipino and Burmese family and currently lives on Garigal Land in Sydney with her partner and their young son.

Nigel Poulton

Nigel is an award-winning movement director, fight and intimacy coordinator, SAG-AFTRA/MEAA stunt performer and actor, with over 25 years of professional experience. Selected theatre credits include: for Belvoir St Theatre, The Master and Margarita, Miss Peony, Packer and Sons, Things I Know To Be True, Stop Girl, Blessed Union, At What Cost?, The Jungle and the Sea; for Sydney Theatre Company, Oil, On The Beach, Do Not Go Gentle, Fences; for Bell Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth; for Melbourne Theatre Company, Bernhardt/Hamlet; for Ensemble Theatre, Memory of Water, Mr Bailey’s Minder, Suddenly Last Summer. Nigel’s film and television work includes: Deadloch, Nautilus, Poker Face, Thor: Love and Thunder, Spiderhead, Ding Dong I’m Gay, Occupation 2, Pirates of the Caribbean V, Deadline Gallipoli, The Water Diviner, The Bourne Legacy, Vikingdom and Winter’s Tale.

In 2021, Nigel was awarded the status of Fight Master with the Society of American Fight Directors, as one of only two recipients outside the US with this accolade. He has also won a Green Room Award for outstanding contribution to the stage.

Danielle Roffe

Danielle is an international voice and dialect coach, working in theatre film and TV as well as with a range of corporate clients.  She is currently based in Sydney where she lives with her husband, two children and a groodle.  She is drawn to voice as the conduit for hearing people’s stories.  Previous work includes:  Belvoir: Miss Julie, Gethsemane, That Face, The Power of Yes, Stories I Want to Tell You, In Person, Lonesome West. Other Theatre: Sydney Theatre Company: Home I’m Darling, Appropriate, Playing Beatie Bow, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Rules for Living, Wonnangatta, Pygmalion, Tusk Tusk (with ATYP), Like a Fishbone (with Griffin TC). Sydney Opera House: South Pacific, The History Boys. Old Fitz: Anatomy of a Suicide. Darlinghurst Theatre: The Pride. Film: The Drover’s Wife, Fantasy Island, Lego Ninjago Movie, Alien Covenant, Hacksaw Ridge, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend, 2:22, The Daughter, Stranger Land, Backtrack, Slow West, Adore, Lemon Tree Passage, Wolf Creek 2, Evil Dead, Careless Love, Killer Elite, Uninhabited, Not Suitable for Children, Lagaan, The Search for John Gissing, Best: His Mother’s Son, Slaughter, Outcast. TV: Black Comedy,  Easybeats, Doctor Doctor, Banished, Underbelly, My Kitchen Rules, The Scouting Book for Boys, Holby City, Eastenders, The Bill. Positions: Teaching positions at NIDA, Actors’ Centre, Central School of Speech and Drama, Drama Centre, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and Theatre Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. Training: Central School of Speech and Drama

Abbie-Lee Lewis

Abbie-Lee Lewis is a Kalkadoon actress who trained on the Aboriginal Theatre and Acting courses at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth.

Her credits include Seanna Van Helten’s Fallen, directed by Penny Harpham, for Sport for Jove; Our Town, directed by Clare Watson, for the Black Swan State Theatre Company of Western Australia; a national tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Hermia) for Bell Shakespeare; and Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree, directed by Ian Michael at the Blue Room Theatre, Perth. Her television credits include Black Comedy for ABC. In recent years she has also worked as an assistant director, collaborating with Peter Evans on Hamlet for Bell Shakespeare and with Jena Prince on Charlie Pilgrim for the Australian Theatre for Young People.

This year she has joined the team at Belvoir as the Andrew Cameron Fellow and will make her directing debut with Bruce Pascoe’s Cutter and Coot for the Moogahlin Performing Arts, NSW.

Based in: Kalkatungu Country, Australia

Matilda Ridgway

Matilda is an award winning actor, theatre maker and arts educator. She is a proud member of MEAA.

Matilda’s credits at Belvoir include Rep Season (2022), Artists at Work (2020), and Jasper Jones (2016). Her other theatre credits include Just Macbeth!, Hamlet, Henry IV, and The Players (Bell Shakespeare); The Norman Conquests Trilogy, Proof, Seminar, My Wonderful Day, Rain Man, Brooklyn Boy, Ruby Sunrise (Ensemble Theatre); Platonov, and Sweet Nothings (ATYP); The Merchant of Venice, A Doll’s House, The Crucible, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Much Ado About Nothing (Sport for Jove) The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Kayak, Cock and Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre).

Her film credits include the TV series Hiding (ABC), Bump (Stan) and the films June Again, Book Week, Disclosure, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Guests and Memorabilia.

The Guests was nominated for the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film festival. Disclosure was nominated for the ‘Best Indie Film’ at the 2021 AACTA Awards. Matilda won ‘Best Performance in an Australian Short Film’ at the Flickerfest International Short Film Festival for her role in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. She has been nominated for three Sydney Theatre Awards and won for her performance of Nora in A Dolls House.

Cecilia Nelson

Cecilia Nelson graduated from NIDA’s BFA (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) in 2017 after completing a BSc./BA. at The University of Sydney. This year, she was the assistant stage manager Pippin, Australia’s first commercial musical to open after the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, she was half-way through the national tour of Billy Elliot (LWAA) when our theatre doors closed for lockdown.  Cecilia toured the award-winning Barbara and the Camp Dogs (Belvoir)as stage manager and was the assistant stage manager in the original Belvoir season. Cecilia stage managed In The Heights (Blue Saint Productions) which toured regionally before opening in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, the intimate but ground-breaking The Howling Girls (Sydney Chamber Opera) and was the assistant stage manager for The Rape of Lucretia (Sydney Chamber Opera). Cecilia has a passion for opera and has stage and assistant stage managed Artaserse (Pinchgut), Candide (Sydney Philharmonia), New Year’s Eve Opera Gala (Opera Australia), and was surtitle operator for Carmen (Opera Australia/HOSH). She is passionate about music in theatre and the power of art to make sense of life.

Amelia Grindrod

A graduate of AFTT, Amelia has previously worked on Secret House’s The Seagull, Troilus & Cressida, Crime & Punishment, Joseph K and Charles & Larry, Redline Production’s King Of Pigs, Dead Fly Production’s The Scarecrow, Bard on the Beach’s 2019 season, New Ghosts’ Iphigenia in Splott and HUSH, Force Majeure’s The Last Season and Magic Mike Live Australia. Her music theatre credits include Muriel’s Wedding (Global Creatures), Come From Away (New Theatrical), Billy Elliot (LWAA) and School of Rock (GWB Entertainment).

Alexandra Logiudice

Alexandra Logiudice (Assistant Stage Manager) graduated from the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television in 2021 with a Diploma in Screen and Media (Theatre Production). Alex has had a love for theatre since she was young and is passionate about the storytelling and creativity that is evoked through theatrical productions. Previously, she has been the Assistant Stage Manager for ‘Hush’ (New Ghosts Theatre Company) and ‘Charles and Larry’ (Secret House) in 2022.