A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was born into a privileged family in 1882, grew up surrounded by books and literary conversation, and is now acknowledged as one of the key writers of the modernist movement. Her works Mrs Dalloway, The Waves and To the Lighthouse redefined the novel, but she was as versatile as she was prolific, producing biographies, diaries, essays and volumes of letters. In style and ideas, her work captures a rapidly-changing era, with gender, sexuality and class interrogated at the same time as language and form. Her ‘stream of consciousness’ technique opened a window into her themes – the city, the elasticity of time, the shifting sense of self, the marginal and overlooked in daily life – and has had a profound impact over the last century. A key personality in what came to be known as The Bloomsbury Group, her role as a radical re-thinker brought her status and admiration. However, she suffered from poor mental health for much of her life, and died by suicide in 1941 by placing a large stone in her pocket and wading into a river.

Carissa Licciardello

Carissa Licciardello is a director based on Gadigal Land. She was Resident Director at Belvoir St Theatre from 2022 to 2024, following her position as Associate Artist in 2021 and the company’s inaugural Andrew Cameron Fellow in 2018 and 2019. 

Recent work as Director includes – for Belvoir, Scenes from the Climate Era (2023), as Director/Adaptor, Opening Night (2022) and A Room of One’s Own (2020/2021); as Associate Director, Fangirls (2019/2021),Counting & Cracking (2019); as Production Dramaturg, Nayika: A Dancing Girl (2024), Miss Peony (2023). Other work as Director includes – for Malthouse, Anna K (2022); for National Institute of Dramatic Arts, Machinal (2022).

 Carissa is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts’ Directing course, and was a recipient of NIDA’s Glorias Fellowship in 2020.

Tom Wright

Tom has written a number of award-winning plays and adaptations, including The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The War of the Roses, The Lost Echo, Lorilei, Medea, Babes in the Wood, Baal, Optimism, On the Misconception of Oedipus, The Histrionic, and Black Diggers. He was Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company from 2004 to 2012. He is currently Artistic Associate at Belvoir, for whom he adapted Life of Galileo in 2019 and Bliss in 2018, and has worked as an actor and director at Playbox (now Malthouse Theatre), Melbourne Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia, La Mama, Company B, Anthill, Gilgul, Mene Mene, Bell Shakespeare, Chunky Move, Black Swan and Chamber Made Opera.

Anita Hegh

Anita is a multi-award-winning performer whose credits include national and international theatre, film and television roles. A graduate of NIDA, Anita has worked extensively within the theatre industry with selected credits including Twelfth Night, The Wild Duck and The Seagull (Belvoir). Other theatre credits include A Cheery Soul, Harp in the South and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui which saw her receive the 2018 Helpmann award for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role, The Father and Cloud Nine (STC). Further credits include The Anzac Project for Ensemble Theatre Company; and The Crucible, and Top Girls for Melbourne Theatre Company. Anita’s screen work includes film roles in The Last Ride opposite Hugo Weaving, Stuffed, and Paradise Road directed by Bruce Beresford. Her recent television credits include Black Comedy Series 1, 2 and 4, Home and Away, and Janet King series 2 and 3 as Bianca Grieve. For her performance as Gina Ekdal in Belvoir’s production of The Wild Duck, Anita was awarded Best Actress in a Supporting Role at both the 2011 Helpmann Awards and the Sydney Theatre Critics Awards. She also received two Time Out Awards; Best Actress and People’s Choice.

Ella Prince

Ella holds a BA (Hons) Acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Sydney theatre credits include Family Values (Griffin Theatre Company), Chorus, 4.48 Psychosis, The Shadow Box (Old Fitz Theatre), You’ve Got Mail (Griffin Theatre for Batch), A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, Rotterdam (Kings Cross Theatre), Safe (Old 505 Theatre), Arachnid (Bondi Feast), and In a Year with 13 Moons (Sotto). Film credits include Last Night (Prototype), Interface (VCA), Wall Space (Flickerfest), Stardust (AFTRS). Credits as writer include Arachnid, Eli’s Winter, Finch: Love Addict (Sotto). Ella was next set to appear as Dromio of Ephesus in Bell Shakespeare’s production of The Comedy of Errors.

David Fleischer

David is a designer working across Australia with leading theatre, dance and opera companies. Previous designs for Belvoir include: Fangirls, A Room of One’s Own, Opening Night and Hedda Gabler. Other theatre credits include: RBG; Of Many One Into the Shimmering World, Oil, The Seagull, Death of A Salesman, Blithe Spirit, The Deep Blue Sea, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, The Harp in the South, Saint Joan, Top Girls, Chimerica, Speed The Plow, The Golden Age, Children of The Sun, Travelling North, Romeo and Juliet, Australian Graffiti, Machinal among others for Sydney Theatre Company; Love and Information, Calpurnia Descending for Malthouse Theatre; Myth for Melbourne Theatre Company (NEON); The Brothers Size, Between Two Waves, The Sea Project for Griffin Theatre; Scenes from a Marriage and Hedda for Queensland Theatre; Boundary St (as associate designer) for Black Swan and Brisbane Festival; Der Gelbe Stern at the New York Musical Theatre Festival; and Kiss of The Spiderwoman and No Way to Treat a Lady for Darlinghurst Theatre. Other career highlights include Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev) for Ballet Zürich, My Brilliant Career for Queensland Ballet, Gilgamesh and The Rape of Lucretia for Sydney Chamber Opera; Impermanence, Ab [Intra] and Orb for Sydney Dance Company as well as Griselda and L’amant Jaloux for Pinchgut Opera. David was the co-resident designer at Sydney Theatre Company from 2012 – 2013. 

Kelsey Lee

Kelsey is a lighting, set and costume designer for theatre, dance and events. Previously for Belvoir she was the Lighting Designer for Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, A Room of One’s Own; and Associate Lighting Designer for Blue, At What Cost?. Other credits include Lighting Designer: Mutiara (Marrugeku); Gurr Era Op (Force Majeure); The Lewis Trilogy; Sex Magick; Whitefella Yella Tree (Griffin Theatre Company), The Comedy Of Errors (Bell Shakespeare); Tell Me On A Sunday (Hayes Theatre); Masterclass; The Memory of Water; A Letter For Molly (Ensemble Theatre); Queen Fatima (NToP); Jali (Aya Productions, Griffin Theatre Company); Extinction of the Learned Response, Skyduck, Kasama Kita (Belvoir 25A); April Aardvark (ATYP); Good Dog; If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You (Greendoor Theatre Company). Set & Costume Designer Somos (Sydney Dance Company). Set Designer: Nothing; A Practical Guide To Self Defence (NTofP). Costume Designer: Silence and Rapture (Sydney Dance Company & ACO), Switzerland (Ensemble Theatre). Co-production Designer & Lighting Designer: Destroy, She Said (Belvoir’s 25A). Set & Lighting Designer: An Ox Stand On My Tongue (Belvoir 25A). Lighting, Set & Costume: Lulu: A Modern Sex Tragedy (NIDA), Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge (ACO). Associate Lighting Designer Cut The Sky (Marrugeku). 

Alice Chance

Alice Chance (she/her) is a sought-after composer, conductor, arranger, vocalist, and lyricist. A three-time finalist in the APRA Art Music Awards for Vocal/Choral Work of the Year, Alice has worked with ensembles including Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Children’s Choir, Gondwana National Indigenous Children’s Choir, Ensemble Offspring, The Song Company, and Moorambilla Voices, with whom she appears in the documentary Wide Open Sky.

Alice is the original vocal arranger for FANGIRLS and music-directed its premiere season in 2019. The same year, Alice was a member of Australia’s national jury for Eurovision. Alice is currently based in Paris studying a masters in Composition with composer Régis Campo. (École Normale de Musique de Paris, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin). She also enjoys writing, running, and making YouTube videos about learning French.

Paul Charlier

Luke McGettigan

Luke is Belvoir’s Resident Stage Manager. For Belvoir, he has stage managed The Spare Room, Song of First Desire, August Osage County, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Never Closer, Holding the Man, Master and Margarita, The Weekend, Scenes from the Climate Era, Blessed Union, The Jungle and the Sea, Tell Me I’m Here, Opening Night, The Boomkak Panto, Stop Girl, My Brilliant Career, A Room of One’s Own, Packer & Sons, Things I Know To, Be True, Counting and Cracking, The Dance of Death, A Taste of Honey, Sami in Paradise, Barbara and the Camp Dogs, Ghosts, The Rover, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, Faith Healer, Twelfth Night or What You Will, The Great Fire, Mortido, Seventeen, Elektra/Orestes, Radiance, The Glass Menagerie, Brothers Wreck, Once in Royal David’s City, Miss Julie, Forget Me Not, Peter Pan (including New York tour), Private Lives, Death of a Salesman, Babyteeth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Neighbourhood Watch, The Wild Duck (including UK and Europe tours), Namatjira (Belvoir/Big hART), Page 8, The End, That Face, The Promise, Scorched, Antigone, Keating!, The Little Cherry Orchard and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. His other credits include The Pig Iron People, The Give and Take, Bed, La Dispute (Sydney Theatre Company); Like a Fishbone (STC / Griffin); The Government Inspector, The Tempest, The Servant of Two Masters, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew (Bell Shakespeare); Paradise City, Through the Wire (Performing Lines); and Alive at Williamstown Pier (Griffin).

Ayah Tayeh

Born on Wurundjeri land and currently working on Gadigal land, Ayah is a theatre maker with a passion for new work and diverse storytelling.

Her credits include: City of Gold (Sydney Theatre Company), The Boomkak Panto (Belvoir), A Room of One’s Own (Belvoir), seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company 2021/2022), My Brilliant Career (Belvoir), Breaking Glass (Sydney Chamber Opera), and Double Delicious (Contemporary Asian Australian Performance with Sydney Festival).