GRIEF IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

Max Porter

Max Porter is the author of four novels, including the Sunday Times #1 bestseller Shy, the Booker Prize longlisted Lanny,  and the multi-award winning Grief is the Thing with Feathers. His work has been translated into 35 languages.

Porter’s screen adaptation of Shy, starring Cillian Murphy, is being released by Netflix in Autumn 2025. He is also the author of The Death of Francis Bacon, praised as ‘a miniature masterpiece’, the short film All of this Unreal Time and the pamphlet It’s Going to Be a Bright New Day with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.

Max frequently collaborates with musicians, song-writers, artists and theatre-makers. He is currently writer in residence in a UK prison, Associate Artist at The Southbank Centre and was chair of the judging panel for the International Booker Prize 2025.

Simon Phillips

Simon Phillips is an acclaimed director whose credits range from new works to contemporary and Shakespearean classics to musicals to opera. He was Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia (1990–93) and then the Melbourne Theatre Company (2000–2011), where he oversaw the design and construction of the Southbank Theatre.

At Belvoir, he directed THE UNEXPECTED MAN in 2000.

Simon has directed works by most leading contemporary playwrights, including Albee (A DELICATE BALANCE), Beckett (HAPPY DAYS), Brecht (ARTURO UI), Churchill (CLOUD NINE, SERIOUS MONEY), Hare (THE BLUE ROOM), McDonagh (THE PILLOWMAN), Orton (WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE), Shepherd (BURIED CHILD, A LIE OF THE MIND), and Stoppard (ARCADIA, ROCK’N’ROLL, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, THE REAL THING). He has also premiered works by top Australian writers including Matt Cameron, Joanna Murray-Smith, Hannie Rayson, Stephen Sewell, and David Williamson. Among his many classical productions, THE TEMPEST, JULIUS CAESAR, A COMEDY OF ERRORS and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST all toured nationally, while his adaptation of NORTH BY NORTHWEST also played in the UK, North America, and New Zealand.

His many national and international musical theatre credits include PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, LOVE NEVER DIES, MURIEL’S WEDDING, LADIES IN BLACK and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on the Sydney harbour.

Opera credits include THE TURK IN ITALY, L’ELISIR D’AMORE, FALSTAFF and LULU for Opera Australia; THE MAGIC FLUTE, DON GIOVANNI and LE COMTE ORY for Opera New Zealand and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and BILLY BUDD for Hamburg State Opera.

Simon received an honorary doctorate from The University of Melbourne in 2012, and in 2018 he was a Resident Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He has won seven Green Room Awards and six Helpmann Awards.

Nick Schlieper

Nick Schlieper has designed for all of the major performing arts companies in Australia and works regularly internationally.

Recent productions for Belvoir include Master and Margarita, Opening Night, Packer & Sons, Ghosts and set and lighting for Scenes From The Climate Era and Once In Royal David’s City.

His many productions for STC include Dracula, The Tempest, Jekyll & Hyde and The War of the Roses as well as set and lighting designs for Happy Days, Endgame, Face To Face and Baal.

For MTC, his work includes As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet and The Tempest as well as set and lighting for North By Northwest (with Simon Phillips) and Photograph 51.

Nick’s international work includes productions for The Salzburg Festival, Hamburg and Bavarian State Operas, Royal Shakespeare Company, and The London Barbican as well as productions in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Oslo. Hedda Gabler, Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya and The Maids, also played in New York. His lighting designs for Dorian Gray, The Present and Priscilla, have been seen on Broadway and Gross und Klein also travelled to Paris, London and Vienna.

He has lit many productions for Opera Australia and was lighting and associate set designer for the first Australian production of The Ring Cycle in Adelaide.

Nick Schlieper has received seven Sydney Theatre Awards (two for set design and 5 for lighting design), six Melbourne Green Room Awards, and 5 Helpmann Awards. He recently received a Tony Award nomination for Dorian Gray on Broadway.

Toby Schmitz

Toby Schmitz is an accomplished writer, director and actor.

His acting theatre credits include The Rover, Hamlet, The Wild Duck, Measure for Measure, Thyestes, Strange Interlude, Ruben Guthrie and Dance of Death [Belvoir], The Seagull, The Present, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Travesties, Hanging Man, Rabbit and The Great [STC], Wild and The Importance of Being Earnest [MTC], Much Ado About Nothing [Bell Shakespeare], Gaslight [New Theatricals & QTC], The Boyce Trilogy [Griffin Theatre], and Thom Pain (based on nothing), Degenerate Art which he wrote and directed and Amadeus opposite Michael Sheen [Red Line]. Most recently Toby co-created and starred in Hamlet Camp [Modern Convict Films].

Toby’s select television credits include Boy Swallows Universe, The Twelve Season 1, S.O.Z.: Soldiers or Zombies, Reckoning, Newton’s Law, Blue Murder, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Underbelly: The Man Who Got Away, Bloom, and Black Sails. His film credits include Griff the Invisible, Three Blind Mice, The Rage in Placid Lake, and Somersault.

Toby received Helpmann Award Nominations for his performances in Thyestes, Much Ado About Nothing and Ruben Guthrie, and Sydney Theatre Award Nominations for Howie The Rookie, The Great and Ruben Guthrie.

Toby’s debut novel The Empress Murders was recently published at Allen & Unwin.

Toby Schmitz

Toby Schmitz is an accomplished writer, director and actor.

His acting theatre credits include The Rover, Hamlet, The Wild Duck, Measure for Measure, Thyestes, Strange Interlude, Ruben Guthrie and Dance of Death [Belvoir], The Seagull, The Present, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Travesties, Hanging Man, Rabbit and The Great [STC], Wild and The Importance of Being Earnest [MTC], Much Ado About Nothing [Bell Shakespeare], Gaslight [New Theatricals & QTC], The Boyce Trilogy [Griffin Theatre], and Thom Pain (based on nothing), Degenerate Art which he wrote and directed and Amadeus opposite Michael Sheen [Red Line]. Most recently Toby co-created and starred in Hamlet Camp [Modern Convict Films].

Toby’s select television credits include Boy Swallows Universe, The Twelve Season 1, S.O.Z.: Soldiers or Zombies, Reckoning, Newton’s Law, Blue Murder, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Underbelly: The Man Who Got Away, Bloom, and Black Sails. His film credits include Griff the Invisible, Three Blind Mice, The Rage in Placid Lake, and Somersault.

Toby received Helpmann Award Nominations for his performances in Thyestes, Much Ado About Nothing and Ruben Guthrie, and Sydney Theatre Award Nominations for Howie The Rookie, The Great and Ruben Guthrie.

Toby’s debut novel The Empress Murders was recently published at Allen & Unwin.

Philip Lynch

Belvoir Street Theatre: NEVER CLOSER. 

Griffin Theatre Company: THE LEWIS TRILOGY.  Red Line Productions: JUST! LIVE ON STAGE!, HAND TO GOD.

Film: FIVE BLIND DATES (Amazon Studios). Short Film: INCORRUPTIBLE, LEAF LITTER, SHELTERED.

Television: HE HAD IT COMING (Stan).

Training: WAAPA (2017) NIDA (BFA 2021).

Fraser Morrison

Fraser Morrison is a Sydney-based actor who studied at École Philippe Gaulier.

Theatre credits include ‘Cruise’ (Fruit Box Theatre Co.), ‘The Eisteddfod’ (Old Fitz), ‘Dumb Kids’ (Legit Theatre Co.), ‘Cherry Smoke’ (KXT), ‘The Resistance’ (ATYP), ‘How to Defend Yourself’ (Outhouse Theatre Co.) ‘Remembering Pirates’ (Darlinghurst Theatre Co.), ‘M.Rock’ (ATYP), ‘Natives’ (KXT), and ‘Reagan Kelly’ (Metro Arts).

His screen highlights include ‘The Last Days of the Space Age’ (Disney+), ‘The Family Law’ (SBS), and ‘Oi’ (CIMP Prod.) which premiered at MIFF. 

‘Grief is the Thing with Feathers’ is Fraser’s debut at Belvoir St. Theatre.

Freya Schack-Arnott

Freya Schack-Arnott (DK/AUS) is a contemporary cellist and nyckelharpist who has crafted a multi-faceted career as a performer, improviser and composer, ranging from contemporary classical repertoire to experimental, electronics, folk and cross-disciplinary art forms. 

Schack-Arnott is the composer and onstage performer at Belvoir Theatre’s current production of “Grief Is The Thing With Feathers” and has recorded music for past Belvoir productions such as “Holding The Man” and “Never Closer”. 

She has also recorded for numerous major films, computer games and TV, including as featured artist in the ABC TV-series “Mystery Road” (2018 + upcoming 2025 season).  

Awards to her name include APRA Art Award Best Performance of the Year 2023 with her all female cross-cultural band The Cloud Maker and the 2025-26 prestigious Future Makers program (Musica Viva).

As a contemporary cellist Schack-Arnott regularly performs with ELISION New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Offspring, and as an orchestral musician with Australian Chamber Orchestra and Australian Opera Ballet Orchestra.

Recent notable creative projects include: Runa Cara (experimental/ambient folk duo with Irish-born musician Bonnie Stewart), FSA/BW (experimental string duo with SSO bassist, Ben Ward) and national tours with popular artists such as Peter Garrett, Josh Pyke and Missy Higgins. 

Ella Butler

Ella is a Sydney-based Production and Costume Designer for theatre, film and live performance. Informed by her beginnings in theatre, Ella’s work has evolved through contrived spaces, searching for the extraordinary found in the everyday.

Ella’s work as Costume Designer at Belvoir includes August: Osage County, Tell Me I’m Here, The Weekend and Scenes From the Climate Era. Her costumes examine character with an urban melancholy. Currently, her work can be seen in the national tour of RENT; The Musical, directed by Shaun Rennie coming to Opera Australia in 2025. Productions where Ella has worked as both Set and Costume Designer include Dubbo Championship Wrestling (The Hayes), LOVE (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), First Love Is The Revolution and Wherever She Wanders (Griffin Theatre Company).

In film, Ella worked as the Costume and Production Designer for CATSinAM, The Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Nurses and Midwives, for In Our Own Right; recounting Black Australian Nurses’ and Midwives Stories. In commercial as Production Designer, her clients include Google, Woolworths, Officeworks and James Squire. Ella is a graduate from the National Institute of Dramatic Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design for Performance).

Freya Schack-Arnott

Freya Schack-Arnott (DK/AUS) is a contemporary cellist and nyckelharpist who has crafted a multi-faceted career as a performer, improviser and composer, ranging from contemporary classical repertoire to experimental, electronics, folk and cross-disciplinary art forms. 

Schack-Arnott is the composer and onstage performer at Belvoir Theatre’s current production of “Grief Is The Thing With Feathers” and has recorded music for past Belvoir productions such as “Holding The Man” and “Never Closer”. 

She has also recorded for numerous major films, computer games and TV, including as featured artist in the ABC TV-series “Mystery Road” (2018 + upcoming 2025 season).  

Awards to her name include APRA Art Award Best Performance of the Year 2023 with her all female cross-cultural band The Cloud Maker and the 2025-26 prestigious Future Makers program (Musica Viva).

As a contemporary cellist Schack-Arnott regularly performs with ELISION New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Offspring, and as an orchestral musician with Australian Chamber Orchestra and Australian Opera Ballet Orchestra.

Recent notable creative projects include: Runa Cara (experimental/ambient folk duo with Irish-born musician Bonnie Stewart), FSA/BW (experimental string duo with SSO bassist, Ben Ward) and national tours with popular artists such as Peter Garrett, Josh Pyke and Missy Higgins. 

Daniel Herten

Daniel Herten (he/they) is a Sound Designer, Composer, Video Designer and Creative Technologist working across live performance and interactive media. Living in Fiji, China and Thailand before Australia – Daniel now collaborates on Bidjigal and Gadigal land to tell stories. Their work explores how audiences interface with stories, focusing on integrating real-time technology to enhance the two-way discussions we have between ourselves and our art.

Daniel’s Selected Credits Include: 

Composer of Furious Mattress (Belvoir 25A), Australian Sound Associate of The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Michael Cassel Group, Broadway), Composer & Sound Designer of The Lewis Trilogy, SISTREN (Griffin Theatre Co), Composer, Sound Designer & co-Video Designer of Collapsible (Essential Workers), Composer & Sound Designer of Plenty Of Fish In The Sea (Clockfire Theatre Co), Sound Designer, Associate Video Designer & Animator of Flat Earthers: The Musical (Hayes & Griffin Theatre Co), Sound Designer of Set Piece (RISING Festival), Video & Sound Designer of Ride The Cyclone (Hayes Theatre Co), Sound Designer of Black Box The Musical (Tinderbox Prod).

Daniel’s Selected Awards Include: 

Tony Awards: Best Sound Design Of A Play for The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Nomination), Sydney Theatre Awards: Best Sound Design And Composition Of A Mainstage Production for The Lewis Trilogy (Nomination).

Craig Wilkinson

Craig Wilkinson is an award-winning live performance video designer and the creative director of optikal bloc. His video design work has toured extensively across Australia and internationally to Hong Kong, UK, North America, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Video design credits include: GRIEF IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS (Belvoir St Theatre); DRACULA (Sydney Theatre Company); LOVE STORIES, BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE (Brisbane Festival, QPAC); ROUND THE TWIST, DEAR SON (with State Theatre Company of South Australia), FIRST CASUALTY, THE MOUNTAINTOP, GASP! (Queensland Theatre); EUCALYPTUS (Victorian Opera); ILLUME (Bangarra); CINDERELLA, THE LITTLE MERMAID, MY BRILLIANT CAREER (Queensland Ballet); FRANKENSTEIN, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, ROALD DAHL’S FANTASTIC MR FOX, FOURTHCOMING, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, GREEN DAY’S AMERICAN IDIOT, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, 1984 (Shake & Stir Theatre Co); SHAUN THE SHEEP’S CIRCUS SHOW (Circa, QPAC); ANNIE, GREASE THE MUSICAL (Crossroads Live).

Awards: Australian Production Design Guild Award – Video Design for a Live Performance or Event for BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE, AVOIDABLE PERILS, and FIRST CASUALTY; Matilda Award – Video Design for BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE, ROALD DAHL’S FANTASTIC MR FOX and A CHRISTMAS CAROL; Matilda Award ─ Gold Matilda, Body of Work PALE BLUE DOT, THE MOUNTAINTOP, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, GASP!, 1984; Adelaide Fringe’s John Chataway Innovation Award TERROR AUSTRALIS.

Jon Weber

Jon Weber is an artist and illustrator from Brisbane, Australia.  This is his first show for Belvoir St Theatre.  After studying Fine Arts at QCA, Weber’s work has featured in everything from children’s books to animated films and death metal covers. He has professionally worked within the areas of gaming, art, visual media and music for well over a decade. Weber won a QLD Theatre Matilda Award in 2019 for his illustrative contributions for Shake and Stir’s “Fantastic Mr Fox” and was nominated again in 2024 with the same company’s adaptation of “James and the Giant Peach” working alongside the evergreen Craig Wilkinson in both shows. Weber’s work tends to have a penchant for the fantastic, the dark and the weird.

Margaret Thanos

Margaret Thanos is an award-winning Cypriot-Australian director, writer and actor for theatre and film. She is also the owner of Queen Hades Productions, a production company that works to bring together activism and art.

Margaret’s directing credits include Furious Mattress, Not Now, Not Ever: A Parliament of Women (25A), the 5-star sell-out season of I Hate People; or Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove), A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre), the Australian Premiere of Labyrinth (Dream Plane Productions) and world premiere of A Grain of Sand (KXT). In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Sandra Bates Director’s Award at Ensemble Theatre.

She has assistant directing credits on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Belvoir), Benefactors (Ensemble), Mr Bailey’s Minder (Ensemble), This Genuine Moment (Old 505), Animal Farm (New Theatre), Originate Project (Q Theatre), The Linden Solution (Ratcatch) and The Cherry Orchard (Chippen St). Her debut short Life Beyond Christine is currently in post-production.

Her acting credits include: Beautiful Things (Flickerfest Selection), Dear Australia (Spark Theatre), Screen Shot (Toronto Comedy Film Festival Selection), Twinemies (Australian Podcast Award Winner), Spider in My Soup (Shopfront Artslab and Bondi Feast), My Creatures (Tricky Feet), Intersection: Chrysalis (ATYP/Griffin). In 2020, Margaret was a part of Montague Basement’s Laboratory Program and in 2021 she was a part of ATYP’s Fresh Ink.

Andrew Henry

Andrew Henry performed at Belvoir in The Blind Giant Is Dancing. He is the founder of Andrew Henry Presents (AHP), the company behind acclaimed productions such as Death of a Salesman starring Anthony LaPaglia, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (STC 2025,) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Previously, Andrew co-founded and served as Artistic Director of Red Line Productions, transforming Sydney’s Old Fitz Theatre into a hub of independent theatre, presenting over 200 productions to more than 550,000 patrons over nine years. He also produced Amadeus starring Michael Sheen at the Sydney Opera House and innovative live-streamed works like Orphans with Alec Baldwin and Gruesome Playground Injuries with Rose Byrne and Ewen Leslie.

His screen acting credits include Janet King, Secret City, The Code, Love Child, and Top of the Lake.

He has received the Hayes Gordon Memorial Award for outstanding contribution to Australian theatre.

Laura Farrell

Laura Farrell (she/her) is a Voice and Dialect Coach living and working on Gadigal land. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Voice from NIDA; a Post Graduate Diploma in Voice from the Victorian College of the Arts; and a Bachelor of Music Theatre from the Victorian College of the Arts. A current lecturer for NIDA’s BFA, Laura has also taught on multiple Sydney actor training programs, including NIDA’s Diploma of Stage and Screen and Diploma of Music Theatre, Actors Pulse, Sydney Acting Studio, Actors Centre Australia and The University of Wollongong.

For Belvoir, Laura’s coaching credits include Counting and Cracking directed by Eamon Flack (2024), Never Closer directed by Hannah Goodwin (2024), Lose to Win directed by Jess Arthur (2024), Holding the Man directed by Eamon Flack (2024), At What Cost? directed by Isaac Drandic, Miss Peony directed by Courtney Stewart (2023), The Master & Margarita, Into The Woods, directed by Eamon Flack (2023), Blue, directed by Deborah Brown (2023), Jungle And The Sea, directed by Eamon Flack (2022), Tell Me I’m Here, directed by Leticia Caceres (2022), Fangirls, directed by Paige Rattray (2022) and Counting And Cracking, directed by Eamon Flack (2022).  

Other credits include Pear Shaped, directed by Miranda Middleton (Rogue Projects, 2023), F*** It Bucket, directed by Alyssa McClelland (LeftBank Productions UK, 2022),  Reluctant Sea Shanty for UNHCR, directed by Kyra Bartley (FINCH, 2022), Picnic At Hanging Rock, directed by Claudia Osbourne (NIDA, 2022), Paper Stars, directed by Miranda Middleton (Salty Theatre, 2021) and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again., directed by Heather Fairbairn (NIDA, Sydney 2021).  

Diego Retamales

Diego is a Chilean-Australian actor and fight choreographer based in Sydney/Gadigal with a B. Performance from Theatre Nepean’s final graduating year in 2008.

Recent fight choreography credits include: Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove), POSH (Old Fitz/Queen Hades), Furious Mattress (Belvoir 25A), Pride and Prejudice (Old Fitz), SHOOK (Lost Thought/Qtopia), Teenage Dick (Flight Path), A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre), The Wasp (Akimbo + Co), Apocka-wocka-localypse (Tooth and Sinew), A Fortunate Few (Something Wicked), One Man Two Guv’nors (New Theatre), Labyrinth (Flight Path) and U.B.U (Tooth and Sinew/KXT).

Diego has also spent the last 15 years in professional wrestling as a wrestler, trainer and most recently Ring Announcer for Pro Wrestling Australia (PWA).

Sam Illingworth

Sam is a Sydney-based Stage Manager and a 2012 graduate of WAAPA’s Stage Management course. This is his first production with Belvoir.

His credits across Stage Management include, for Crossroads Live: Wicked the Musical (Australian national tour and Singapore season); for Global Creatures: Moulin Rouge! The Musical and Muriel’s Wedding The Musical; for Opera Australia: La Traviata – Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour; for Gordon Frost Organisation: Pippin the Musical and Shrek the Musical; for Michael Cassel Group: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – The Musical and Les Miserables; for West Australian Ballet: Peter Pan; for the Royal Shakespeare Company/Louise Withers and Associates: Matilda the Musical; for Adam Liberman/Strange Duck Productions: Freud’s Last Session; for Hayes Theatre Co: Miracle City; for Black Swan State Theatre Company: The Seagull; and for Louise Withers and Associates: Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

Claire Edmonds-Wilson

Claire (she/her) is an emerging stage manager, having recently graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) with a BFA in Technical Theatre and Stage Management. She is thrilled to be making her debut at Belvoir St Theatre on Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

Recent credits include Assistant Stage Manager for The Fairy Queen (Pinchgut Opera), Assistant Stage Manager Swing for Sister Act the Musical (Crossroads Live Australia), Stage Manager for Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare (Adelaide Festival) and Assistant Stage Manager / Props for Innocence (Adelaide Festival).