Never Closer

Grace Chapple

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.

Emma Diaz

Emma Diaz is an actor and producer based in Sydney. A graduate of WAAPA Acting, her theatre credits include Never Closer (Belvoir 25A), The Crucible (Sport for Jove), Hamlet (Bell Shakespeare), Nautilus (Monkey Baa Theatre Company), and Hitler’s Daughter (Monkey Baa Theatre Company).

Emma’s notable TV/film credits include After the Verdict (Nine Network), Bump (Stan), Pieces of Her (Netflix), Diary of an Uber Driver (ABC) and Friends and Strangers, which was selected in the British Film Institute’s Top 50 Films of 2021 and is streaming globally on MUBI and AppleTV. Notable short film credits include Smoko Porno and Water – for which she was nominated ‘Best Performance by an Actress’ at the WA Screen Awards.

Emma is also production management graduate of AFTRS, and as a producer has worked with Belvoir St Theatre, Projector Films, Goalpost Pictures, Acuity Films and Co-curious. In 2017 Emma created Aya Productions and has presented independent work at ATYP, Belvoir 25A, Kings X Theatre and the Old Fitz Theatre. Emma is represented by Linsten Management.

Raj Labade

Raj Labade was born in Sydney in 2000 and is of Indian-Anglo decent. He began acting at high school performing in various musicals, plays and comedy sketches. At the age of 17, he began his professional Career as ‘Lewis’ in the 2019 Australian feature film, “Back of The Net”. At 18, Raj was Accepted into the illustrious ‘Bachelor of fine arts (Acting)’ course at the ‘The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ (WAAPA). While At WAAPA, Raj was the recipient of multiple prestigious awards. The 2020 Speech and Drama Teachers Association Poetry Prize, the 2021 The Vice Chancellor’s Shakespeare award of ‘Best Production’ for his performance of ‘Hamlet’ and The 2021 Leslie Anderson Award for ‘Most Outstanding Graduating Actor’ in his final Showcase performance. He acted in various plays across all genre’s/forms and multiple short films over the three year course, graduating at the age of 21. Shortly after graduation, Raj found himself staring alongside the likes of Kate Walsh and Caroline brazier as ‘Davison’ in the well received 2022 Perth Festival production of ‘Mary Stuart’. Since his return to Sydney Raj has found success in Australian film and Television having just finished shooting as ‘Zal’ in the New SBS series ‘Appetite’ and with more exciting projects to come, the future is looking bright for Raj.

Mabel Li

Mabel Li is a 2019 graduate from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts BFA Acting course. She was recently nominated for a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress and won an Asian Academy award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Goalpost Picture’s, New Gold Mountain, (dir. Corrie Chen) for SBS.

Since graduating, Mabel made her television debut in the 2021 AACTA award winning SBS series, The Tailings (dir. Stevie Cruz-Martin). This year saw her in the SBS drama Safe Home in the role of ‘Jenny’ and she will soon be seen in Erotic Stories, also for SBS. Their work in film also includes AACTA nominated short, Voice Activated, and art installation Trechikoff’s Chinese Girl.

Their theatre credits include Never Closer (Downstairs Belvoir, dir. Hannah Goodwin), Delilah by the Hour (dir. Claudia Osbourne), Goldilocks (NIDA, written and dir. Michael Gow), Pool (no water) (NIDA, dir. Benjamin Schostakowski), Ah, Tuzenbach: A Melancholic Cabaret (NIDA, dir. Oleg Glushkov), and D.N.A (Seymour Theatre, dir. Bel Simon).

Mabel is also the recipient of the 2019/2020 BBM Youth Award Scholarship for Drama and was a 2021 Finalist for the Heath Ledger Scholarship. Mabel was also a recipient of the CGA Rising Star Award for 2022. She is very excited to make her Belvoir mainstage debut in Miss Peony as ‘Sabrina’.

Philip Lynch

Ariadne Sgouros

Ariadne Sgouros graduated from NIDA in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. During her time at NIDA, Ariadne performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eurydike and Orpheus, and The Show That Smells.

Since leaving NIDA, Ariadne has been involved in a series of KXTeethCutting readings at the Kings Cross Theatre, as well as The Divorce Party and Love, Me (The Old 505), Before the Meeting and The Shifting Heart (White Box Theatre), and What The Butler Saw and This Bitter Earth (New Theatre).

On screen, Ariadne has been involved in a number of AFTRS short films, including The Retreat, Reunion, and Gorgon, in which she speaks Greek. Ariadne also recently appeared on Home and Away.

Ariadne was most recently seen in Belvoir 25a’s production of Never Closer. 

Adam Sollis

Grace Deacon

Grace is a production and costume designer working across stage, film and screen. Grace’s practice is based heavily on creative collaboration and exploration, with a love of developing new works. Grace’s recent design credits include:  AN OX STOOF ON MY TOUNGE (25A BELVOIR), NEVER CLOSER (25A BELVOIR), THE ITALIANS (25A BELVOIR), WHO’S AFRAID (25A BELVOIR), DESTRY, SHE SAID (25A BELVOIR), LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE), SENSER (THEATRE WORKS), T NOT TODAY (MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL). TV credits: MASKED SINGER AUSTRALIA (2021-23), GLADIATORS (2023) Grace has been awarded the Best Stage Design for an Independant production 2023, the William Fletcher Foundation Scholarship and Peter Ivan Scholarship for Excellence in Design.

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. 

Blake Hedley

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.

Phoebe Pilcher

Phoebe Pilcher is lighting designer with an interest in new work and collaborative processes. Phoebe is a graduate from WAAPA (Production and Design) and NIDA (MFA Design for Performance). Recent credits include: The Italians (Belvoir 25A), Never Closer (Belvoir 25A) A Streetcar Named Desire (Redline Productions at the Old Fitz), La Cage Aux Folles (State Theatre and Arts Centre Melbourne), 2024 will see Phoebe make her mainstage debut with Holding The Man directed by Eamon Flack and the transfer production of Never Closer directed by Hannah Goodwin, both for Belvoir.

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 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). 

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.

Darcy Catto-Pitkin

Zoë Hollyoak