The Jungle and the Sea

காடும்கடலும்  ගණවනමුහුද

S. Shakthidharan

Shakthi is an Australian storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. He’s a writer, director and producer of theatre and film, and composer of original music. His Belvoir credits are The Wrong Gods, The Jungle and the Sea (Co-written with Eamon Flack) and Counting and Cracking (Associate Writer Eamon Flack). He has in development a new play with Belvoir, a co-commission with the Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company and a feature film with Felix Media in production. Shakthi’s memoir Gather Up Your World In One Long Breath came out in 2025 with Powerhouse Publishing and will be accompanied by a major year-long artwork at the Museum. His debut play Counting and Cracking received critical, commercial and community acclaim. The script won the Victorian Premier’s Literature Prize and the NSW Premier’s Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting; the production won 7 Helpmann and 3 Sydney Theatre Awards. The Jungle and the Sea again was met with rave reviews and had a profound impact on the Sri Lankan community. It won the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Drama Prize and 4 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Mainstage Production. The Wrong Gods was nominated for three Greenroom and one NSW Premier’s Awards. Shakthi is the Director of Kurinji, was previously Director of Co-Curious, and was Founder and Artistic Director of CuriousWorks from 2003-2018. He is a Creative Australia and Sidney Myer Fellow, a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama and the Phillip Parson’s and Kirk Robson awards.

Eamon Flack

Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre. He was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He trained as an actor at WAAPA from 2001 to 2003 and has since worked as a director and writer around Australia and internationally, from the Tiwi Islands to Sri Lanka, London and New York. 

His directing credits for Belvoir include: Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan, Helpmann Award for Best Play and Best Direction of a Play), The Jungle and the Sea (co-directed with S. Shakthidharan, Sydney Theatre Award for Best Play), The Master and Margarita, Angels in America (Helpmann Award for Best Play), August: Osage County (Sydney Theatre Awards for Best Director and Best Show), The Glass Menagerie (Helpmann Award for Best Play), 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 Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, Hendrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov (Sydney Theatre Awards Best Production and Best Director), as well as Into the Woods, The Rover, The Blind Giant is Dancing, As You Like It, and Beckett’s The End. 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 (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 (Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama, Sydney Theatre Awards for Best New Work); Helen Garner’s The Spare Room; 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. 

Anandavalli

Anandavalli is a veteran classical Indian dancer with an international career spanning over 50 years. Born in Sri Lanka, she performed as a young prodigy across India and Europe under the tutelage of dance luminaries from both the East and the West.

In 1985 she migrated to Australia and founded the Lingalayam Dance Academy and Company. Lingalayam’s work incorporates dance, live music, text and design. The company’s central focus is to express the timeless, unique role of women and dance in our society.

Anandavalli is deeply committed to advancing the course of Indian dance as well as the broader scope of artistic development in Australia. Through a series of innovative, national and international collaborative partnerships, today Lingalayam’s choreographic vocabulary far transcends the boundaries of its original performative paradigms, and presents contemporary work founded on its classical origins.

Anandavalli was the pivotal actor/dancer in Belvoir Street Theatre & Lingalayam Dance Company’s 2022 co-production of the ‘The Jungle and The Sea’, which won four Sydney Theatre Awards, including Best Mainstage Production. She is the Cultural & Costume Advisor and Choreographer for Belvoir/Kurunji, epic production of ‘Counting & Cracking’ since its inception.

Prakash Belawadi

Prakash is an Indian theater, film, television and media personality, teacher, activist and journalist from Bengaluru, Karnataka. Born into a family of theatre and cinema artistes, Belawadi obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in 1983, but has devoted the most part of his years to the stage, cinema, journalism and teaching.

Belawadi has represented India as a delegate in many seminars, conferences and festivals around the world, including the Beyond Bollywood conference at the Gothenburg International Film Festival, 2010; the Performing Arts Market conference in Seoul, 2011; the 50th Theatertreffen – annual theatre festival meet at Berlin, 2013; and the seminar and exhibition, ‘Nature – A Good Idea’ at Trollhättan, Sweden in 2014.

He has been faculty for film courses in Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey and is a mentor at Chanakya University, Bengaluru. He is a motivational speaker at events and Tedx conferences.

Prakash Belawadi’s debut film Stumble, which he wrote and directed, won the National Award for Best Film in the English language, 2003. The film has now been included in the national telecaster Doordarshan’s Best of Indian Cinema series.

Belawadi has acted in many stage plays, web series and over 70 films in five Indian languages and English. He was given the META award for Best Supporting Actor in 2005 and the Helpmann Award, Australia (2019) for Best Actor, Male in the play ‘Counting and Cracking’, Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney. He was conferred ‘Pratibha Bhushan’ in 2003 by the Government of Karnataka for his contribution to culture; the Karnataka Nataka Academy Award (2011-12) for his contribution to English and Kannada language theatre; and the Government of Karnataka’s ‘Rajytosava Award’ in 2021. He has also been awarded the ‘Pride of Karnataka’ by Bangalore Round Table (2015), ‘Varshada Kannadiga’ (Kannadiga of the Year) (2015) in the field of entertainment, by News 18 Kannada.

The serial ‘Garva’, which he wrote and directed in 2001 is still considered a classic among Kannada serials.

Prakash was one of the founding members of Citizens for Bengaluru, an active platform for people to engage with the city government to make it accountable to citizens. Prakash and like-minded citizens have founded the Greater Bengaluru Parisara Foundation, a trust with the vision to realise a healthy and sustainable Greater Bengaluru with clean air; piped supply of water; recharging of ground water, well managed tanks and other resources; improved management and renewal of urban and peri-urban forests, eco-friendly parks and wetlands with rich biodiversity.

Based in: Bangalore, India

Emma Harvie

Emma Harvie stars as Meggles in the CBS Studios for Binge/BBC2 series COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS, and Chaya in the Australian drama RFDS (Channel 7/PBS). Emma can currently be seen as Destiny in the ABC comedy GROUND UP. She can also be seen in IN LIMBO and FRAYED for the ABC, the ABC/Netflix series THE LETDOWN, DIARY OF AN UBER DRIVER and the HBO Max series FRAYED. She was named a 2023 Rising Star by the Casting Guild of Australia.

Her stage credits include: No Pay? No Way! (Sydney Theatre Company), The Jungle and the Sea (Belvoir), Counting and Cracking (Belvoir UK Tour), Wherever she Wanders (Griffin), My Brilliant Career (Belvoir), Dance Nation (STCSA/Belvoir), The Last Wife (Ensemble Theatre), The Wolves (Belvoir), The Astral Plane (Belvoir 25A), Wrath (KXT/JackRabbit), A Cheery Soul (Sydney Theatre Company), The Harp in the South Parts 1 and 2 (Sydney Theatre Company), The Hypochondriac (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), The Wolves (Redline Productions), Taking Steps (Ensemble Theatre), The Players (Bell Shakespeare), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sydney Theatre Company), Orfeo ed Euridice in the Art Gallery of NSW (Spectrum Now Festival).

Film credits include: Baby Shower (Matt Day),

The First Last Word (Hannah Dougherty), Ladylike (Chekhov’s Gun Productions).

A graduate from the Actors Centre Australia, Emma also studied at The Atlantic Acting School in New York. 

Nadie Kammallaweera

Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Nadie Kammallaweera is a theatre, film, and television actor. She has acted in stage plays, movies, and television dramas. Nadie’s recent work as an actor in Australia includes Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2026) The Wrong Gods (2025), Counting and Cracking (2024), Jungle and the Sea (2022), Counting and Cracking (2019), Cherry Orchard (2021) by Belvoir Street Theatre, Separated at Birth and Wakefield (ABC TV Series), and Bump (Stan Australia TV Series). Her theatre credits elsewhere include Kalumali for the Stage Theatre Group Colombo; The House of Bernarda Alba, Blood Wedding, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Mother Courage and Her Children for Somalatha Subasinghe Play House Colombo. Her television credits overseas include The Young Pope for HBO, The New Pope for HBO, Bedde Kulawamiya for SLRC (Sri Lanka), and Sansasre Piyasatahan for ITN (Sri Lanka). Nadie’s feature films include Asoka Handagama’s This is My Moon, Prasanna Vithanage’s August Sun, Visakesa Chandrasekaram’s Pangshu, Malith Hegoda’s Strange Familiar, and Fabrizio Costa’s Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Nadie won the Green Room Award for Outstanding Performance for Counting and Cracking (2025). Some of the awards Nadie has won in Sri Lanka are Best Supporting Actress in a Movie (2021), Best Actress in a Series (2018), Best Translation (Drama) of the Year (2005), Presidential Award for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role (2005), Best Upcoming Actress (Movie) (2004 and 2003), and the BUNKA Award of Recognition for Valuable Contribution to Sri Lankan Theatre.

Shiv Palekar

Shiv Palekar was born in India, raised in Hong Kong and is now based in Sydney.

Since graduating from NIDA, Shiv has appeared in Counting and Cracking (Belvoir); 4000 Miles, The
Tempest, The Real Thing, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and Disgraced (Sydney Theatre Company);
The Sound Inside (Melbourne Theatre Company); The Great Gatsby (Queensland Theatre Company);
The Almighty Sometimes (Griffin Theatre Company); and has toured nationally twice in The Merchant
of Venice and The Players (Bell Shakespeare).

Shiv’s television credits include a series regular role on Amazon Studios’ Daytime-Emmy nominated
remount of Neighbours, as well as Apple TV/Paramount’s Shantaram and ABC series Return to
Paradise. Shiv made his feature film debut in The Greenhouse. He has also starred in the short film
Among Men.

For his work in the Beauty Queen of Leenane and Counting and Cracking, he received two Sydney
Theatre Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and Best Actor respectively. For his work in The
Sound Inside he received a nomination for Outstanding Performance at Melbourne’s Green Room
Awards and won for Outstanding Ensemble in Counting and Cracking.

He is also an associate artist and founding member of theatre ensemble The Corinthian Food Store
Collective for who he has starred as Lester in This, This is Mine.

Dushan Philips

Experienced across both stage and screen, Dushan most recently worked with Belvoir in Counting and Cracking, also for Melbourne’s RISING.  The show won a Green Room Award for Outstanding Ensemble.  This was Dushan’s second Green Room Award, having previously won Best Performer – Independent Theatre, for his work as Belize / Mr. Lies in Angels in America.

He also played the role of Niv in Stay Woke for Malthouse and Darlinghurst Theatre, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in The Meeting for Red Stitch, tread the boards in Bighouse Dreaming at Arts Centre Melbourne, and performed as Iago in Othello for the Melbourne Shakespeare Company (MSC).  Additional work with the MSC includes Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth, playing the roles of Lord Capulet and Macduff. He is both an ensemble member and actor with Red Stitch Theatre Company, appearing in many productions including Fury, The Antipodes and Right Now. For Malthouse Theatre Company, Dushan played Ivan the Crocodile in The Crocodile.

On screen, Dushan played main cast roles in feature film Jones Family Christmas for Stan, and independent feature The Returned.  Television roles include Fires and Jack Irish – Hell Bent, both for the ABC, Stan original series The Gloaming and Channel Ten’s My Life is Murder, directed by Leah Purcell, ABC’s Glitch, Channel 10’s Offspring, Foxtel’s Wentworth, Stan’s Romper Stomper and the American TV Series Hunters. He was also main cast in Channel 31’s ghost hunting six-part series Sonnnigsburg.

Regularly developing his skillset, Dushan has graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts Foundation Program (Melbourne), The Melbourne Actors Studio (Bruce Alexander), The Actor’s Playhouse (Meisner Technique) and 16th Street (Chubbuck Technique). In London, he is a member of the Actors Centre.

Kalieaswari Srinivasan

Kalieaswari Srinivasan is an actor, writer and a Somatic Practitioner based in Pondicherry, India.

She was part of THE JUNGLE AND THE SEA, (2022) by Belvoir St Theatre, directed by Eamon Flack and Shakthidharan.

Her earlier Belvoir production was the Adelaide season of COUNTING AND CRACKING , directed by Eamon Flack. She had  also performed at the Winter arts Festival in Perth ( 2017) in a BIRIYANI- directed by Jay Emmanuel.

Her prominent theater projects involve her working with the legendary theatre director Peter Brook and his long time collaborator Marie Hélène Estienne on their  play THE PRISONER,(2018)  which premiered at The Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris,, and a world tour then after.

Her first film venture, also as the female protagonist, was the Cannes 2015 Palme’d Or winner DHEEPAN directed by the French director Jacques Audiard. 

Her first film in her home country, SIVARANJANIYUM INNUM SILA PENGALUM directed by Vasanth S Sai,  garnered National awards along with many international accolades.

She was on the European tour of LAND OF ASHES AND DIAMONDS that dealt with stories from the Second World War and the war in Srilanka; and in KUNTI KARNA,  based on the Mahabharata, by Indianostrum Theatre.

She was one of the international performers at FIGURE STUDIES : a performative installation bridging art, identity and fashion -a performance that was conceived in collaboration with the Ethical fashion initiative and directed by Andrew Ondrejcak.BOZAR in Brussels.

She had been individually involved in theatre with and for children, specifically from the south of India, in rural areas and cities alike, working with a wide spectrum of children.

She is also a Somatic Practitioner working  with the interconnection of body and emotions.

Rajan Velu

Rajan is a graduate of the Actors Centre in Sydney. His Theatre credits include Counting and Cracking, The Jungle and the Sea, Life of Galileo (Belvoir), Emerald City (Ensemble Theatre), Norm and Ahmed (Australia Theatre Live), Friends in Transient Places (Fresh Produce’d, Los Angeles), Lost: The Musical (Chinless Productions, Los Angeles), The Changeling, Henry V (Independent Shakespeare Company, Los Angeles), The Last Highway (Urban Theatre Projects, Sydney Festival), Fearless N (Theatre Kantanka) and The Drum (Sydney Opera House).

His TV credits include The Disposables (Photo Play), Savage River (ABC TV), Born To Spy (Aquarius Films), Doctor Doctor (Nine Network), RFDS (Network 7), Diary of an Uber Driver (Revolver Films), Reef Break (ABC Studios International), Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (CBS), Scandal (ABC), Brooklyn Nine Nine (CBS), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW) and Hollywood Heights (Nickelodeon).

Rajan’s film credits include This Little Love of Mine, Bug, Eat Spirit Eat, Honeyglue, Superman Returns and the award winning short You Can’t Curry Love.

Indu Balachandran

Indu Balachandran is a Sydney-based musician and cultural producer. She has learnt veena from her mother Malathi Nagarajan and her grandmother Smt. Bhagirathi Narasimhan. Indu has also trained in vocal music.

Indu is interested in creating work that speaks to being in place in Australia. She co-directed and performed in Bhoomi: Our Country for the Sydney Festival in 2021, Behind Closed Doors to engage communities in issues of family violence in 2025, Gai-mariagal Festival in 2024, and the Melbourne Veena Festival in 2022. Her film – Her Inner Song – explores stories of older Indian-Australian women in Carnatic music, screening nationally and internationally.

Indu is an elected councillor for Ku-ring-gai, a board director in the social sector, and advises the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Arjunan Puveendran

Arjunan is a vocalist and percussionist. He has co-presented and performed in various arts projects including: Atma: Music and Movement (2017), Bhakti: Art and Devotion (2018), Bhoomi: Woman and Earth (2019), Re-imagining Dance: Brown Bodies on the Global Stage (2020) along with Bhoomi: Our Country for Sydney Festival 2021. He was Composer and Musician on the critically acclaimed mainstage play The Jungle and the Sea (2022) by Belvoir St Theatre and Lingalayam Dance Company for which he won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Original Score.  He also featured in the multi-award-winning play Counting and Cracking (2019) by Belvoir and Co-Curious. He has sung for digital works: short film Anthi (2021) by Iqbal Barkat; ABC’s first Tik-Tok series The Disposables (2023); and Monica Rani Rudhar’s work for Sydney Biennale (2026). He performed dramatic monologue and vocals for Idam: Place (2022). Arjunan was named by the Australia Council in its cohort of 25 Arts Leaders in 2020.  He currently serves on the Board of Company B Limited (Belvoir St Theatre).

Now based in Sydney, Arjunan trained in Carnatic vocal music from Sivaganga OAM and mridangam under Balasri Rasiah, both under the auspices of Chandrabhanu Bharatalaya Academy in Melbourne. He has undergone further training with leading Carnatic musicians based in Chennai including mridangist T R Sundaresan.

Arjunan’s body of work also comprises music and rhythmic composition, particularly for Bharatanatyam dancers including the internationally acclaimed Christopher Gurusamy such as collaborations for his works Ananda: Dance of Joy (2024) and 5 Arrows (UTP 2025; Sydney Dance Company 2026), along with other leading dance practitioners in Australia including Dr Chandrabhanu OAM and Anandavalli. He has produced and performed works as part of Taste of India, a long running project supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria with performances for the Darebin Music Feast, Piers Festival and Castlemaine Festival. He widely performs Carnatic music for recitals and dance productions including Sringaram (2022), Asura Natyam (2024) and Ullam (2025).

Dale Ferguson

Dale Ferguson’s credits for Belvoir include The Jungle and the Sea, Sami in Paradise, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Brothers Wreck and The Power of Yes.

Dales other theatre credits include Death of a Salesman (GWB, Andrew Henry Presents) 37, Come Rain or Come Shine, An Ideal Husband, The Weir, The Speechmaker, The Crucible, Top Girls (MTC); A German Life (Adelaide Festival); Emerald City, L’Appartement (Queensland Theatre); Because the Night, Away, Brothers Wreck, Night on Bald Mountain, Dance of Death, Timeshare (Malthouse Theatre); Exit the King (Broadway); Cosi, Away, Les Liasions Dangereues (Sydney Theatre Company). Opera credits are Tosca (Opera Queensland WA Opera); The Magic Flute (Lyric Opera of Chicago); Anything Goes (Opera Australia); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2021 Adelaide Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Canadian Opera).

Dale received Helpmann Awards for August: Osage County and for Counting and Cracking. He has also received a number of Green Room Awards, most recently in 2022 for Because the Night and Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Exit the King on Broadway.

Dale is a Lecturer in Performance Design at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Based in: Melbourne, Australia

Arjunan Puveendran

Arjunan is a vocalist and percussionist. He has co-presented and performed in various arts projects including: Atma: Music and Movement (2017), Bhakti: Art and Devotion (2018), Bhoomi: Woman and Earth (2019), Re-imagining Dance: Brown Bodies on the Global Stage (2020) along with Bhoomi: Our Country for Sydney Festival 2021. He was Composer and Musician on the critically acclaimed mainstage play The Jungle and the Sea (2022) by Belvoir St Theatre and Lingalayam Dance Company for which he won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Original Score.  He also featured in the multi-award-winning play Counting and Cracking (2019) by Belvoir and Co-Curious. He has sung for digital works: short film Anthi (2021) by Iqbal Barkat; ABC’s first Tik-Tok series The Disposables (2023); and Monica Rani Rudhar’s work for Sydney Biennale (2026). He performed dramatic monologue and vocals for Idam: Place (2022). Arjunan was named by the Australia Council in its cohort of 25 Arts Leaders in 2020.  He currently serves on the Board of Company B Limited (Belvoir St Theatre).

Now based in Sydney, Arjunan trained in Carnatic vocal music from Sivaganga OAM and mridangam under Balasri Rasiah, both under the auspices of Chandrabhanu Bharatalaya Academy in Melbourne. He has undergone further training with leading Carnatic musicians based in Chennai including mridangist T R Sundaresan.

Arjunan’s body of work also comprises music and rhythmic composition, particularly for Bharatanatyam dancers including the internationally acclaimed Christopher Gurusamy such as collaborations for his works Ananda: Dance of Joy (2024) and 5 Arrows (UTP 2025; Sydney Dance Company 2026), along with other leading dance practitioners in Australia including Dr Chandrabhanu OAM and Anandavalli. He has produced and performed works as part of Taste of India, a long running project supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria with performances for the Darebin Music Feast, Piers Festival and Castlemaine Festival. He widely performs Carnatic music for recitals and dance productions including Sringaram (2022), Asura Natyam (2024) and Ullam (2025).

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.

Steve Francis

Steve has worked extensively in theatre, dance and screen. His Belvoir credits include The True History of the Life and Death of King Lear and his Three Daughters, The Wrong Gods, The Weekend, Jungle and the Sea, Tell me I’m Here, 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 Sound Inside, The Children, The Weir, The Sublime (MTC); Julia, No Pay No Way, Appropriate, Beauty Queen of Leanne, Still Point Turning, The Father, The Hanging, Disgraced, Battle of Waterloo, Switzerland, The Long Way Home, The Secret River, Machinal and Bloodland (STC); Boy Swallows Universe (QT); Love Stories (Brisbane Festival); Hamlet, Henry V (Bell Shakespeare); and Between Two Waves, This Year’s Ashes, Speaking in Tongues (Griffin).

For dance, Steve has composed music for Baleen (Adelaide Festival), Horizon, 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.

Véronique Benett

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

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

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

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

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

Mehhma Malhi

Mehhma Malhi is an up-and-coming director. She has experience in philosophy, bioethics, and journalism and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Politics from New York University and a Master of Science in Bioethics from Columbia University.  

At NIDA she held the Animal Logic Entertainment scholarship. Her directorial work includes Ephemera By Anchuli Felicia King ‘23, Poof! By Lynn Nottage (Actors Centre Australia and NIDA ‘23), Dragonfly – Peach Fur Music Video (Triple J ‘24),  ALL BOYS by Xavier Hazard (KXT Storytellers Festival), The Mountain Remembers by Daley Rangi (Lysicrates Prize ‘24), Kufa the Hero by James Elazzi (Martin Lysicrates ‘24), ALL BOYS (KXT -Full Season ‘24), Amber by Nikita Waldron (Old Fitz ‘25), Fitz Happens by Melanie Tait, Mary Rachel Brown, Louis Nowra, Kate Mulvany, and Nicholas Brown (Old Fitz ‘25) and she acted as assistant director for Jessica Arthur in Kindness by Matthew Whittet.  

ALL BOYS (KXT – full season 2024) was nominated for best ensemble at the STA awards, and Mehhma won for best emerging director at the 2025 KXT awards. Dragonfly won Best Music Video in the Prague Music Awards, Best Director in the LA Music Awards, and was officially selected in the 2024 London Music Video Festival.

In between directing, Mehhma undertakes producing, note-taking, director’s attachments, and production roles for film and theatre companies across Sydney.

She is currently in development for two tv shows  with Screen Australia and is a director’s attach on a STAN documentary. Further she is Belvoir St Theatre’s Andrew Cameron Fellow. 

Mehhma is passionate about sharing everyday stories that often go unheard, inspiring empathy through the narratives she presents, and bringing ethical dilemmas to the forefront. Mehhma hopes her work will draw together all elements of community and excite audiences who otherwise would not engage with the theatre.

Peter Sutherland

At Belvoir St Theatre, Pete Sutherland has stage managed Single Asian Female, My Name is Jimi, and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

He has recently finished stage managing the national tour of Art, directed by Lee Lewis.

Pete’s career in stage management spans almost 30 years. After graduating from NIDA’s technical production course in 1997, he went on to stage manage mainstage productions for every state theatre company in Australia, with many of Australia’s finest directors.

Pete is particularly proud of the work he has done in First Nations theatre, most recently the national tour of Jane Harrison’s The Visitors in 2024/25, (Sydney Theatre Company / Moogahlin Performing Arts) directed by Wesley Enoch, which toured to 25 regional venues and capital cities around Australia.

Pete stage managed many mainstage national tours with The Bell Shakespeare Company for over a decade, under the leadership of John Bell.

Other highlights of his career include stage managing for the Queensland Theatre Company regularly since 1998.

Mia Kanzaki

Mia Kanzaki is a Sydney based stage manager. As Stage Manager, her credits include The Face of Jizo (OMUSUBI Productions & Red Line Productions) and Tiddas (Belvoir). As Assistant Stage Manager, her credits include The River, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Picnic at Hanging Rock (Sydney Theatre Company), The Wrong Gods, Counting and Cracking Australia & New York Tour, Holding the Man, The Weekend, At What Cost? National Tour, Blessed Union (Belvoir St Theatre), The Heartbreak Choir and Summer of Harold (Ensemble Theatre). 

She is a graduate of WAAPA’s Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage Management). 

Thinesh Thillainadarajah

Thinesh is an Eelam Tamil Queer lawyer and creative hailing from Toronto, Canada. Aside from his day job as a banking lawyer, he is the creator and co-producer of You Have Been Told A Lie, a podcast that chronicles the journey of the Nadesalingam family and Tamil asylum seekers, geopolitics, border surveillance, and Australia’s complicity in human rights violations domestically and abroad. You Have Been Told A Lie won Best News and Affairs Podcast at the 2023 iHeart Australian Podcast Awards. He is also the creative producer of Hot Sauce, a gathering that aims to create an intentional space to celebrate the lives of queer people of colour. Thinesh has also been involved in Community Engagement with the Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney Festival, and Artspace. He currently serves on the Board of Utp in Western Sydney and Passage Gallery in Haymarket.