THE SPARE ROOM

Helen Garner

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.

Elizabeth Alexander

Judy Davis

Emma Diaz

Emma Diaz is an actor and producer based in Sydney. A graduate of WAAPA Acting, her theatre credits include Blessed Union (Belvoir), The Great Divide (Ensemble), On The Beach (Sydney Theatre Company), 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), Isaac’s Dream (Triangle Films), 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 on MUBI and SBS.

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.

Alan Dukes

Hannah Waterman

Mel Page

Mel is a set and costume designer.

Costume designs for Belvoir St Theatre include: Japser Jones, Ivanov, Kill The Messenger, Seventeen, Nora, The Glass Menagerie, A Christmas Carol, Elektra/Orestes, The Government Inspector, Hamlet, Angels In America, & Strange Interlude. Set & Costume designs include: Taste Of Honey, Enemy Of The People, Back At The Dojo, Medea and Small & Tired.

Opera designs include costumes for Lear & Médée for Salzburg Festival; Die Tote Stadt for Bayerisch Staatsoper & Theater Basel and Pelleas Et Melisande for Den Norske Opera & Ballet.

Other theatre credits include costumes for Engel In Amerika for Theater Basel; Drei Schwestern for Theater Basel & L’Odeon; Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Mary Stuart Les Liasions Dangereuses and Baal for Sydney Theatre Company; La Pompeii for Malthouse Theatre and Complexity Of Belonging for Chunky Move. Set and costume designs include: Lethal Indifference for Sydney Theatre Company; Night Maybe for Theatreworks; Minnie & Liraz and The Apocalypse Bear Trilogy for Melbourne Theatre Company.

Mel was the proud recipient of the 2016 George Fairfax Memorial Award, and has won a Sydney Theatre Award.

Paul Jackson

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.

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.

Based in: Sydney, Australia

Mehhma Malhi

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, Holding the Man, 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.

Adam Mada

Adam Mada is a magician and magic / illusion / special effects consultant, designer and director for theatre, film, literature and live events. Adam is currently the head of magic for the N.I.D.A, Australia’s Got Talent and The Metaverse Of Magic.

Theatre consultancy and illusion design credits include; The Metaverse Of Magic – (Jones Theatrical),  The Tales Of Hoffman – (Opera Australia), Possum Magic National tour 2023 (Monkey Baa Theatre Co.), The Tempest (Sydney Theatre Company), Ghost Stories (Realscape Productions), Blithe Spirit (Sydney Theatre Company),  Harry Potter and The Cursed Child – Parts 1 and 2 (Michael Cassel Group), Wicked The Musical (Hamburg), Perfect Stranger (N.I.D.A), Digital Theatre Festival (N.I.D.A), Mada’s Magic Marvels (Sydney Opera House), Seamless (Merrigong Theatre Reboot Grant), Possum Magic 2018 National Tour (Monkey Baa Theatre), POOF! – (James Galea, Sydney Festival) The Seasonal Warriors (private production),  Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Sydney Theatre Company); The Chamber of Secrets (National Drama Centre Singapore); Marco Panzic’s Dream Dance (National tour); The Outside Man (Merrigong Theatre Company) and The Threepenny Opera (WAAPA). 

Literary/Film/TV consultancy credits include; Australia’s Got Talent (2021 /2022), Magic Mayhem (Channel 10 Shake), The Extraordinaries (ABC ME), The Gentlemen’s Guide To knife Fighting (ABC), Sleeping Beauty (2011), Tips,Tricks,TikTok & Good Vibes (Ash Magic, Penguin Australia), Empire of Enchantment (John Zubrzycki, Hurst) and  Siren (Tara Moss, Harper Collins) 

Adam is the founder and director of Magic Inc. a company that fosters emerging magic talent as well as creating custom magic and illusion design and props for advertising activations and special events.

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.

Antony Waddington