THE SPARE ROOM

Helen Garner

Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award. In 2019 she was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. Her books include Monkey Grip, The Spare Room, This House of Grief and Everywhere I Look.

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

Elizabeth Alexander has worked in theatre, film and television.

Her theatre credits include The Great, Betrayal, Old Times, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Heretic, The Merchant of Venice, Tartuffe, A Winter’s Tale and Uncle Vanya.

Her film credits include Blueback, The Eye of the Storm, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Fatal Honeymoon, and Summerfield.

Her TV credits include Clickbait, The Secrets She Keeps, Singles, Farscape and Time Trax.

Judy Davis

Judy Davis graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and came to prominence for her role in Gillian Armstrong’s Academy Award nominated adaptation of Miles Franklin’s MY BRILLIANT CAREER, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and Best Newcomer. Following this, she played the lead in Australian New Wave classics WINTER OF OUR DREAMS and HEATWAVE.

The three-time Emmy Award winner has portrayed formidable real-life women on TV, including the notorious felon, Sante Kimes, in A LITTLE THING CALLED MURDER and Hollywood legend Judy Garland in the miniseries LIFE WITH JUDY GARLAND: ME AND MY SHADOWS. Davis made television history when LIFE WITH JUDY GARLAND received the most nominations for a single performance and won every award she was nominated for, including the Emmy, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and the American Film Institute Award. Her other significant television roles include her Emmy Award winning role as Diane in SERVING IN SILENCE: THE MARGARETHE CAMMERMEYER STORY opposite Glenn Close, with subsequent nominations for her repressed Australian outback mother in THE ECHO OF THUNDER, her portrayal of Lillian Hellman in DASH AND LILLY, her frigid society matron in A COOLER CLIMATE, her interpretation of Nancy Reagan in the controversial biopic THE REAGANS and Joan in THE STARTER WIFE, for which she won her third Emmy. She has also appeared in Ryan Murphy’s series FEUD as notorious Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, for which she received another Emmy nomination, and ABC’s television adaptation of MYSTERY ROAD with Aaron Pederson. Most recently she can be seen in Justin Kurzel’s critically acclaimed NITRAM, and as Nurse Betsy Bucket in Ryan Murphy’s series RATCHED.

Davis received Academy Award nominations for her roles in A PASSAGE TO INDIA and Woody Allen’s HUSBANDS AND WIVES. She also performed in Allen’s TO ROME WITH LOVE, CELEBRITY, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY and ALICE.

Additional film credits include NITRAM which won her a AACTA for best actress, THE DRESSMAKER, THE YOUNG AND PRODIGIOUS TS SPIVIT, MARIE ANTOINETTE, THE BREAK-UP, KANGAROO, IMPROMPTU, NAKED LUNCH, BARTON FINK, THE REF, ON MY OWN, BLOOD AND WINE, CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, ABSOLUTE POWER and HIGH TIDE.

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

For theatre, Alan has appeared in THE PRESIDENT, HAY FEVER, KING LEAR, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, NOISES OFF, THE WHITE GUARD, TRUE WEST, THE GREAT, DEAD CAESAR, THE UNLIKELY PROSPECT OF HAPPINESS (Sydney Theatre Company), THIS MUCH IS TRUE, MERCY THIEVES (Redline Productions / Old Fitz), AS YOU LIKE IT (Bell Shakespeare), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Company B), CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION, MARY STUART (Ensemble Theatre), SHINING CITY, ALIVE AT WILLIAMSTOWN PIER (Griffin Theatre Company), A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (Sydney Symphony Orchestra), BRILLIANT MONKEY, RUBY’S LAST DOLLAR and LAST CAB TO DARWIN (Pork Chop Productions).

Film credits include Thomas M. Wright’s THE STRANGER,  HEARTS AND BONES, LAST CAB TO DARWIN,  BOOK WEEK, THE LITTLE DEATH and BENEATH HILL 60. Alan was also the voice of Brett in the acclaimed documentary WHITELEY.

Alan’s television credits include RETURN TO PARADISE (BBC Studios), BUMP (Roadshow), FIVE BEDROOMS (Paramount Plus), LAST KING OF THE CROSS (Paramount Plus), SIGNIFICANT OTHERS (ABC), WOLF LIKE ME (Peacock), OPERATION BUFFALO (ABC), THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS(DCD), DOCTOR DOCTOR (Channel Nine), NO ACTIVITY (Stan), and  JACK IRISH (ABC)

Hannah Waterman

Training: National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. University of Warwick, Bachelor of Arts (English & Theatre) 1996.

Theatre (Australia) Colder Than Here (Ensemble Theatre Company) Mary Poppins (Michael Cassell Group) Wicked Sisters (Griffin Theatre Company); Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (Michael Cassel Group); The Almighty Sometimes (Griffin Theatre Company); Talk (Sydney Theatre Company); The Kitchen Sink (Ensemble Theatre Company); Side Show (One Eyed Man Productions); The Whale (Red Line Productions); Mr Stink (CDP); Love Letters (Hit Productions); The Summer of Harold (Ensemble).

Television: NCIS Sydney (Endemol Shine Australia) Bali 2002 (Peter Andrikidis Channel9/Stan), Home and Away (Channel 9) 
UK Television including but not all: Eastenders, The Bill, New Tricks, The Afternoon Play, Tess of The D’urbervilles, Trial and Retribution.

Film: Mercy Road (John Curran, Arclight Pictures); Patient 17 (Tuyet Lee); Voice artist on The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent).

Awards & Nominations: Winner of the National Shakespeare on a Platform Competition (New Globe Theatre)
1993, nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Almighty Sometimes (GLUGS) 2018.

A proud member of Actors Equity.

Anthea Cottee

Anthea performs on a variety of instruments from modern, baroque and classical cello to viola da gamba and basse de violon. She enjoys the challenges of exploring the different instruments and the changes of nuance and colour they bring to the music.

Anthea has performed on both cello and gamba for Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia, poppers Australia and Bach Akademie Australia. She toured with Circa for their acclaimed program ‘Il Ritorno’ and was featured in the film A Delicate Fire produced by Pinchgut Opera.

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

Paul is a multi-award-winning designer who has worked with Australia’s leading arts organisations and internationally. For Belvoir, credits include Life of Galileo, Seventeen, Nora, Oedipus Rex, Happy Days, It Just Stopped. Other work includes: Solaris, Cloud Street, Blasted, Melancholia, Bliss (with Belvoir), The Testament of Mary, The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man, Black Rider, Away, I am a Miracle, Blaque Showgirls, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid, Edward II, Night on Bald Mountain, Antigone, Timeshare, Hello, Goodbye and Happy Birthday, Little Match Girl, Die Winterreise, The Threepenny Opera, Vamp, The Tell–Tale Heart, Sleeping Beauty (also co-creator), The Odyssey (Malthouse Theatre); Love and Information, The Histrionic, The Trial (Sydney Theatre Company/Malthouse); The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Mary Stuart, True West, The Mysteries: Genesis (Sydney Theatre Company); The Merchant of Venice, Othello, As You Like It, Phedre, Tartuffe, Julius Caesar (Bell Shakespeare); Home, I’m Darling, Arbus and West, Gloria, Three Little Words, Hay Fever, Di, Viv and Rose, Private Lives, Miss Julie, Endgame, Ghosts, The Crucible (Melbourne Theatre Company); Echo and Narcissus, Cassandra, Lorelei (Victorian Opera). He has won a Helpmann Award, seven Green Room Awards, two Sydney Theatre Award and three APDG awards. He is both a Churchill and an Australia Council Fellow. Paul has lectured in design and associated studies at the University of Melbourne, RMIT and VCA.

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 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.

Mehhma Malhi

Mehhma Malhi recently directed Amber (The Old Fitz) and All Boys (KXT on Broadway). Other theatre credits include directing Poof! By Lynn Nottage (Actors Centre Australia and NIDA), Ephemera by Anchuli Felicia King (NIDA), and as assistant director for Jessica Arthur on Kindness (NIDA). Mehhma was awarded the 2024 KXT Excellence in Directing award.

Mehhma is a graduate of the MFA program at NIDA where she was awarded the Animal Logic Entertainment scholarship. She also holds a Masters of Science in Bioethics from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s Degree from New York University.

Mehhma directed the music video Peach Fur for band Dragonfly which won Best Australian Music Video in the Prague Music Awards, Best Director in the LA Music Awards, and was an Official Selection for the London Music Video Festival.

In between directing roles, Mehhma works in production and producing roles for theatre and film companies. 

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

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 N.I.D.A & Australia’s Got Talent.

Theatre consultancy and illusion design credits include; Beetlejuice (Michael Cassel Group), The Lord Of The Rings A Musical Tale (GWB Entertainment & Middle Earth Enterprises), Siegfried & Roy The Unauthorised Opera (Sydney Festival & Opera Australia) The Master & Margarita (Belvoir), 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.

Luke McGettigan

Luke is Belvoir’s Resident Stage Manager. For Belvoir, he has stage managed 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).

Grace Sackman

Grace is an emerging Stage Manager who graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) with a BFA in Technical Theatre & Stage Management. 

Grace’s recent credits include ASM Sound on Guys & Dolls (HOSH-OA), ASM Swing on The Nutcracker (Aus Ballet), Props Assistant on & Juliet (MCG), ASM on Flat Earthers The Musical (Hayes Theatre Co), Rehearsal Room Stage Manager on Nayika A Dancing Girl (Belvoir), Stage Manager on The Turn Of The Screw (Hayes Theatre Co), Stage Manager on The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee (Hayes Theatre Co) and has worked with Sydney Festival for the past four years. Most recently as Assistant Event Coordinator at Roslyn Packer Theatre.

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