WAYSIDE BRIDE

Alana Valentine

Belvoir audiences have warmly embraced Alana’s work as a playwright in The Sugar House (2018) Barbara and the Camp Dogs, co-written with Ursula Yovich (2017/2019), Parramatta Girls (2007) and Run Rabbit Run (2004).

In October 2021 The Sugar House was given an acclaimed UK premiere at Finborough Theatre in London and in August 2021 Steamworks productions in Perth remounted a 20 year anniversary production of Savage Grace (with the same cast) at the State Theatre of WA. Having worked with Bangarra Dance Theatre for ten years as dramaturg, in 2022 Alana was the co-writer, with Stephen Page, of WUDJANG: Not the Past, music by Steve Francis. At the 2022 Adelaide Festival Alana was the co-librettist, with Christos Tsiolkas, of WATERSHED: The Death of Dr Duncan, music by Joe Twist, directed by Neil Armfield.

Alana won the 2021 Australian Writers Guild Award for Music Theatre for her libretto Notre Dame, was nominated in 2020 for her libretto Flight Memory and was also nominated in 2019 for her co-written libretto, with Ursula Yovich, for Barbara and the Camp Dogs. BACD also won Helpmann Awards in 2019, including Best Original Score and Best Musical, and 2020 Green Room Awards, including Best Original Score and Best New Australian Work. Alana and Ursula Yovich are working on a screen version of BATCD to be produced by Bunya Productions.

Her plays are published by Currency Press, including a book about her verbatim/close work practice – BOWERBIRD: The art of making theatre drawn from life. In 2019 the Seymour Centre in Australia presented Made To Measure, a commission from the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, where Alana was Writer in Residence. In September 2022 she will collaborate with erth visual and physical theatre on a new work arc.

Eamon Flack

Belvoir’s Artistic Director.

Eamon Flack finished his BA at the University of Queensland in 2000 and trained as an actor at WAAPA from 2001 to 2003. He has since worked as a director, writer, actor and dramaturg around Australia and internationally, from Milikapiti on the Tiwi Islands to London.

For Belvoir, Eamon’s directing credits include Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan), Angels in America, The Glass Menagerie, Packer and Sons, Ghosts, Ivanov, Babyteeth, Life of Galileo, As You Like It, The Rover, Twelfth Night, The Blind Giant is Dancing and The End. He was Associate Writer with S. Shakthidharan on Counting and Cracking.

He co-adapted Ruby Langford Ginibi’s memoir Don’t Take Your Love to Town with Leah Purcell, and co-devised Beautiful One Day with artists from ILBIJERRI, version 1.0 and Palm Island.

His adaptations include Chekhov’s Ivanov, Gorky’s Summerfolk, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Ghosts. Ivanov won four Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Mainstage Production and Best Direction. The Glass Menagerie and Angels in America both won Best Play at the Helpmann Awards. Counting and Cracking won Best Play, Best Direction and Best New Work at the Helpmann Awards, the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Victorian Literary Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama.

Hannah Goodwin

Hannah Goodwin is a director and dramaturg who lives and works on Gadigal land. Hannah’s work includes The Sorry Mum Project by Pippa Ellams (Bondi Feast, Adelaide Fringe and National Theatre of Parramatta), 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 and Kings Cross Theatre). She will make her mainstage debut on the Repertoire Season at Belvoir in 2022, co-directing Wayside Bride by Alana Valentine and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire by Caryl Churchill alongside Eamon Flack. Hannah’s work as an assistant director includes Black Brass by Mararo Wangai (dir. Matt Edgerton, Belvoir), Stop Girl by Sally Sara (dir. Anne-Louise Sarks, Belvoir), My Brilliant Career adapted by Kendall Feaver (dir. Kate Champion, Belvoir), Packer and Sons by Tommy Murphy (dir. Eamon Flack, Belvoir), Love by Patricia Cornelius (dir. Rachel Chant, Darlinghurst Theatre Company) and Dresden by Justin Fleming (dir. Suzanne Miller, Kings Cross Theatre). 

Hannah was the Andrew Cameron Fellow at Belvoir from 2020 to 2022, and she was the 2019 recipient of the ATYP Rose Byrne Leadership Scholarship. Hannah is currently a Resident Director at Belvoir St Theatre.

Arkia Ashraf

Arkia is a 2020 graduate of the Actors Centre Australia. Since graduating, his theatre credits include: You’re Not Special (RogueProjects/KXTBakehouse), Christmas-19 (Loose End Productions), Experiments in Theatre and Cinema (Riverside Theatres), Smoke and Glass (KXT/Montague Basement Development). His credits at the Actors Centre include: Twelfth Night(dir. Adam Cook), The Rover (dir. Claudia Barrie), Our Country’s Good (dir. Adam Cook), Burn This (dir. Anthony Gooley), The Motherfu*ker with the Hat (dir. Troy Harrison), Love and Information (dir. Olivia Hall-Smith), What Falls Away (dir. Anthony Skuse/Julia Cotton) and The Trojan Women (dir. Adam Cook).

Maggie Blinco

Maggie has had an extensive career spanning four decades, with leading roles in Australian film, television and theatre. In 2020 Maggie was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sydney Theatre Awards.

Her most recent theatre credits include; John for Outhouse Theatre at the Seymour Centre, Omar and Dawn for Apocalypse Theatre & Green Door Theatre at KXT, Dead White Males and Summer of the Aliens both for STC, One Day of the Year for Melbourne Theatre Company, Oliver!, An Ideal Husband, A Little Like Drowning, Child Dancing and numerous productions for the Playbox Theatre Company. Other theatre credits include: The Greening of Grace for Wildie Creative Enterprises, The Embers Tour with Hot House Theatre as well as Kiss Me Like You Mean It at the Fitzroy Theatre in 2008 and in 2009 as Mag Folan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane for Wildfire Productions.  This production was extended for a second season at the Seymour Centre.  Maggie played Agnes in the Australian tour of Biddies for Christine Dunstan Productions and Big Edie in Grey Gardens the Musical for Squabbalogic. 

Maggie has also appeared in an innumerable amount of iconic TV shows as well, including: Harrow, Doctor Doctor, Bent 101, Rake, All Saints, The Moodys, The Wicked, Blue Heelers, White Collar Blue, Above the Law, McLeod’s Daughters and Escape of the Artful Dodger.  Her film work includes: A Stitch in Time (lead role), Crocodile Dundee 1 & 2, Cheek to Cheek, Flirting, and The Man Who Sued God.

Maggie was nominated for Best Actress in a Short Film in the 2012 Los Angeles Comedy Festival for her performance in the film Boo (AFTRS). In 2016, she was also nominated for Best Actress at the Madrid Short Film Festival for her performance in Solitude.

Rashidi Edward

Rashidi trained at the Adelaide College of the Arts. Most recently he performed in the State Theatre Company South Australia’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a season that also included the Sydney Festival and Queensland Theatre. Other productions with the company include Hibernation, A Doll’s House, Macbeth, Sense & Sensibility, In The Club. Additionally, he performed in Theatre Republic’s Lines, Adelaide Festival’s  Allope and  Essential Theatre’s  Romeo and Juliet. He is thrilled to be making his Belvoir debut with the exciting undertaking that is the Rep Season!

Marco Chiappi

Marco is a very accomplished theatre performer with many credits to his name across Australia.

Previous Belvoir Theatre credits include Bliss (a Belvoir co-production with Malthouse). Other theatre credits include The Father; His Girl Friday; Grapes of Wrath; Macbeth; The Rover; Dealer’s Choice; A Doll’s House; Closer; Death of a Salesman; Duchess of Malfi; Tempest (for Melbourne Theatre Company). Away, Love & Information (co-productions between STC and Malthouse); Pygmalion; Jerusalem (Sydney Theatre Company). Edward II; Woyzeck; A Pacific Union; Jerusalem (Malthouse). Phedre; Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Richard III (Bell Shakespeare). The Lower Depths; Ninth Moon; Funniest Man in the World; Scissors; Paper; Rock (Keene/Taylor), Popcorn (Black Swan). Torrez (Griffin Theatre). The Misanthrope; The Real Thing; Noises Off; The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (STCSA). Dreamers; The Lower Depths (Fortyfive Downstairs). Reckless (Theatreworks).

Television: Wentworth, Deadline Gallipoli; Parer’s War; Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries; Upper Middle Bogan; The Mystery of the Hansom Cab. Film: Holding the Man; The Boy Castaways; Amy; Mr Reliable.

Marco is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.

Emily Goddard

Emily Goddard graduated from Ecole Philippe Gaulier, Paris in 2010, supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and Empire Theatres Bursary. Recent theatre credits include Wayside Bride and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Belvoir St), Australian Realness (Malthouse), Noises Off, The Boy at The Edge of Everything & Elling (Melbourne Theatre Company), Angels in America & The Lonely Wolf (Dirty Pretty Theatre), Lamb, You Got Older & Glory Dazed (Red Stitch), Hamlet (ASC), Inner Voices (Red Line/Old Fitz), Mess (The Bush/UK National tour/China Plate), The Unspoken Word is Joe (Brisbane Festival/MKA), Moth (Arena), The Walls (Attic/Erratic) and Os Pequenos Nadas (Ultimo Comboio Teatro, Barcelona). Screen credits include Clickbait, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Neighbours, Newton’s Law and Twentysomething. Also a Theatre maker, her critically acclaimed solo show This is Eden (Hothouse/45 Downstairs) was winner of the 2018 Drama Victoria Award and will tour nationally in 2022. She has been nominated for three Green Room Awards for Outstanding Female Actor, most recently for This is Eden. She is currently completing her Masters of Screenwriting at the VCA. 

Sandy Greenwood

Sandy is a First Nations Actor, Writer and Arts Educator from the Dunghutti, Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung tribes of Australia. She has a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Honours) from the Queensland University of Technology and has trained at Atlantic Acting School in New York City, and The Groundlings in Los Angeles.  

Sandy has performed with a number of Australia’s leading theatre companies, including Belvoir’s At What Cost?, Sydney Theatre Company, playing leading roles in Stolen and Taboo, Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Stage, Ilbijerri Indigenous Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company’s Dogged. Sandy has also performed on the international stage at Seattle Children’s Theatre Company in Afternoon of the Elves. On screen she has appeared in the US blockbuster Killer Elite alongside Robert de Niro, for which she received a Deadly Award nomination for Outstanding Actress, she was also the lead in the feature film Little Black Dress. Other short film credits include: Candy Cravings, Blind Date, Crossing, All is Forgiven, The Shoe Whisperer, Flame of the West, Love Crossed, A Metamorphosis Engineered. 

Sandy was a Producer’s attachment on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries S2.

In Australia Sandy is perhaps best known for her critically-acclaimed one-woman show, Matriarch, for which she was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Writing, and received a Green Room Award for Best Performer, Independent Theatre in 2019.

Sacha Horler

Sacha is one of Australia’s most loved and respected actors. Her theatre credits for Belvoir include The Sugar House, Peribanez, Blue Murder, The Birthday Party, Hamlet, Svetlana in Slingbacks and Cursed!. Sacha’s other theatre credits include Other Desert Cities (Melbourne Theatre Company); and Mariage Blanc, God of Carnage, The Removalists, The Crucible, Pygmalion, Three Sisters, Far Away, Life After George (Sydney Theatre Company). Recent screen credits include season two of the acclaimed ABC / Netflix comedy The Letdown, the second season of Foxtel’s political thriller Secret City and the big budget Sony film sequel Peter Rabbit 2. In 2018 she played the title role in ABC comedy series Sando and appeared on the big screen in the original Peter Rabbit. Prior to that she appeared in two award winning Foxtel series’, The Kettering Incident and the first season of Secret City and opposite Kate Winslet in Jocelyn Morehouse’s hit film The Dressmaker. She had the unprecedented joy of winning two AFI awards on one night for the lead role in Praise and supporting role in Soft Fruit, she won her third AFI award for best supporting actress in Travelling Light. Sacha’s other screen work includes The Letdown season one, The Moodys, Jack Irish, Catching Milat, Old School, Black Comedy, Beaconsfield, Hawke, Love My Way, Offspring, Dance Academy, Crownies, Rake, Small Time Gangster, Home And Away and A Few Less Men. She received AFI Award nominations for My Year Without Sex, Secret Bridesmaids Business, Russian Doll and Grass Roots.

Rebecca Massey

Rebecca Massey is considered one of Australia’s most versatile and accomplished film, television and theatre actresses. She’s been nominated and won numerous awards including a Green Room Award for Best Actress, and two Helpmann nominations.

Rebecca has appeared in starring roles for flagship theatre companies all over Australia. Her company Club House Productions produced 44 Sex Acts in One Week, as part of this year’s Sydney Festival. She performed Dance Nation for the State Theatre Company of South Australia, The Misanthrope for The Bell Shakespeare Company, Kill Climate Deniers for Griffin Theatre Company, and Chimerica, Dinner, After Dinner, Perplex and Travesties for the Sydney Theatre Company. Belvoir credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Book of Everything, Exit the King, It Just Stopped, Stuff Happens, The Underpants, Macbeth, Cloudstreet, The Small Poppies amongst others.

Rebecca has a string of both comic and drama television credits in award winning shows including, Metro Sexual (Seasons 1 & 2), Deep Water, Total Control, Upright, The Principal, Chandon Pictures (Seasons 1 & 2), Lowdown, (Seasons 1 & 2) and Utopia (Seasons 2 – 4). Her film work includes Bad Girl, Accidents Happen, The Black Balloon and Backyard Ashes. She is soon to be seen in ABC’s yet to be released Barons and Del Kathryn Barton’s feature, Blaze.

She is the voice of ‘Mary’ in the Kate’s serial podcast Slushy and ‘Special Agent Maddie Rigs’ for Working Dogs’ adult animation, Pacific Heat.

Brandon McClelland

Brandon graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2012. Brandon’s theatre credits include: The Deep Blue Sea, A Cheery Soul, Saint Joan, Three Sisters, The Present (Broadway Season), A Midsummers Night’s Dream, The Golden Age, The Present, Suddenly Last Summer, and M.Rock, all with Sydney Theatre Company, Packer & Sons, with Belvoir, Girl in the Machine, and Flight Paths, with National Theatre of Parramatta, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Ensemble, Little Borders, with Old 505, Fracture, with New Ghosts Theatre Company, A Town Named Warboy, with ATYP.

Brandon’s film credits include, Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, Roger Pulvers’ Star Sand, James Vanderbilt’s Truth, and Darby Deck’s short films Waking Moon and Walk Right In. His television credits include Doctor Doctor, The Other Guy, Black Comedy, Operation: Buffalo, Here Come the Habibs!, Love Child, Anzac Girls,and Devil’s Playground.

He is also a founding member and performer with comedy troupe ‘The United States of Kensington’

Brandon was twice-nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Mainstage Production from the Sydney Theatre Awards for Packer & Sons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. He also received a 2015 Logie Award nomination for Most Outstanding Newcomer, was shortlisted for the 2015 Heath Ledger scholarship, and won The Equity Award for an Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, both for Anzac Girls.

Angeline Penrith

Angeline is a Wiradjuri and Yuin woman who grew up in the Redfern/Waterloo community.  Making her acting debut at 12 years of age by opening for ABC’s BlackOut, Angeline has gone on to perform in countless film and theatre productions from development to performance.  Her theatre credits include Boori Pryors My Girragundji (Canute Productions), The Dreaming – Wake Up Australia (STC), and Winyanboga Yurringa (Moogahlin Performing Arts). Her Television credits include Cleverman and Black Comedy. 

Angeline has also been involved in numerous play readings and workshops for Belvoir St, Yellamundie First People’s Playwriting Festival. and The Sydney Theatre Company, and has worked alongside talented directors such as Chris Canute, Leah Purcell and Andrea James.

As a community advocate Angeline believes in self-determination and revival of culture which she demonstrates in her MC work for NAIDOC at the 2018 Flag Raising Ceremony at NCIE, as well as Yabun Festival. Angeline hopes her performance career sets an example for young Indigenous actors and that she can continue to be a role model through her recent NITV Quit Smoking campaign and future projects.

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.

Merridy Eastman

A NIDA graduate, Merridy’s television career began with a five-year stint on Playschool, followed by roles on everything from Blue Heelers to Rake. She was a regular cast member on award winning series Always Greener and Packed to the Rafters for Channel 7, as well as Back to the Rafters for Amazon Prime.

On stage Merridy has worked for all the major Australian theatre companies including the Sydney Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox, Malthouse, the Ensemble Theatre, the Australian Shakespeare Company, and the State Theatre Company of South Australia to name a few, and spent several summers leaping about botanical gardens across Australia bringing Shakespeare to the masses. Most recent performances were the popular new Australian comedy The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race! (Ensemble Theatre) and Hand to God (Old Fitz Theatre).

Merridy’s written work includes the national best-selling book There’s A Bear In There (And He Wants Swedish!) as well as Ridiculous Expectations and How Now Brown Frau, all published by Allen and Unwin. She has also written short stories published by Pan Macmillan and Penguin, and radio plays commissioned by the ABC. Currently she is writing her fourth book, I Knew We Weren’t Spanish!, about the discovery that her great-great-grandfather was not a pirate, but a Worimi man from Paterson, New South Wales.

Abbie-Lee Lewis

Abbie-lee Lewis is a Kalkadoon woman who grew  up in Western Australia. 

In 2008 she graduated from the Aboriginal Theatre Course at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

In 2009 she worked with Yirra Yarkkin Theatre Company touring the play called Talk It Up by David Milroy and in 2010 Abbie-lee was accepted into the 3 year  Acting Course at WAAPA and graduated in 2012.

Once settled into Sydney, Abbie-lee  worked with Bell Shakespeare, touring their educational program, The Players. She was then asked to come back in 2017 to perform in the educational main stage production of Macbeth where she worked with James Evans.

And in early 2017 Abbie-lee worked on the original work by Seanna Van Helten, Fallen, directed by Penny Harpham and produced by Sport for Jove.

2019 Abbie-lee secured a Guest appearance on ABCs Blak Comedy and starred as Emily in the Black Swan production of Our Town that saw three First Nations performers at the heart of it, directed by Clare Watson. 2021 saw Abbie-Lee Starr as Hermia in Bell Shakespeare’s national tour of A Midsummer night’s dream. As well as IDA in the Bleeding tree written by Angus Cerini directed by Ian Michael and produced by Blue Room Theatre. 

In recent years Abbie-Lee has begun to develop a passion for directing and theatre making and has sought to further her development of the craft by assistant directing.

Abbie-lee has assisted on main stage shows like Hamlet Produced by Bell Shakespeare in 2020 and directed by Peter Evans As well as the production of Charlie PIigram in 2018 by The Australian Theatre for Young people directed by Jena prince.

2022 Will see Abbie-lee’s Directing debut in Cutter and Coot written by Bruce Pasco and Produced by Mooghalin Theatre Company.

Matilda Ridgway

Matilda is an award winning actor, theatre maker and arts educator. Her theatre credits include:  Jasper Jones (Belvoir), Hamlet, Henry 4 and The Players (Bell Shakespeare) The Norman Conquests, Proof, Seminar, My Wonderful Day, Brooklyn Boy and Ruby Sunrise (Ensemble Theatre) Merchant of Venice, The Crucible, Midsummer Nights Dream, A Doll’s House and Much Ado About Nothing (Sport for Jove) This, This is Mine (Corinthian Food Store: New York City, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra) The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Kayak, Cock and Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre) Platonov and Sweet Nothings (ATYP). Her film and television credits include, Bump (Stan), Disclosure, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and the Cannes Palm D’Or nominee The Guests. Matilda trained at the Ensemble Studios, Atlantic Theatre Company NYC, SITI Company NYC and L’Ecole Phillippe Gaulier Paris. Matilda is a proud member of Actors Equity. 

Christopher Stollery

Christopher Stollery is a graduate of NIDA and of AFTRS. He has played Hamlet opposite John Bell, sung with Tim Minchin in a musical (This Blasted Earth 2004), performed with John Cleese at the Sydney Opera House (Just For Laughs, 2012) and toured theatres of Europe with Cate Blanchett (Gross und Klein for Sydney Theatre Company, 2012) danced the choreography of Meryl Tankard (VX18504) and directed Steve Smith, the test cricketing legend, in a TVC.

He was a Sydney Theatre Award nominee for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Ear to the Edge of Time (Sport for Jove, 2018) Of Mice and Men (Sport for Jove 2015) and won for his performance in Killer Joe (2009).

Other theatre credits include Hurt, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, Death of a Salesman, The Power of Yes, Ruben Guthrie (Belvoir Street Theatre); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Our Town, The Vertical Hour (Sydney Theatre Company); City of Gold (QTC & Griffin); Speaking in Tongues, October (Griffin Theatre Company); His Girl Friday (Melbourne Theatre Company); Good People, Great Falls, Harp on the Willow (Ensemble Theatre).

Christopher has been a series regular on many television (Wild Boys, Sea Patrol, The Flying Doctors, Frayed and The Bondi Hipster‘s Soul Mates)

Other television credits include Top of the Lake: China Girl, House of Hancock, The Moody’s, Wakefield and the upcoming Netflix series Thai Cave Rescue.

His feature film credits include The Nightingale, Truth, Last Cab to Darwin, Predestination, The Rage in Placid Lake and Transmission.

He has also written and directed many short films that including “dik” and “No Budget” that have won over 30 awards internationally.

Contessa Treffone

After graduating NIDA in 2012, Contessa has had an extensive career in theatre.

Her theatre credits include; TRIPLE X (STC/QT), DEATH OF A SALESMAN (STC), DEEP BLUE SEA (STC), FULLY COMMITTED (Ensemble Theatre), LORD OF THE FLIES (STC), ANATOMY OF A SUICIDE (Redline Productions), HARP IN THE SOUTH: PART ONE & TWO (STC), TOP GIRLS (STC), THERE WILL BE A CLIMAX (Redline Productions), THREE SISTERS (STC), THE KITCHEN SINK (Ensemble Theatre), THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX (Darlinghurst Theatre), ALL MY SONS (STC), MINUSONESITER (Griffin Theatre) and many more.

For her performance in HARP IN THE SOUTH: PART ONE & TWO (STC)Contessa was nominated for Best Female Actor in a Mainstage Production in the Sydney Theatre Awards.

Contessa’s television credits include THE PM’S DAUGHTER and DOCTOR DOCTOR S5, and her film credits include HERE OUT WEST, JUNE AGAIN, and POWDER TRAIN. 

Charles Wu

Charles Wu is one of Australia’s most exciting actors of stage and screen. Charles graduated from NIDA in 2014 and is well known for his work on popular series Doctor Doctor. Charles’ other television credits include The Letdown, Here Come the Habibs, and Secret City. He was also seen in feature film Australia Day, and web series Liberty Street.

Charles was most recently seen on stage in The Cherry Orchard alongside Pamela Rabe at Belvoir. His other theatre credits include An Enemy of the People, Jasper Jones, Samson (Belvoir), Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company), Mosquitoes, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Three Sisters, Chimerica (Sydney Theatre Company).

Ella Butler

Ella is a set and costume designer for theatre, film and live performance. Her appreciation and love for design is expressed through a belief in the innate memory, rich history and meaning in space, objects and dress. 

In a Design role, Ella’s theatre credits include: for Griffin Theatre Company First Love is the Revolution and Wherever She Wanders, Belvoir’s(25A) Shepherd and as Costume Designer for LP Productions at the Sydney Opera House RENT. 

On screen, Ella recently worked as the Set Decorator on Aquarius Films’ recent comedy Born to Spy. Her music video credits as Designer include Future Classics’ production Skyline by World Champion and as Costume Designer for Jungle Entertainment’s 15 Minutes by Tim Minchin. Ella also styled Minchin and his band for the International Tour of BACK. 

Ella’s work in theatre has been received internationally for her designs for Enter the Underworld as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Ella is a graduate from the National Institute of Dramatic Art with a BFA Design for Performance.

Michael Hankin

Michael is a NIDA trained Set and Costume Designer for theatre, dance, opera and film. His credits for Belvoir include Hir, Ghosts, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, The Sugar House, Jasper Jones, My Urrwai, The Great Fire, Ivanov and The Glass Menagerie, Twelfth Night, The Dark Room, A Christmas Carol, Angels in America and The Boomkak Panto.

Michael’s other theatre credits include designs for Ireland’s entry to Eurovison; Bourgeois and Maurice’s musical Insane Animals (Manchester’s Home Theatre, UK); Memorial (Barbican Centre/Adelaide Festival/Brisbane Festival/Brink productions); The Aspirations of Daise Morrow (Adelaide, Edinburgh Festival, Brink Productions); Admin (Vault Festival London/Dublin Fringe); Three Little Words (Melbourne Theatre Company), Jumpy (Melbourne Theatre Company/Sydney Theatre Company); The Merchant of Venice, Othello and As You Like It (Bell Shakespeare); Ich Nibber Dibber (Sydney Festival/Campbelltown Arts Centre); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Theatre Royal); 247 Days (Chunky Move/Malthouse /Netherlands tour); Tartuffe (State Theatre Company South Australia); Ugly Mugs (Malthouse/Griffin); Songs for the Fallen (Sydney Festival/New York Music Theatre Festival); Lake Disappointment (Carriageworks); You Animal You and Flock (Force Majeure); Fool for Love (Company B); Miracle City (Hayes Theatre); The Boat People (TRS/The Hayloft Project); The Lighthouse, In The Penal Colony (Sydney Chamber Opera); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, Liberty Equality Fraternity, Great Falls (Ensemble); The Hypochondriac, Deathtrap, Miss Julie, The Paris Letter, Macbeth (Darlinghurst Theatre); The Peasant Prince (Monkey Baa); Rust and Bone, The Ugly One (Griffin). Film projects include Weapons Designer and Co-Ordinator for Three Thousand Years of Longing, Production Designer for National Geographic’s Limitless, Challenge Designer for Survivor Australia (S6), Production/Costume Designer for short films Julian and The Amber Amulet (both winners of the Crystal Bear, Berlin International Film Festival). Michael has been nominated for a number of Sydney Theatre Awards, winning Best Stage Design for Hir in 2018, Best Independent Stage Design for Of Mice and Men (Sport For Jove) in 2015 and Truckstop (Q theatre/Seymour Centre) in 2012. He was the recipient of the 2018 Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship for Design in the Performing Arts and has worked as an Associate Lecturer of Design at NIDA.

Nell Ferguson

Nell Ferguson is a Sydney based artist, designer and illustrator working across theatre, film, television and print media.

With a BFA from the National Art School and a diploma of screen design from AFTRS, Nell has used her training in both art and film making to cultivate a rich visual language in approach to collaborative creative processes. 

Over the past 10 years she has bridged her second home in the San Francisco Bay Area, returning in 2016 to Sydney as a production designer and art director for Sydney’s Bus Stop Films. Since then, she has worked on productions for the ABC, SBS, Fremantle Media, and Nutopia among others. 

She is currently working in collaboration with Russh Magazine and upcoming Sydney Fashion Week, and is pleased to be welcomed to Belvoir Theatre as the Associate Costume Designer. 

Keerthi Subramanyam

Keerthi is a Sydney based production and costume designer for film and live performance. Keerthi is a National Institute of Dramatic Art, BFA (Design for Performance, 2019) graduate, and a member of the Australian Production Design Guild.

In her final year at NIDA, Keerthi worked as a set and costume designer on theatre shows including The House at Boundary Road and Flora, and co-designed a music video for Blue Velvet as part of Triple J Unearthed.

In 2020 and 2021, Keerthi has worked as a designer on short films and music videos, has styled promotional photoshoots for theatre companies, and was an associate costume designer on Belvoir’s Cursed as well as an assistant set and costume designer on Hayes’ Young Frankenstein. She also designed set and costumes for Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner and Chop Chef at Riverside Theatres. She is currently working across theatre and art installation.

Damien Cooper

Damien designs lighting for Dance, Theatre, Opera and Film.  Designs for Belvoir include 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.

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.

Steve Francis

Steve has worked extensively in theatre, dance and screen. His Belvoir credits includeCursed, 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.

Elle Evangelista

Elle loves dancing. Elle recently choreographed for Belvoir’s The Cherry Orchard. She was the Youth Company Rehearsal Director for The Last Season by Force Majeure, Sydney Festival 2021. Her performance credits include GIF of Dance by Matt Cornell, FLOCK by Force Majeure, Out of Earshot by KAGE Physical Theatre, Days Like These by Murmuration, the national tour of The King and I by Opera Australia, Keir Choreographic Award 2016 with choreographer Ghenoa Gela and MURA BUAI also by Ghenoa. Elle was Performer and Rehearsal Director for KAGE Physical Theatre’s international tour of Caught in the Middle. She has been awarded residencies to create new work by Ausdance NSW, Critical Path, March Dance, Brand X and Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance.

Elle is a WAAPA Dance graduate and UWA English graduate. She was raised in Perth by her Filipino and Burmese family.

Nigel Poulton

Nigel is an award-winning fight, movement, and intimacy director, SAG-AFTRA stunt performer and actor with over 17 years of national and international experience. Stage work includes: Stop Girl, Cursed!, Packer and Sons, Things I Know To Be True, Counting and Cracking, The Dance of Death, Sami in Paradise, The Sugar House, A Taste of Honey, Scorched(Belvoir); Prize Fighter (Belvoir/La Boite); Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Miser, Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III (Bell Shakespeare); Grand Horizons, Appropriate, Playing Beatie Bow, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Deep Blue Sea, Beauty Queen of Leenane, Lord of the Flies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, How to Rule the World, Harp in the South, Mary Stuart, Blackie Blackie Brown, A Cheery Soul, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Long Forgotten Dream, Saint Joan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Dinner, Black is the New White, Speed the Plow, The Golden Age, The Present, Cyrano de Bergerac, Switzerland, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Noises Off (STC); Spartacus (The Australian Ballet); Romeo and Juliet (New York City Ballet); Faust, Carmen, Tosca, La Boheme, Krol Roger, Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci (Opera Australia); Triple X, Hydra (Queensland Theatre), Jasper Jones, Noises Off (Queensland Theatre/Melbourne Theatre Company); Singin’ in the Rain (Dainty Group International), Les Miserables (Cameron Mackintosh); Don Giovanni, Carmen, Il Trovatore (The Metropolitan Opera). Nigel’s film and television work includes: Pirates of the Caribbean V, Deadline Gallipoli, The Water Diviner, The Bourne Legacy, Vikingdom, The Good Wife & Boardwalk Empire. Nigel was intimacy co-ordinator for the online series Ding Dong, I’m Gay and feature film Spiderhead.

Danielle Roffe

Danielle is an international voice and dialect coach, working in theatre film and TV as well as with a range of corporate clients.  She is currently based in Sydney where she lives with her husband, two children and a groodle.  She is drawn to voice as the conduit for hearing people’s stories.  Previous work includes:  Belvoir: Miss Julie, Gethsemane, That Face, The Power of Yes, Stories I Want to Tell You, In Person, Lonesome West. Other Theatre: Sydney Theatre Company: Home I’m Darling, Appropriate, Playing Beatie Bow, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Rules for Living, Wonnangatta, Pygmalion, Tusk Tusk (with ATYP), Like a Fishbone (with Griffin TC). Sydney Opera House: South Pacific, The History Boys. Old Fitz: Anatomy of a Suicide. Darlinghurst Theatre: The Pride. Film: The Drover’s Wife, Fantasy Island, Lego Ninjago Movie, Alien Covenant, Hacksaw Ridge, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend, 2:22, The Daughter, Stranger Land, Backtrack, Slow West, Adore, Lemon Tree Passage, Wolf Creek 2, Evil Dead, Careless Love, Killer Elite, Uninhabited, Not Suitable for Children, Lagaan, The Search for John Gissing, Best: His Mother’s Son, Slaughter, Outcast. TV: Black Comedy,  Easybeats, Doctor Doctor, Banished, Underbelly, My Kitchen Rules, The Scouting Book for Boys, Holby City, Eastenders, The Bill. Positions: Teaching positions at NIDA, Actors’ Centre, Central School of Speech and Drama, Drama Centre, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and Theatre Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. Training: Central School of Speech and Drama

Abbie-Lee Lewis

Abbie-lee Lewis is a Kalkadoon woman who grew  up in Western Australia. 

In 2008 she graduated from the Aboriginal Theatre Course at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

In 2009 she worked with Yirra Yarkkin Theatre Company touring the play called Talk It Up by David Milroy and in 2010 Abbie-lee was accepted into the 3 year  Acting Course at WAAPA and graduated in 2012.

Once settled into Sydney, Abbie-lee  worked with Bell Shakespeare, touring their educational program, The Players. She was then asked to come back in 2017 to perform in the educational main stage production of Macbeth where she worked with James Evans.

And in early 2017 Abbie-lee worked on the original work by Seanna Van Helten, Fallen, directed by Penny Harpham and produced by Sport for Jove.

2019 Abbie-lee secured a Guest appearance on ABCs Blak Comedy and starred as Emily in the Black Swan production of Our Town that saw three First Nations performers at the heart of it, directed by Clare Watson. 2021 saw Abbie-Lee Starr as Hermia in Bell Shakespeare’s national tour of A Midsummer night’s dream. As well as IDA in the Bleeding tree written by Angus Cerini directed by Ian Michael and produced by Blue Room Theatre. 

In recent years Abbie-Lee has begun to develop a passion for directing and theatre making and has sought to further her development of the craft by assistant directing.

Abbie-lee has assisted on main stage shows like Hamlet Produced by Bell Shakespeare in 2020 and directed by Peter Evans As well as the production of Charlie PIigram in 2018 by The Australian Theatre for Young people directed by Jena prince.

2022 Will see Abbie-lee’s Directing debut in Cutter and Coot written by Bruce Pasco and Produced by Mooghalin Theatre Company.

Matilda Ridgway

Matilda is an award winning actor, theatre maker and arts educator. Her theatre credits include:  Jasper Jones (Belvoir), Hamlet, Henry 4 and The Players (Bell Shakespeare) The Norman Conquests, Proof, Seminar, My Wonderful Day, Brooklyn Boy and Ruby Sunrise (Ensemble Theatre) Merchant of Venice, The Crucible, Midsummer Nights Dream, A Doll’s House and Much Ado About Nothing (Sport for Jove) This, This is Mine (Corinthian Food Store: New York City, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra) The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Kayak, Cock and Sprout (Old Fitzroy Theatre) Platonov and Sweet Nothings (ATYP). Her film and television credits include, Bump (Stan), Disclosure, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and the Cannes Palm D’Or nominee The Guests. Matilda trained at the Ensemble Studios, Atlantic Theatre Company NYC, SITI Company NYC and L’Ecole Phillippe Gaulier Paris. Matilda is a proud member of Actors Equity. 

Cecilia Nelson

Cecilia Nelson graduated from NIDA’s BFA (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) in 2017 after completing a BSc./BA. at The University of Sydney. This year, she was the assistant stage manager Pippin, Australia’s first commercial musical to open after the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, she was half-way through the national tour of Billy Elliot (LWAA) when our theatre doors closed for lockdown.  Cecilia toured the award-winning Barbara and the Camp Dogs (Belvoir)as stage manager and was the assistant stage manager in the original Belvoir season. Cecilia stage managed In The Heights (Blue Saint Productions) which toured regionally before opening in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, the intimate but ground-breaking The Howling Girls (Sydney Chamber Opera) and was the assistant stage manager for The Rape of Lucretia (Sydney Chamber Opera). Cecilia has a passion for opera and has stage and assistant stage managed Artaserse (Pinchgut), Candide (Sydney Philharmonia), New Year’s Eve Opera Gala (Opera Australia), and was surtitle operator for Carmen (Opera Australia/HOSH). She is passionate about music in theatre and the power of art to make sense of life.

Amelia Grindrod

A graduate of AFTT, Amelia has previously worked on Secret House’s The Seagull, Troilus & Cressida, Crime & Punishment, Joseph K and Charles & Larry, Redline Production’s King Of Pigs, Dead Fly Production’s The Scarecrow, Bard on the Beach’s 2019 season, New Ghosts’ Iphigenia in Splott and HUSH, Force Majeure’s The Last Season and Magic Mike Live Australia. Her music theatre credits include Muriel’s Wedding (Global Creatures), Come From Away (New Theatrical), Billy Elliot (LWAA) and School of Rock (GWB Entertainment).

Alexandra Logiudice

Alexandra Logiudice (Assistant Stage Manager) graduated from the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television in 2021 with a Diploma in Screen and Media (Theatre Production). Alex has had a love for theatre since she was young and is passionate about the storytelling and creativity that is evoked through theatrical productions. Previously, she has been the Assistant Stage Manager for ‘Hush’ (New Ghosts Theatre Company) and ‘Charles and Larry’ (Secret House) in 2022.