PICNIC AT
HANGING ROCK

A play by Tom Wright
Adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay
Directed by Ian Michael

Sydney Theatre Company acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora nation who are the traditional custodians of the land and waters on which the Company gathers. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and we extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with whom we work and with whom we share stories.

Welcome from Artistic Director, Mitchell Butel

The missing child.

Why is it such a key fixation in our national psyche?

And the missing child in the bush has its own fascination – from the Duff children, to Frederick McCubbin’s iconic painting “Lost” to a 5 year old Dot being led to safety by a team of marsupials out of the dark bush night.

But Joan Lindsay’s tale (and Peter Weir’s breakthrough film adaptation) of lost school girls (in an area that was once an initiation site for First Nations boys) holds perhaps the most interest and by stealth, the tale asks questions about the disjunction between European sensibilities and the Australian landscape, about ownership of the land on which we walk, about the power of that land to transform, alter or swallow our souls.

The Kulin name for Hanging Rock is Ngannelong and its presence in this production is a reminder that the attempts by the schoolgirls to climb, claim or name the rock are a blip in the site’s timeless history. And only one of its mysteries.

"Enjoy being swallowed by the mystery they are about to unleash on you."

Timelessness itself is at the heart of the story. The girls fall asleep on the rock in the lunchtime sun. They dream, as the ants make their way across their listless bodies and picnic rugs.

It makes perfect sense that one of Australia’s great adapters and playwrights Tom Wright wanted to explore this world and story on stage because the theatre is a place where time also becomes elastic and where dreams are the dominant currency.

Tom has deep connections to Sydney Theatre Company and has co-created some of its most acclaimed works like The Lost Echo, The War of the Roses and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

The meeting of such a significant Australian theatre artist with one of our boldest and brightest emerging directorial talents and one of our Resident Directors, Ian Michael is cause for celebration. Add to that mix designer supremos such as Elizabeth Gadsby, Trent Suidgeest and James Brown who have similarly reshaped the Company’s work over the last decade and a cast of richly talented and rising star actors and you have a recipe for theatrical magic.

Enjoy being swallowed by the mystery they are about to unleash on you.

Mitchell Butel 
Artistic Director and Co-CEO
Sydney Theatre Company 

Cast & Creative Team

Cast

Olivia
Olivia De Jonge 

Kirsty
Kirsty Marillier 

Lorinda
Lorinda May Merrypor 

Masego
Masego Pitso 

Contessa
Contessa Treffone 

Creative Team

Director
Ian Michael 

Designer
​Elizabeth Gadsby 

Lighting Designer
Trent Suidgeest 

Composer & Sound Designer
James Brown 

Movement Director & Intimacy Coordinator
Danielle Micich 

Fight Director
Tim Dashwood 

Voice & Text Director
Charmian Gradwell

Production Team

Production Manager  
Alexandra Moon 

Stage Manager 
Stephanie Storr 

Assistant Stage Manager 
Mia Kanzaki 

Costume Coordinator
Scott Fisher 

Backstage Wardrobe Supervisor
Isabella Sigglekow 

Costume Day Maintenance  
Hazel Fisher 

Lighting Supervisor
Jesse Greig 

Floor Electrician
Oscar De Gruchy

Sound Supervisor
Hayley Forward

Sound Operator
David Trumpmanis

Video Supervisor
Michael Hedges

Staging Supervisor
David Tongs

Props Supervisor
Jason Lowe

Set Construction Supervisor
Boaz Shemesh

Scenic Art Supervisor
Ron Thiessen

Drafting
Dallas Winspear

85 mins, no interval

This adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock was first produced by Malthouse Theatre and Black Swan State Theatre Company premiering at the Merlyn Theatre on 26 February 2016, with subsequent transfer to the Heath Ledger Theatre opening on 1st April 2016. 

This production opened at Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House on 21 February 2024.

Supported by STC Angels


Synopsis

Five girls in school uniforms and hats, indistinguishable from those you would see on a Melbourne tram or in a Charles Blackman painting. They retell a tale so central to Australia’s national identity it has mutated into a myth.   

St. Valentines Day, 1900. The prim girls of Appleyard College write love poems and prepare for a luncheon at the picnic ground near Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges.  They've been forewarned to expect a dangerous place with venomous snakes and poisonous ants. Only one student is kept back from the picnic, the strong-willed but sensitive Sara, who refuses to memorise the English poetry that Headmistress Appleyard believes will civislise her.  

When they arrive, they are confronted by a mineral marvel, a castle of rock suspended in a bright sky. The girls are not of this world. Under the remains of a volcano, they twirl their hair and sip tea.   

The sweet and pretty Miranda has a million love notes and an angelic head of golden hair. After lunch, she leads three other girls up the rock: the beautiful Irma, the intellectual Marion and the gauche and babyish Edith.  On the rock, time seems to stop. 

They are watched by two men; Michael, a young Englishman on holiday in Victoria and his world-weary coachman, Albert. Michael is transfixed by Miranda.  

The girls ascend higher and higher in full skirted frocks, compelled by a mysterious force. Edith falls behind and soon runs back down to the picnic screaming for help.  

The monolith is silent, and the girls have utterly vanished. 

Character List

Miranda The Defacto leader of the group who climbs the rock. 

Marion Another student at Appleyard College. Goes missing on the rock. 

Irma The daughter of a wealthy family. Also goes missing on the rock. 

Edith Another picnic attendee. Alerts the party to the disappearance of her classmates.  

Sara An orphan who lives at Appleyard College due to the generosity of her otherwise absent guardian.  

Mrs. Appleyard Headmistress of Appleyard College.  

Mademoiselle Appleyard College’s French mistress. Accompanies the girls on the picnic. 

Miss. McCraw Appleyard College’s Mathematics mistress. Accompanies the girls on the picnic then follows them up the rock. 

Albert A coachman and survivor of the 19th century’s famously cruel orphanages. 

Michael A young Englishman on holiday in Victoria.  

Writer's Note
Tom Wright

Joan Lindsay wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock when she was 71. 

As a girl she had attended a small private school in the Victorian countryside. It was the soft-focus Edwardian years before the realities of the twentieth century came crashing down at Gallipoli and the Somme; Lindsay was of a generation old enough not only to remember the First World War but life before it as well. And, of course, she came from privilege, that deep privilege of the squattocracy and Victorian mercantile classes. Before marrying into the famous artistic family, she was Joan à Beckett Weigall, her name weighty with men of business, the law, pastoralism, trade. If anyone came from the class that embodied colonisation, it was her. 

Lorinda May Merrypor

Lorinda May Merrypor

But Picnic at Hanging Rock isn’t a book of that era. It might be set in 1900, the cusp of Federation and notional independence, but this is a book of the 1960s. It was written in the same year as Georgy Girl, Dune, Midnight Cowboy, The Crying of Lot 49, Wide Sargasso Sea. And, like those novels, it’s about more than what can be seen on the surface. It’s about language. And patriarchy. And sexual psychology. And metaphysical dread. 

And, of course, it is a book about colonisation. What it did to us. What it did to country. 

"It’s about language. And patriarchy. And sexual psychology. And metaphysical dread."

Lindsay had written over the course of her interesting life. But Picnic felt like it came out of nowhere. She had written nothing previously even close to its power, and never would again. And she wrote it quickly, as if some unseen force was telling it through her. As if this story needed to be told and had to find a conduit. It’s still white Australia’s most disquieting tale of itself. 

This stage adaptation attempts to capture that disquiet. The actual events of the picnic only occupies a few pages of the novel, here it becomes a spell-casting, or a recitation, like an assignment for the senior girls, a retelling of a key event that will never be understood. It is as if some silhouettes from a Blackman painting have been possessed, for a while, and play out a myth of multiple worlds. The Old World, with its niceties, corsets, tea cups, poetry. A New World, that they can sense but not describe. And possibly, other worlds, many other worlds, if one slips through a portal… 

Learn more about the writing of Picnic at Hanging Rock here.

Kirsty Marillier

Kirsty Marillier

KIRSTY: Miranda!
Miranda!

(Edith cries)

Come back, all of you!
Don't go up there - come back!

Tom Wright, Picnic at Hanging Rock

Director's Note
Ian Michael

Lorinda May Merrypor, Olivia De Jonge, Masego Pitso, Contessa Treffone, Ian Michael, Charmian Gradwell and Kirsty Marillier.

Lorinda May Merrypor, Olivia De Jonge, Masego Pitso, Contessa Treffone, Ian Michael, Charmian Gradwell and Kirsty Marillier.

1900. 
The Eve of Federation. 
St. Valentine’s Day. 

Picnic at Hanging Rock, adapted by Tom Wright after Joan Lindsay’s haunting novel, invites us into a world rich with mystery and tension. Set against the stifling heat of the Victorian Highlands, the story follows a group of schoolgirls and their teacher who vanish during what seems to be an innocent picnic, they ascend the monolith, being drawn by some invisible force. At its core, the narrative transcends the enigma of the missing girls. It is a haunting, a meditation on colonial anxieties in early and present Australia, where the land itself becomes a character—simultaneously alluring, feared, and unacknowledged, it forces us to confront deeper questions about repression, identity, and the disruption of unceded land. 

Tom’s adaptation so skillfully blurs the lines between myth and reality, as we bring this haunting to life through the voices of five present day schoolgirls. These voices are not just characters—they are conduits, possessed by the story, they are present in 1900, yet they are everywhere and nowhere. The girls' disappearance becomes more than a mystery—it becomes a story of horror, a trauma that reverberates through Appleyard College, unsettling everyone around it. 

Olivia De Jonge

Olivia De Jonge

Before it was immortalised in Joan Lindsay’s novel and its film adaptation, Ngannelong—its rightful name—was a significant site of mens ceremony, corrobborees, trade, and initiation for the Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri), Dja Dja Wurrung, and Taungurung, the Traditional Custodians of the land, marking the boundaries between the territories of several different clan groups. At its core, this production is a story of disruption—the disturbance of sacred land, the imposition of colonial names, structures, and ideologies upon stolen land disrupts not only the land itself but also its people.

Beneath the surface of the narrative lies the vigilance of colonialism, as well as the repression of young women who are forced to navigate the oppressive expectations of a colonial system. As makers of this production, we have been deeply aware of the absence of First Nations voices in this story and reflect on its implications. Throughout the design and rehearsal processes we drew inspiration from Tom Wright’s provocation, “this land isn’t empty, and never was... a complex web of myths, rites, songs, wisdoms had been spun, so dense the crossover space between human body and land became blurred, unfocused, itself a song”. We have sought to bring to light the intrinsic connection to Country that colonisation seeks to disrupt and to amplify the repression faced by young girls in a colonial society—two intertwined legacies of trauma and disruption that continues to ripple through history, shaping both the past and present.

In the retelling of this story, Picnic at Hanging Rock challenges us to confront the disturbing legacies of colonialism and to reflect on our complicity in the violence inflicted upon both the land and its people. In retelling its mysteries, we confront our own ignorance and engage with the unresolved meaning it holds—inviting us to project our interpretations and fears onto a narrative that shapes our understanding of ourselves and the vastness that underpins our time and history.

Biographies

Tom Wright 
Playwright

Tom Wright is one of Australia’s most respected performance makers and writers for the stage.  He has served as an Artistic Associate at Belvoir since 2016 and previously held the roles of Artistic Associate (2004–2008) and Associate Director (2008–2012) at Sydney Theatre Company. 

As an opera librettist, Tom and his creative collaborator composer Mary Finsterer have been described by Australian Book Review as “two of the most important creative voices working in Australian opera today”.  Their first opera, Biographica, premiered at the Sydney Festival in 2017 and won the 2018 APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Best Vocal Work.  Their follow-up production, Antarctica, a co-production between Asko Schönberg and Sydney Chamber Opera, premiered at the 2022 Holland Festival.  Their next opera will premiere at the Seoul Performing Arts Center in 2025. 

As an actor, director and writer Tom has worked at Melbourne Theatre Company, STCSA, Sydney Theatre Company, Playbox, Queensland Theatre, La Mama, Belvoir, Anthill, Gilgul, Mene Mene, Bell Shakespeare, Chunky Move, Black Swan Theatre, Chamber Made Opera and the Adelaide, Sydney, Edinburgh, Vienna, Perth and Melbourne Festivals. 

He has written extensively for the theatre, with titles including  A Journal of the Plague Year, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Castle, Ubu, This Is a True Story, Lorilei, Medea, Babes in the Wood, Puntila and His Man Matti, Tense Dave, The Odyssey, The Lost Echo, Criminology (with Lally Katz), Tales From the Vienna Woods, The Misanthrope, The Women of Troy, The War of the Roses, The Duel, Baal, Optimism, Oresteia, On the Misconception of Oedipus, The Histrionic, Black Diggers, The Good Person of Szechuan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Troy and The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man. Productions of his work have been mounted in the Netherlands, Pakistan, Belgium, China, New Zealand, Canada, the US and the UK. 

Tom’s adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Lost Echo, won five Helpmann awards in 2007, including Best Play. His adaptation of Shakespeare’s History Plays, The War of the Roses, won six Helpmanns in 2009, including Best Production. Black Diggers won the 2015 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Best Play. The radio version of his play Lorilei won the 2007 Gold Drama Award (British Radio Academy) and BBC Radio Drama Award. 

Ian Michael
Director

Ian Michael is a Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company and was the Richard Wherrett Fellow (2022-2023).  

A proud Noongar man, he has carved out a career as an actor, director and writer following his graduation from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. For STC, Ian made his directorial debut at Sydney Theatre Company with Constellations (2023) and directed Stolen (2024). Ian is Associate Director on Kip Williams’ adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray (2020-2025), Dracula (2024), and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2022) which also toured to Perth Festival and Adelaide Festival, Associate Director to Zindzi Okenyo on Sweat, Tom Creed on The President (2024), Imara Savage on The Seagull (2023) and to Shari Sebbens for The 7 Stages of Grieving (2021).  

In 2025, Ian will direct the World Premiere of Big Girls Don’t Cry at Belvoir and Sistren at Griffin Theatre Company. For the Lyric Hammersmith, Ian was Script Consultant on Our Country's Good (2024), for Black Swan State Theatre Company, Ian directed The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini (2023) and was the Associate Director on The Cherry Orchard and Assistant Director on Skylab (with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company) and made his directorial debut with The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini for The Blue Room Theatre (2021). 

Ian’s acting credits include The Tempest (Sydney Theatre Company) , City of Gold (Sydney Theatre Company and Black Swan State Theatre Company), Blaque Showgirls (Griffin Theatre Company), Cloudstreet, Blak Cabaret (Malthouse), Our Town and Let the Right One In (Black Swan State Theatre Company); The Kid (Melbourne Theatre Company/Melbourne Ring Cycle), The Noongar Shakespeare Project (Yirra Yaakin); HART (She Said Theatre) and Northwest of Nowhere (Ilbijerri Theatre Company). As a writer, his credits include York (with Chris Isaacs) for Black Swan State Theatre Company; Another Day in the Colony (Critical Stages/Paines Plough) and HART (with Seanna van Helten). He was a Resident Artist at Black Swan from 2018-2020, their Artistic Associate and Curator of the Maali Festival (2021) and a Besen Family Artist at Malthouse in 2017.  

Ian has won numerous awards and nominations for his work, including eight nominations for Stolen at the 2024 Sydney Theatre Awards, six nominations for Constellations, at the 2023 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Direction of a Mainstage Play and Best Production, a nomination for Best Performer in a Supporting Role in a Mainstage Production and at the 2022 Sydney Theatre Awards for City of Gold, The Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting (York). At the 2022 PAWA Awards Ian won Outstanding Direction of an Independent Production and Best Independent Production (The Bleeding Tree) and has been nominated for Best Actor for Our Town and Let the Right One In. At the 2021 The Blue Room Awards, he won the Award for Direction and Members Choice (The Bleeding Tree), CHASS Australia Prizes, Green Room Awards (HART), Melbourne Fringe Awards and Adelaide Fringe Awards.  

Ian Michael
Director

Ian Michael is a Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company and was the Richard Wherrett Fellow (2022-2023).  

A proud Noongar man, he has carved out a career as an actor, director and writer following his graduation from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. For STC, Ian made his directorial debut at Sydney Theatre Company with Constellations (2023) and directed Stolen (2024). Ian is Associate Director on Kip Williams’ adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray (2020-2025), Dracula (2024), and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2022) which also toured to Perth Festival and Adelaide Festival, Associate Director to Zindzi Okenyo on Sweat, Tom Creed on The President (2024), Imara Savage on The Seagull (2023) and to Shari Sebbens for The 7 Stages of Grieving (2021).  

In 2025, Ian will direct the World Premiere of Big Girls Don’t Cry at Belvoir and Sistren at Griffin Theatre Company. For the Lyric Hammersmith, Ian was Script Consultant on Our Country's Good (2024), for Black Swan State Theatre Company, Ian directed The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini (2023) and was the Associate Director on The Cherry Orchard and Assistant Director on Skylab (with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company) and made his directorial debut with The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini for The Blue Room Theatre (2021). 

Ian’s acting credits include The Tempest (Sydney Theatre Company), City of Gold (Sydney Theatre Company and Black Swan State Theatre Company), Blaque Showgirls (Griffin Theatre Company), Cloudstreet, Blak Cabaret (Malthouse), Our Town and Let the Right One In (Black Swan State Theatre Company); The Kid (Melbourne Theatre Company/Melbourne Ring Cycle), The Noongar Shakespeare Project (Yirra Yaakin); HART (She Said Theatre) and Northwest of Nowhere (Ilbijerri Theatre Company). As a writer, his credits include York (with Chris Isaacs) for Black Swan State Theatre Company; Another Day in the Colony (Critical Stages/Paines Plough) and HART (with Seanna van Helten). He was a Resident Artist at Black Swan from 2018-2020, their Artistic Associate and Curator of the Maali Festival (2021) and a Besen Family Artist at Malthouse in 2017.  

Ian has won numerous awards and nominations for his work, including eight nominations for Stolen at the 2024 Sydney Theatre Awards, six nominations for Constellations, at the 2023 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Direction of a Mainstage Play and Best Production, a nomination for Best Performer in a Supporting Role in a Mainstage Production and at the 2022 Sydney Theatre Awards for City of Gold, The Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting (York). At the 2022 PAWA Awards Ian won Outstanding Direction of an Independent Production and Best Independent Production (The Bleeding Tree) and has been nominated for Best Actor for Our Town and Let the Right One In. At the 2021 The Blue Room Awards, he won the Award for Direction and Members Choice (The Bleeding Tree), CHASS Australia Prizes, Green Room Awards (HART), Melbourne Fringe Awards and Adelaide Fringe Awards.  

OLIVIA DE JONGE
Olivia

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: WAAPA: The Undressing Film: Elvis, Undertow, Better Watch Out, Sacre Campaign, The Visit, the Sisterhood Of The Night, Short Film Maker. TV: The Narrow Road To The Deep North, The Staircase, The Society, Will, Hiding. Short Film: Love And Other Places, Eleven Thirty, Polarised, The Good Pretender. Awards: 2022 AACTA Best Supporting Actress in Film, 2016 Nominee: Breakthrough Star of Tomorrow, TV Week Logie Awards, 2012 Nominee: Best Young Actor, AFI/AACTA Awards, 2011 Winner: Best Breakthrough Performance, Doorpost Film Project Awards (USA), 2011 Winner: Best Actress, Western Australian Screen Awards. Pronouns: She/Her 

KIRSTY MARILLIER 
Kirsty

Sydney Theatre Company: Home, I’m Darling. Other Theatre: As Actor: Michael Cassel Group: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Belvoir: The Cherry Orchard. Black Swan State Theatre Company: Coma Land. Sport For Jove: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest. Griffin Theatre Company: Shabbat Dinner. As Writer: Sydney Theatre Company: Orange Thrower (Rough Draft). Griffin Theatre Company & National Theatre of Parramatta: Orange Thrower. Melbourne Theatre Company: Destiny. Film: The Greenhouse. Hook Up. TV: Home and Away. Awards: Perth Theatre Awards, 2017 Nominee: Best Actor, Best Newcomer. Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award: 2019 Winner. Max Afford Playwriting Award: 2020 Winner. Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting: 2022 Winner. Training: WAAPA, Curtin University. 

LORINDA MAY MERRYPOR
Lorinda

Lorinda May Merrypor proudly descending from the Kuungkari tribe in Queensland. Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Michael Cassel Group: & Juliet, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Swing). Hit Productions: The Sapphires. Altitude Theatre: Once on This Island. Shake & Stir Theatre Co.: American Idiot. Opera Queensland: Kiss Me, Kate. Concerts: Queensland Pops Orchestra: Rhonda Burchmore on Broadway. Training: QCGU Musical Theatre.  

MASEGO PITSO 
Masego

Sydney Theatre Company: Is God Is (with Melbourne Theatre Company). Other Theatre: Malthouse Theatre: Who No Kno Go Kno. Griffin Theatre Company: The Lewis Trilogy. Redline Productions & Green Door Theatre: Chewing Gum Dreams. ATYP: M. Rock. As Assistant Director: Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta: Choir Boy. Awards: 2022 Sydney Theatre Award for the Best Newcomer (Chewing Gum Dreams). Training: The University of Notre Dame. 

CONTESSA TREFFONE 
Contessa

Sydney Theatre Company: A Fool in Love, On the Beach, Triple X (with QT), Death of a Salesman, The Deep Blue Sea, Lord of the Flies, The Harp in the South: Part One and Part Two, Top Girls, Three Sisters, All My Sons, Children of the Sun. Other Theatre: Ensemble: Fully Committed, The Kitchen Sink. Griffin Theatre Company: Blueberry Play, minusonesister (with Stories Like These).  Darlinghurst Theatre: The Mystery of Love and Sex, This House is Mine. Malthouse Theatre: Lord of the Flies (with US-A-UM).  Redline Productions: Tongue-Tied, There Will Be a Climax. Sugary Rum Productions: Anatomy of a Suicide. Freefall Productions: White Rabbit/Red Rabbit. KXT: Tiny Remarkable Bramble (with Invisible Circus). New Ghosts Theatre Company: Fracture. Bontom Productions: Unfinished Works. Film: One More Shot, Here Out West, June Again. TV: Bump, Totally Completely Fine, Mother And Son, Wellmania, The PM’s Daughter, Doctor Doctor. Short Film: Salmon and Asparagus, Asking For It, Liberty Street, Now/Then/After, Stick. Podcast: Wentworth: The Fall Girl. Training: NIDA. Proud member of Actors’ Equity. Pronouns: She/Her. 

ELIZABETH GADSBY
Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: The President, The Visitors (with Moogahlin Performing Arts, Inc/SOH), Julius Caesar, The 7 Stages of Grieving, Appropriate, Mosquitoes, Blackie Blackie Brown (with Malthouse Theatre), The Children (with Melbourne Theatre Company), Dinner, Cloud Nine, The Testament of Mary, The Hanging, Disgraced. As Costume Designer: The Tempest. As Set Designer: Lord of the Flies, Mary Stuart, A Cheery Soul, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As Assistant to the Designer: Storm Boy (with Barking Gecko). Other Theatre: As Set Designer: Opera Australia & Sydney Chamber Opera: Gilgamesh. Bangarra Dance Theatre: Yuldea. Melbourne Theatre Company: Cyrano, The Sound Inside. As Associate Director & Costume Designer: Sydney Chamber Opera/Victorian Opera: The Rape of Lucretia. As Co-Creator: Resonant Bodies New York and Sydney Festival 2021: Poem for a dried up river. Louisville Ballet: Firebird. As Designer: Opera Queensland: Così fan tutte. Sydney Chamber Opera & Asko Schonberg: Antarctica. Melbourne Theatre Company: John. Belvoir: Cinderella. Sydney Chamber Opera: Awakening Shadow, Fly Away Peter, La Passion de Simone, An Index of Metals, In Song. West Australian Ballet/Perth Festival: Epic Fail. Spectrum Now Festival: Orfeo ed Euridice. London Handel Festival/ Brighton Early Music Festival: Bach, Coffee, Cake. Tiny Bricks/Adelaide Festival: Deluge. Training: The National Art School, NIDA 

TRENT SUIDGEEST  
Lighting Designer  

Sydney Theatre Company: Stolen, The Dictionary of Lost Words (with STCSA), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Appropriate, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Hay Fever, Talk, Muriel’s Wedding The Musical (with Global Creatures). Other Theatre: Sydney Opera House and John Frost for Crossroads Live: Elf: The Musical. Dark Mofo: Night Mass Exstasia. Shake and Stir Theatre Co: Grimm, Frankenstein, Tae Tae in the Land of Yaaas!, Fourteen. Belvoir Street Theatre: Miss Peony. Bell Shakespeare: The Lovers. Opera Australia: Carmen, Sydney Opera House – The Opera [The Eighth Wonder], The Rabbits (with Barking Gecko Theatre). Sugary Rum/LPD/Sydney Opera House: RENT. Redline Productions: The Seven Deadly Sins & Mahagonny Songspiel, Betty Blokk-Buster reimagined (with Sydney Festival). Griffin Theatre Company: Prima Facie, First Love Is The Revolution, The Homosexuals or ‘Faggots’ (with Malthouse Theatre). Hayes Theatre Co: Dubbo Championship Wrestling, Young Frankenstein, Calamity Jane, The Rise and Disguise of Elizabeth R, Gypsy, Only Heaven Knows, Darlinghurst Nights, The View UpStairs. Darlinghurst Theatre: Let The Right One In, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Ambassador Theatre Group: The Beast. Belvoir/BSSTC: The Sapphires. Ensemble Theatre: Black Cockatoo, Folk. Performing Lines: I Am Eora (with Sydney Festival). QT/BSSTC: Managing Carmen, Gasp!, Other Desert Cities. MTC/BSSTC: National Interest. Black Swan State Theatre Company: 20+ designs including When The Rain Stops Falling, Next To Normal, The White Divers of Broome, Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll, Extinction. Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre: Waltzing The Wilarra. Barking Gecko Theatre Company: Jasper Jones, Duck Death and the Tulip. As Set & Lighting Designer: Australian Brandenburg Orchestra: The Lover, Gloria & The Four Seasons, The Soprano, Noel Noel. Club House Productions: 44 Sex Acts In One Week. BSSTC: Shrine, Dinner, Death of a Salesman. Public Art Installations: A Mirrored City by WITCH+GHOST (Vivid Sydney, Illuminate Adelaide). As Assistant Lighting Designer: International Theatre Amsterdam/Wiener Festwochen: Kings Of War. Awards: 2015 Mike Walsh Fellowship, 2015 WA Department of Culture and the Arts Young People Fellowship. Training: WAAPA. 

JAMES PETER BROWN  
Composer & Sound Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: Stolen, Constellations, Do not go gentle…, Home, I’m Darling, Rules for Living, The Deep Blue Sea, The Real Thing, Lord of the Flies, Mosquitoes, Who’s the Best? (with Post). Other Theatre: Ensemble Theatre: The Queen’s Nanny. Darlinghurst Theatre: Let the Right One In. CDP: The Midnight Gang. Sport for Jove: Rose Riot. Erth: Winter Camp, The Liminal Hour, Bird. Fox. Monster. Darlinghurst Theatre: In Real Life, Broken. Malthouse: Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. Griffin Theatre Company: Smurf in Wanderland, Tribunal. The Farm: Frank Enstein. Post: Ich Nibber Dibber, Oedipus Schmoedipus. Urban Theatre Projects: Home Country. Carriageworks: Lake Disappointment. SOIT (Belgium): Nomads, We Was them, Messiah Run, The Lee Ellroy Show. ATYP: Dignity of Risk (with Shopfront’s Harness Ensemble), House on Fire. Campbelltown Arts Centre: Hole in the Wall. Dance: Queensland Ballet: Tethered. Kristina Chan: A Faint Existence, Mountain. Victoria Hunt: Copper Promises, Tangi Wai. The Australian Ballet: Scope. Sydney Dance Company: Cult of the Titans, Conform. Matthew Day: Thousands, Cannibal, Intermission. Film: Birthright, Magic Beach, Cosmographies, We Circle Silently, Fungus, Voice Activated, A Brilliant Genocide, Bloodlinks, Brown Lips. TV: The Movement, Top of the Lake, One Day for Peace, Gingersnaps. Games: Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter. 

DANIELLE MICICH  
Movement Director & Intimacy Coordinator  

Sydney Theatre Company: Stolen, The President (with Gate Theatre, Dublin), Perplex. Other Theatre: Belvoir: Food. Griffin: Dogged. Monkey Baa Theatre: Goodbye Jamie Boyd, The Peasant Prince. Black Swan Theatre: Flood. Barking Gecko: Driving Into Walls, 1507. Pinchgut Opera: Rameau. Steamworks: Standing Bird. As Director: Shiver, Overexposed. As Performer: Night Train Production: WISH, Orpheus and Eurydice, Masks. As Artistic Director of Force Majeure: Off the Record, You Animal, You, Flock, Masters of Modern Sound, The Last Season, IDK. TV: BUMP, Significant Others, The Unlisted, The Other Guy 2. Film: Berlyn Syndrome. Training: VCA (BA Dance). Pronouns: She/Her 

 

TIM DASHWOOD  
Fight Director 

Sydney Theatre Company: Sweat, Stolen, A Fool in Love, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Death of a Salesman, No Pay? No Way!, Lord of the Flies. Other Theatre: Opera Australia: Hamlet, Miss Saigon, Whiteley, West Side Story on Sydney Harbour, Krol Roger, Faust. shake & stir theatre co.: Fourteen, Fantastic Mr Fox, Jane Eyre, George’s Marvellous Medicine. Griffin: Jailbaby, The Lewis Trilogy. The Ensemble: Alone it Stands. ATYP: Saplings, The Deb, Intersections: Arrival, War Crimes. Belvoir: Tell Me I’m Here, Fangirls, Opening Night, The Life of Galileo. Hayes Theatre Company: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Dubbo Championship Wrestling. National Theatre of Parramatta: Girls in Boys’ Cars. Bell Shakespeare: The Players. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: Let The Right One In. Kwento: One Hour, No Oil, Ate Lovia. Merrigong Theatre Company: A Midsummer Night's Dream, As Luck Would Have It. Outhouse Theatre Co: Ulster American. Empress Theatre: Cyprus Avenue. Sport for Jove: Rose Riot, Servant of Two Masters, Measure for Measure, Fallen. As Actor: shake & stir theatre co.: Fantastic Mr Fox, Animal Farm, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, George’s Marvellous Medicine. Kay & McLean Productions: The Graduate. Bell Shakespeare: Richard III. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: A Chorus Line (As Understudy), Deathtrap. Gordon Frost Organisation: Fame: the Musical. Queensland Theatre Company: Managing Carmen, The Odd Couple, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Rabbithole, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Exception and the Rule. Positions: President of the Society of Australian Fight Directors incorporated. Training: University of Southern Queensland, Certified by the Society of Australian Fight Directors incorporated.     

CHARMIAN GRADWELL
Voice & Text Director 

Sydney Theatre Company: 4000 Miles, Sweat, The President, No Pay? No Way!, Into the Shimmering World, Dear Evan Hansen (with Michael Cassel Group), Dracula, Stolen, A Fool in Love, The Seagull, The Importance of Being Earnest, Constellations, Do not go gentle..., Fences, The Tempest, The Lifespan of a Fact, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Fun Home (with MTC), The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Mary Stuart, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Harp in the South, The Long Forgotten Dream, Saint Joan, Blackie Blackie Brown (with Malthouse Theatre), Still Point Turning, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Lethal Indifference, Top Girls, Dinner, The Father (with MTC), Black is the New White, Talk, Chimerica, A Flea in Her Ear, All My Sons, Disgraced, Hay Fever, Arcadia, The Golden Age, King Lear, The Present, Suddenly Last Summer, After Dinner, The Long Way Home, Travelling North, Machinal, Waiting for Godot, Romeo and Juliet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Storm Boy (with Barking Gecko), The Maids, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Sex with Strangers, Under Milk Wood, Gross und Klein, Bloodland, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Uncle Vanya, A Streetcar Named Desire, The War of the Roses, Tot Mom. As Director: The Comedy of Errors. Other Theatre: As Voice & Text Coach: QT: Triple X (with Sydney Theatre Company). Royal Shakespeare Company: The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, The Canterbury Tales (tour), A Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Days of Significance, Macbeth, Macbett, The Penelopiad, Noughts and Crosses, The Comedies (London season), Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gunpowder (London season), Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors. As Dialect Coach: Musicals: Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical (with Global Creatures), Aladdin, Assassins, The Lion King, Mary Poppins, The Tap Brothers, Xanadu the Musical. As Director/Trainer: A year with Space 2000 in Kaduna, Nigeria. Film: As Dialect Coach: Elvis, Peter Rabbit 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Reaching for the Moon, Truth, Ginger & Rosa. Other: Voice trainer, London School of Puppetry. Member of London Shakespeare Workout, which brings Shakespeare into UK prisons. Training: Central School of Speech and Drama. 

CORPORATE PARTNERS

Sydney Theatre Company is grateful to our corporate partners for their generous support of theatre and the arts. We applaud their commitment and vision.

Find out more about our current partners.

OUR DONOR COMMUNITY

Thank you STC Angels for your unwavering commitment to our work.

Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM & Luca Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Jane & Andrew Clifford
Gretel Packer AM
Rebel Penfold-Russell OAM
Rosie Williams & John Grill AO

Thank you to our donors at all levels, who support a bright future for STC.

View your acknowledgement.

If you would like to help STC continue to be one of the largest employers of artists and theatre-makers in Australia, please make consider making a tax-deductible donation.

SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ann Johnson (Chair)
David Craig (Deputy Chair)
Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Brooke Boney
Mitchell Butel
Sarah Constable
Mark Coulter
Anne Dunn
Heather Mitchell AM
Kate Mulvany OAM
David Paradice AO
Annette Shun Wah
Rosie Williams

See Sydney Theatre Company’s full staff list.

Media Planning by Anthem.

FOLLOW MORE PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

TopBuilt with Shorthand