The Normal Heart

By Larry Kramer
Directed by Dean Bryant

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

“It’s all there - all through history we’ve been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what’s in our hearts and minds and all our creative contributions to this earth.”

So speaks Ned Weeks, the central character in the landmark and semi-autobiographical Larry Kramer masterpiece you are about to see.

At the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic in New York in the early 1980s, Ned and his colleagues are in the throes of a major crisis – political, social, medical and personal – as they attempt to combat government and media inaction and to fight for their right to survive.

And at the heart of Ned’s quest is an attempt to demonstrate that history has the power to both teach and warn. And that we ignore its lessons at our peril.

Before becoming Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Sydney Theatre Company, I had the great privilege to hold that position at State Theatre Company South Australia for six years.

In 2022, STCSA produced this version of The Normal Heart and it became a defining moment for the Company.

Marking nearly 40 years since the epidemic’s beginning, the production also opened with the effects of the COVID-19 crisis in its rear-view mirror. By then, 4.5 million people had died from COVID-19. Meanwhile, by then, 39 million people had died from AIDS-related illnesses.

Across the world, government health responses to the coronavirus were swift. Yet it took US President Ronald Reagan and many like him seven years to publicly mention the actual medical term for the “gay plague” after it surfaced.

The Australian governmental response to AIDS during that era was thankfully quicker and many local heroes helped stem its tide here. But AIDS also left devastating effects on our population – gay and straight.

And HIV infection is not a thing of the past – there are 41 million people currently living with HIV and there are close to 700,000 HIV/AIDS-related deaths each year.

"At the heart of Ned’s quest is an attempt to demonstrate that history has the power to both teach and warn. And that we ignore its lessons at our peril."

And yet…

In 2025, the American government declared that World AIDS Day, which has been commemorated since 1988, would no longer be officially recognised.

In 2025, appeals were made to the Supreme Court to overturn the legality of same-sex marriage.

Meantime, the American government in 2025 implemented executive orders targeting transgender rights and gender-affirming care, and also quietly changed “LGBTQ” to “LGB” on the Stonewall National Monument website to erase the words “queer” and “transgender”. (As you’ll hear in Kramer’s play, transgender activists led the Stonewall riots that many see as the birth of the modern gay rights movement.) And as I write this, that government has just officially withdrawn from the World Health Organization, one of the globe’s key response mechanisms for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

The right for LGBTIQ+ people to live their lives with the same freedoms and protections and respect afforded to their straight and “normal” friends and family has always and will always hang in the balance.

Kramer’s play is a stark reminder of that fact but, in the tradition of great American playwrights like Arthur Miller and Clifford Odets, it is also a study of many themes that still dominate our newsfeeds – boards, political interference and neglect, protest, activism, power and the dissemination of information.

But most of all, it is about love. Familial, romantic and platonic. And about love of the self when the world around you has tried to kill it.

It has been a great honour to revisit this play and this role and to do so under the guidance of such an expert and visionary director like Dean Bryant. And to do so in the design world created by a loving and talented team. And alongside an array of powerhouse and generous cast members, some new and some from the original STCSA production.

We thank everyone who gave life to this production in Adelaide and who has worked so tirelessly on this current iteration. Particular thanks to Sarah Rohrsheim, Wagnan Productions who has partnered on this production, for all her support and faith.  

This play premiered at STC in 1989 in the then-Artistic Director Wayne Harrison’s knockout production starring the great John O’May.

The teenage me watched that production in awe and felt a little less alone in the world and emboldened to live the life I imagined. And to accept that my heart was as “normal” as anyone’s.

I hope this production inspires and comforts a new generation in a similar way.

Mitchell Butel 
Artistic Director and Co-CEO
Sydney Theatre Company 

"The windiest militant trash 
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish: 
What mad Nijinsky wrote 
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone 
Of each woman and each man 
Craves what it cannot have, 
Not universal love
But to be loved alone."

"All I have is a voice 
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain 
Of the sensual man-in-the-street 
And the lie of Authority 
Whose buildings grope the sky: 
There is no such thing as the State 
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die."

W.H. Auden
Two excerpts from September 1, 1939

Cast & Creative Team

Cast

Felix Turner
Nicholas Brown

Ned Weeks
Mitchell Butel

Bruce Niles
Tim Draxl

David/Hiram Keebler/Pianist
Michael Griffiths

Dr Emma Brookner
Emma Jones

Mickey Marcus
Evan Lever

Tommy Boatwright
Keiynan Lonsdale

Craig Donner/Grady/Orderly
Fraser Morrison

Ben Weeks/Examining Doctor
Mark Saturno

Cellist
Rowena Macneish

Creative Team

Director
Dean Bryant

Designer
Jeremy Allen

Lighting Designer
Nigel Levings

Composer
Hilary Kleinig

Sound Designer
Andrew Howard

Assistant Designer
Hailley Hunt

Intimacy Coordinator
Chloë Dallimore

Voice & Text Director
Jennifer Innes

Additional Voice & Text Director
Charmian Gradwell

Dramaturgical Assistant
Abby Hampton

Production Team

Production Manager 
Will Lewis

Production Coordinator
Marie Landy

Stage Manager 
Sarah Smith

Stage Manager 
Stephanie Storr

Assistant Stage Manager 
Jemima Owen

Costume Coordinator 
Meg Anderson 

Backstage Wardrobe Supervisor 
Chris Harris

Dresser & Wig Stylist
Andrew Keshan

Wardrobe Day Maintenance
Hazel Fisher

Drafting 
Andy Powell

Lighting Supervisor 
Amy Robertson

Sound Supervisor 
Jem Hoppe

Sound Operator
Ben Andrews

Staging Supervisor
David Tongs

Rehearsal Photographer 
Anna Kucera

2 hrs 30 mins, including interval

The Normal Heart was first presented on 21 April 1985 at the Public Theater in New York City, New York, in a New York Shakespeare Festival Production, produced by Joseph Papp

This production premiered on 30 Sep 2022 at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide

This season opened on 12 Feb 2026 at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House

Originally produced by

In association with

Community partners

Keiynan Lonsdale, Tim Draxl, Fraser Morrison, Evan :Lever, Mark Saturno and Nicholas Brown.

Synopsis

It's 1981 and in a doctor's office in New York City, a young man gets the news he's been dreading, that everyone he knows has been dreading. He's tested positive for a mysterious illness that's been infecting, and then killing, members of the city's gay community. There's very little information about how the illness works and there's certainly no cure.

Observing the scene is Ned Weeks, a writer who, like many of his friends, is trying to get to the bottom of what's going on and why nobody is talking about it.

So begins Ned's journey into a city caught between denial and disaster. As more men fall ill, the pattern becomes impossible to ignore, yet the world beyond the gay community seems unwilling to look directly at it. Doctors are cautious, politicians are silent, and newspapers hesitate to print what they don’t yet understand. Ned, sharp-tongued and uncompromising, refuses to accept that silence as an option. He starts asking questions, writing letters, and, most importantly, demanding answers.

NED:
We’re all going to go crazy, living this epidemic every minute, while the rest of the world goes on out there, all around us, as if nothing is happening.

Larry Kramer, The Normal Heart

Director's Note
Dean Bryant

I first picked up The Normal Heart from the uni library when I was at drama school. It grabbed me because of the immediacy of the story and the humanity that pours out of it. And like most theatre I’m drawn to, it moved me tremendously. Forty years after this plague emerged to wreak havoc in the gay community (and so many other communities around the world), the play functions now as a history play (of the first four years of AIDS in NYC) and a continued call to action. 

I am in awe of what Kramer achieved with The Normal Heart. He took the events of four years of his life, terrible years where he and his friends screamed into the void until the world started paying attention, and made a piece of art about them. He took a specific story and made it universal, exploring love, romance, family and grief, making characters from the people in his life, and, even more impressively, creating a hero based on himself who is wonderfully flawed. 

Dean Bryant

Dean Bryant

"He took a specific story and made it universal, exploring love, romance, family and grief"

Kramer demanded that the plight of gay people be taken seriously. He demanded that gay people have the courage to say who they are to the world. He wasn’t afraid to scream, to be unlikeable, which seems even more revolutionary in the media climate in which we currently exist. Rehearsing his words, and a fictionalised version of four agonising years of his life, in a room full of queer artists (and their joyous allies) shows how far we’ve come. The fight isn’t over, of course. Rights aren’t gifted, they must be watched-over, maintained, improved-upon, shared.

Classics evolve and speak to their time. When we first made this production for STCSA in 2022, we were coming out of the pandemic, so had all lived through the experience of changing our lives and behaviour in order to keep as many people as well as possible. There was irony in how quickly governments acted in that crisis versus the one Kramer brings to life. Three years later, however, the rights of minorities are under attack around the world, and wins our community thought were permanent are being…reconsidered. 

It is a privilege to return to this material and to find it even richer than three years ago. Sydney was the epicentre of the AIDS crisis in our country, and it’s particularly special to share this classic with the community who fought the same battles as the play’s heroes. I can’t wait to share The Normal Heart with all who lived through the initial crisis, and the generations who have benefited from their courage since.

Mitchell Butel

Mitchell Butel

Biographies

Larry Kramer
Writer

Larry Kramer (1935-2020) was an author, activist and playwright who famously gave voice to the outrage and grief that inspired a generation of gay men and lesbians to fight for their lives. He co-founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis and founded ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), his calls for direct action protest making AIDS a national issue and forever changing public health policy.

Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Larry grew up in Washington D.C, lived in London for ten years, and then moved to New York City. A graduate of Yale, he was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by the university. His most famous play The Normal Heart (1985) was revived on Broadway in 2011 and won three Tony Awards, and has had some 600 productions all over the world. His HBO film adaptation of the play won an Emmy in 2014. His companion play The Destiny of Me premiered in New York City in 1992 to great critical acclaim. He also helped to write and produce the film Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush before producing and writing the screenplay adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1969); the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best adapted screenplay. His novel entitled The American People was published in two volumes, in 2015 and 2020.

Larry’s novel Faggots has been in print continuously since its publication in 1978 and has become one of the best-selling novels of all time about gay life. In 2015, HBO released a documentary about Larry’s life, writing, and political activism called Larry Kramer: In Love and Anger, which was officially selected for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Dean Bryant
Director

Dean Bryant is an award-winning writer/director who was recently appointed Artistic Director and co-CEO of Malthouse Theatre. For Sydney Theatre Comany he directed Circle Mirror Transformation, Dear Evan Hansen (with Michael Cassel Group), Hubris & Humiliation, Bloom and Fun Home (both with Melbourne Theatre Company). He co-wrote the smash musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career, which premiered at Melbourne Theatre Company and is currently touring.

Other directing credits include the new Eddie Perfect musical Tivoli Lovely, Candide (Opera Australia/Victorian Opera), La Boheme (Opera Australia), A Little Night Music (Hayes Theatre), The Laramie Project (AAA/Tectonic), Giustino (Pinchgut), Show People and It’s A Sin: Songs of Love and Shame (both Sydney Festival).

Dean was Associate Director at Melbourne Theatre Company 2016-2019 where his other credits include Torch the Place, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Lady in the Van, An Ideal Husband, Wild, Vivid White, Born Yesterday, Skylight, I’ll Eat You Last and Next to Normal. Other credits for Hayes Theatre include Merrily We Roll Along, Assassins, Little Shop of Horrors and Sweet Charity. For Opera Australia, Two Weddings, One Bride and Anything Goes (and GFO).

With composer Mathew Frank, he wrote Prodigal, Once We Lived Here, Virgins: A Musical Threesome, The Silver Donkey, songs for Mr & Mrs Murder and (with co-writer Sheridan Harbridge) My Brilliant Career. Dean has created many solo shows, including smash-hit Britney Spears: The Cabaret, as well as verbatim plays Gaybies and Well…That Happened and made his film directing debut with short Rhyme Time. He has received 5 Green Room Awards, 3 Sydney Theatre Awards and a Helpmann Award.

Nicholas Brown
Felix Turner

Sydney Theatre Company: Circle Mirror Transformation, The Long Forgotten Dream, Still Point Turning. Other Theatre: As Actor: Belvoir: Counting and Cracking, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Queensland Theatre: Bernhardt/Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew. Griffin Theatre: Lighten Up. New Theatricals: Come From Away. As Writer: Griffin Theatre: Sex Magick, Lighten Up. Film: R.U.R., Jimpa, Sahela, A Perfect Pairing, Christmas On The Farm, Laka, Sedition, Dance Academy: The Movie, Pratichhaya, Unindian, Random 8, Love You To Death, Kites, A Man’s Gotta Do, Temptation. TV: Fake, NCIS: Sydney, In Our Blood, The PM’s Daughter, Upright, After The Verdict, Joe vs Carole, Amazing Grace, Wakefield, The Unlisted, Harrow, The Letdown, Play School, The Code 2, The Elegant Gentlemen’s Guide to Knife Fighting, Mr and Mrs Murder, Home & Away, Underbelly: The Man Who Got Away, City Homicide, The Cooks, White Collar Blue. Radio: ABC Conversations: A wild Bollywood adventure, from Sydney to Mumbai and back again. Other: Lead singer and songwriter with The Modernists and Luck Now, album Big Score and singles including I Spent My Rent On A Record. Contributor to the anthology Growing Up Indian in Australia. Awards: 2024 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting (Sex Magick). Training: NIDA. Pronouns: He/Him.

 

Mitchell Butel
Ned Weeks

Sydney Theatre Company: As Director: The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? (with STCSA). As Actor: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Arms and the Man, Face to Face, Romeo and Juliet, The Grenade, A Life in Three Acts, The Republic of Myopia, Harbour, Summer Rain, Holy Day, Mourning Becomes Electra, Tartuffe, Two Weeks with the Queen, Dead White Males, The Café Latte Kid, Summer of the Aliens and Six Degrees of Separation. Other Theatre: As Director: STCSA: The Questions, Hibernation, Ripcord, Candide (with State Opera South Australia), Decameron 2.0 (with ActNow), Girls & Boys (with Adelaide Festival, Sydney Festival, Theatre Royal). Pinchgut Opera: The Loves of Apollo and Dafne. Hayes Theatre/Blue Saint: Violet. ATYP: Spring Awakening. Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Porgy and Bess, The Bernstein Songbook, Funny Girl. Sydney Opera House/Sydney Philharmonia: Candide. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: An Act of God. Ensemble Theatre: Marjorie Prime, Croon Tunes (also writer). Griffin Theatre Company: Approximate Balance, Dead Cat Bounce. Chapel Off Chapel/Noosa Festival: Excellent Adventures (also writer). Adelaide, Brisbane and Summersalt Cabaret Festivals: Killing Time (also writer). Hayes Theatre: Caroline, or Change. Coriole Music Festival: The Blessing. Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Moments in the Woods: The Songs and Stories of Stephen Sondheim. As Actor: STCSA: Dance Nation, Candide, Decameron 2.0, The Normal Heart, Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play (with Belvoir), Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Pinocchio (with Windmill Theatre Company and New Victory, NY), Rumpelstiltskin (with Windmill Theatre Company and Southbank, London). MTC: Disgraced, The Grenade, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Tomfoolery, Urinetown, Piaf. Bell Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice, Othello. Belvoir: Angels in America, Strange Interlude, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Laramie Project, A View from the Bridge, Dead Heart, The Government Inspector (also contributing writer). QT: Stones in his Pockets, The Venetian Twins. Sydney Festival: Meow Meow’s Little Match Girl (also contributing writer). Malthouse Theatre: Woyzeck. Ensemble Theatre: Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Griffin Theatre: Emerald City. Opera Australia: The Mikado (also contributing writer), Orpheus in the Underworld. Sydney Chamber Opera: Biographica. The Production Company: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Kismet, Sugar, The Producers, Little Me, Oklahoma, Hair. Commercial Productions: South Pacific, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Boeing Boeing, Assassins, Avenue Q, Saturday Night Fever, Dusty, Grease and Little Shop of Horrors. Film & TV: Austin, Stateless, A Sunburnt Christmas, Dance Academy, Holding the Man, Gettin’ Square, The Bank, Strange Fits of Passion, Dark City, Deep Water, Hiding, Janet King, The Broken Shore, Rake, Grass Roots, Wildside, GP, Playschool, Bordertown. As Writer: Starstruck the Musical (Book), Helpmann Awards Broadcast (2019) (also Co-host). Awards: Mitchell is the recipient of many awards for both directing and acting including four Helpmann Awards, four Sydney Theatre Awards, two Victorian Green Room Awards, and two Adelaide Ruby Awards. Positions: Teaching positions at ATYP, NIDA, WAAPA, AIM; former Deputy President of Actors Equity and Vice President of the Media Entertainment Arts Alliance from 2009 to 2013; member of the National Performers Committee from 2007 to 2018; Board Member of Belvoir from 2012 to 2019, Trustee of the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust from 2020 to 2024, Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Music. Training: UNSW. A proud member of Actors Equity since 1987. 

Tim Draxl
Bruce Niles

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Opera Australia/GWB Entertainment: Sunset Boulevard (Australia, Singapore & China Tour). Belvoir/Hayes Theatre: Into the Woods. GWB Entertainment: Jagged Little Pill. Hayes Theatre: Catch Me If You Can, Evie May, Only Heavens Know. Ensemble Theatre: Lip Service, Mothers and Sons. Darlinghurst Theatre: Torch Song Trilogy. Belvoir: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Griffin Theatre: Nailed. As Writer/Actor: Sydney Cabaret Festival: Love is a Drag. Melbourne Festival: Freeway – The Chet Baker Journey. Film: Blacklight, Guardians of the Tomb, A Few Best Men, Undocumented, Ivory, Travelling Light, Swimming Upstream, Dirty Deeds. TV: Austin, Erotic Stories, Last King of the Cross, Summer Love, In Our Blood, The Newsreader, Reef Break, A Place to Call Home, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Supernova, The Shark Net. Other: Album Recordings: Ordinary Miracles, Insongniac, Tim Draxl Live at the Supper Club, My Funny Valentine. Awards: 2006 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Cabaret Production (Back For  Seconds). Pronouns: He/Him.

MICHAEL GRIFFITHS
David/Hiram/Pianist

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Actor: STCSA: The Normal Heart. Newtheatricals: Jersey Boys. Backrow Productions: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Louise Withers and Associates: We Will Rock You! Jacobsen Entertainment Group: SHOUT! The Legend of the Wild One. Film: South Pacific. Positions: Artistic Director Perth International Cabaret Festival (2021 – 2024). Awards: 2016 Best Cabaret Performer Helpmann Awards (Cole), 2014 Best Cabaret Adelaide Fringe (In Vogue: Songs by Madonna/ Sweet Dreams: Songs by Annie Lennox). Training: WAAPA. Pronouns: He/Him. 

EMMA JONES
Dr Emma Brookner

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: SSTCSA: The Normal Heart. Tamrama Rock Surfers: Megan Mostyn-Brown, And At That Moment Everything Changed. Film: The 5th Shadow, The New Prophet. TV: Apple Cider Vinegar, Bump, Mother & Son, Joe Vs Carole. Pronouns: She/Her.

EVAN LEVER
Mickey Marcus

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Actor: STCSA: The Normal Heart. Global Creatures: Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical. Hayes Theatre Company: Merrily We Roll Along. Opera Australia: Anything Goes. The Production Company: La Cage aux Folles. Yusuf Islam: Moonshadow the Musical. Other: Writer and performer Aznavourian, Melbourne Cabaret Festival and the New York Music Theatre Festival. Training: VCA, SITI Company, BADA.

KEIYNAN LONSDALE
Tommy Boatwright

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Actor: Fame The Musical. Film: War Machine, My Fake Boyfriend, Work It, Love, Simon, Like. Share. Follow, Dance Academy: The Movie, The Divergent Series: Allegiant Part 1 & 2, The Finest Hours, Insurgent, Razzle Dazzle. TV: Lam, Swift Street, Step Up; Highwater, Eden, Equal, Love Victor, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, The Flash, Dance Academy, All Saints. Other: The Heart Defence Mixtape, Rainbow Boy. Training: Brent Street School of Performing Arts. Pronouns: He/Him 

FRASER MORRISON
Craig/Grady/Orderly

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Belvoir: Grief is a Thing with Feathers. Griffin Theatre: Naturism. Old Fitz: The Eisteddfod, How to Defend Yourself. KXT: Cruise, Dumb Kids, Cherry Smoke. ATYP: The Resistance, M.Rock. Darlinghurst Theatre Co.: Remembering Pirates. Film & TV: The Last Days of the Space Age, The Family Law, Oi. Awards: Sydney Theatre Award for ‘Best Lead Performance in an Independent Production’ (Cruise). 

MARK SATURNO
Ben Weeks/Examining Doctor

Sydney Theatre Company: The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? (with STCSA). Other Theatre: STCSA: Jack Maggs, View from the Bridge, Antigone, The Normal Heart, Hibernation, Betrayal, Vale, Maggie Stone, Blasted, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), romeo+juliet, Solstice, The Club, The Torrents. MTC: Betrayal. Broadway: The Retreat from Moscow. Off-Broadway: Howard Katz, An Oak Tree, John Ferguson, The Comedy of Errors, Trainspotting, Ancestral Voices and Gone Missing. USA Theatre:  Doubt, A Number, I Am My Own Wife, The Tempest, Wintertime, Comedy of Errors, The Iliad, King Lear, King John, Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew and Edward II. TV/Film: Kangaroo Island, Diabloic, First Day, Alpha Test, Lie Down Breathe Out Something’s Not Quite Right, First Day, Thin Ice, Awoken, ANZAC Girls, Deadline Gallipoli, Changed Forever, Law & Order, Spin City, PBS Great Books, My Normal, Heaven’s Burning. Awards: 2019 Adelaide Critics Circle Awards – Best Actor (A View from the Bridge) 2023 Geelong Independent Film Festival – Best Actor (Something’s Not Quite Right). Training: Centre for the Performing Arts, The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Shakespeare & Co. 

ROWENA MACNEISH
Cellist

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other: Orchestral Engagements: Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Opera Australia Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. International Experience: Member of the Southbank Sinfonia, London; performances at Covent Garden, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and festivals throughout Europe. Fellowships & Scholarships: Sydney Symphony Fellowship Program; full scholarship for postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Chamber Music: Founding member of the Sydney Omega Ensemble; member of the Enigma Quartet. Film & TV: Documentary and film recordings including Bad Behaviour, The Butterfly Tree, After the Party, The Artful Dodger, Welcome to Babel. Training: Royal Academy of Music, London (postgraduate studies with David Strange); Australian National Academy of Music, Melbourne (with Nelson Cooke and Michael Goldschlager); Bachelor of Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (studied with Susan Blake). 

JEREMY ALLEN
Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: Purpose, The Shiralee, Circle Mirror Transformation, 4000 Miles, Sweat, Dear Evan Hansen (with Michael Cassel Group), Fences, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? (with State Theatre Company of South Australia), White Pearl (with National Theatre of Parramatta, toured to Queensland Theatre, Canberra Theatre and OzAsia Festival). Other Theatre: QT: Malacañang Made Us. STCSA: The Questions, The Normal Heart. Griffin Theatre Company: The Lewis Trilogy, Orange Thrower. Ensemble Theatre: Summer of Harold, Is There Something Wrong with That Lady? Hayes Theatre Company: A Little Night Music, Merrily We Roll Along, The Rise and Disguise of Elizabeth R. Red Line Productions: Cleansed, Angels in America, 4:48 Psychosis. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: Small Mouth Sounds, Savages. Outhouse Theatre Company: Gloria, John. Pinchgut Opera: Dido and Aeneas, Giustino, Orontea, The Loves of Apollo and Dafne. Sydney Chamber Opera: Fumeblind Oracle, The Diary of One Who Disappeared. GWB Entertainment: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Kings Cross Theatre: If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You, Ironbound. National Theatre of Parramatta: Flight Paths. New Theatre: Stupid Fucking Bird. Training: NIDA, University of South Australia

NIGEL LEVINGS
Lighting Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? (with STCSA), Amadeus, The Man from Mukinupin, The Blind Giant Is Dancing, Dance of Death, Heartbreak House, The Seagull, Measure for Measure, Company, An Ideal Husband, The Ham Funeral, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible, The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, Uncle Vanya, Death and the Maiden, The Homecoming, Six Degrees of Separation, Death and the Maiden, Coriolanus, Arcadia, Saint Joan, Tartuffe, The Herbal Bed, After the Ball, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Navigating, Lyrebird, Macbeth, A Cheery Soul, Old Masters, Copenhagen, Harbour, Old Times, Democracy, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Noises Off. Other Theatre: Belvoir: The Master Builder, The Seagull, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Little Cherry Orchard, Suddenly Last Summer, Macbeth, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Scorched, The Book of Everything. MTC: Moonlight and Magnolias, Apologia. Bregenz Festival: The Demon. Broadway and West End: The King and I. Welsh National Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera: Billy Budd, Don Carlos. Mariinsky Theatre: La Bohème. Théâtre du Châtelet: Falstaff. Deutsche Staatsoper: Orfeo. Dallas Opera: The Queen of Spades. Houston Grand Opera: Barber of Seville and Turn of the Screw. Lyric Opera of Chicago: Roméo et Juliette. English National Opera: Sir John in Love. Broadway: Baz Luhrmann production of La Bohème. Baden Baden Festspielhaus: Der Fliegende Holländer. Royal Opera House: Simon Boccanegra. Opera Australia: Bliss, Of Mice and Men, Lakmé, Macbeth, The Love of the Nightingale and Die Tote Stadt. State Opera of South Australia and the Brisbane Festival: Maria de Buenos Aires. Victorian Opera: Midnight Son. Awards: Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society. Helpmann Award 2010, Green Room Award 2011, Ovation Award Los Angeles 2004, Dora Mava Moore Toronto 2001, Outer Circle Critics Award New York 1996 and 2003, Drama Desk Award New York 2003, Tony Award 2003.

HILARY KLEINIG
Composer

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Composer/Musician/Musical Director: STCSA: Jack Maggs, The Normal Heart, Gods of Strangers, Vale, Babyteeth. Brink Productions: The Aspirations of Daise Morrow, Land & Sea. Restless Dance Theatre: Exposed, Seeing Through Darkness, Next of Kin. Composing: Australian String Quartet, Zephyr Quartet, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Silk Strings Ensemble, Muses Trio, Soundstream New Music, Decibel Ensemble, Clocked Out, Adelaide Chamber Singers, Creative Original Music Adelaide, Adelaide Youth Orchestra, Claire Edwardes & Emily Granger. Album Recordings: Epilogue, The Aspirations of Daise Morrow, A Rain from the Shadows, Esque, Voice Quartet. Positions: Zephyr Quartet – Artistic Director & Cellist (2000-2020), Connecting the Dots in Music - Co-Director (2020-current), Director – Peggy Glanville Hick Composer’s Trust (2021-present), Music Teacher – Brighton Secondary School (2022-present). Awards: 2019 APR /AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence by an Organisation, 2007 & 2014 Ruby Awards for Innovation, 2018 UNESCO: City of Music award for Best International Collaboration, 2015 Adelaide Critics Circle Awards for Innovation. Training: Elder Conservatorium/Adelaide University, Royal College of Music. Pronouns: She/Her. 

ANDREW HOWARD
Sound Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? (with STCSA). Other Theatre: STCSA: Housework, Jack Maggs, The Puzzle, The Questions, The Children, Welcome to Your New Life, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Prima Facie, Every Brilliant Thing, Single Asian Female, The Normal Heart, Cathedral, Girls & Boys, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hibernation, The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race, Euphoria, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (with Slingsby Theatre), Ripcord, Gaslight, Dance Nation, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Animal Farm, The Gods of Strangers, That Eye, The Sky, Terrestrial, After Dinner, In the Club, Vale, Macbeth, A Doll’s House, 1984 (Australian Associate Sound Designer), Sista Girl, Machu Picchu, This Is Where We Live, Kryptonite, Maggie Stone, Babyteeth, Random, The Kreutzer Sonata, Romeo and Juliet, Knives in Hens, Attempts on Her Life. Windmill Theatre Co: Helly’s Magic Cup, Grug, Nyuntu Ngali, Fugitive, School Dance, The Story Thieves, Girl Asleep. State Theatre Company South Australia/Windmill Theatre Co: Rumpelstiltskin, Pinocchio. The Border Project: Despoiled Shore, Medeamaterial, Landscape with Argonauts, The War, Please Go Hop!, Highway Rock ’n’ Roll Disaster, Trouble on Planet Earth, Disappearance. Floogle: One Long Night in the Land of Nod, The Homecoming. Flying Penguin Productions: The Birthday Party, Blackbird. Junglebean: Boxing Day Test. Patch Theatre: Little Green Tractor. Positions: Resident Sound Designer, State Theatre Company South Australia. 

HAILLEY HUNT
Assistant Designer

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Set and Costume Designer: Belvoir 25A: Aurat Raj, Forgetting Tim Minchin, Feminazi. Old Fitz Theatre:  Amber, sitting, screaming, Anomalies. PACT: The Changelings. ATYP: Scab. Eternity Playhouse: Christmas Unwrapped: A Very Naughty Variety Show. As Set Designer: Hayes Theatre: Phar Lap: The Electro Swing Musical, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Belvoir 25A: Shitty. As Associate Costume Designer: Belvoir St Theatre: Orlando. As Associate Set Designer: Belvoir St Theatre: Meg Mac: It's My Party. Hayes Theatre: The Hello Girls. As Associate Production Designer: Detention. Awards: 2025 Sydney Theatre Awards for Best Costume Design of a MainStage Production (Orlando) with Ella Butler. Training: NIDA. Pronouns: She/Her. 

CHLOË DALLIMORE
Intimacy Coordinator

Sydney Theatre Company: Circle Mirror Transformation, 4000 Miles, Dear Evan Hansen (with Michael Cassel Group), A Fool in Love, The Seagull, The Importance of Being Earnest, On the Beach, The Tempest, A Raisin in the Sun. Other Theatre: Belvoir: Who’s Afraid, Counting & Cracking, Boomkak Panto, Miss Peony, The Cherry Orchard. Hayes Theatre Co: Jekyll & Hyde, The Bridges of Madison County. GWB: Jagged Little Pill, Girl from the North Country. Film: Three Thousand Years of Longing, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Five Blind Dates, Transfusion. TV: The Twelve, Heartbreak High, Bali 2002, Pieces of Her, The Secrets She Keeps 2, Wellmania, Barons, Vanishing Act, After the Verdict, The PM’s Daughter, Aftertaste, Home & Away, Doctor Doctor, Frayed, Wakefield, Between Two Worlds. Awards: 2005 Helpmann Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (The Producers). Training: London Studio Centre, London, UK; Intimacy on Set, London, UK; Intimacy Directors and Co-ordinators, NYC, USA.

JENNIFER INNES
Voice & Text Director

Sydney Theatre Company: The Dictionary of Lost Words (with STCSA), The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? (with STCSA). Other Theatre: As Voice and/ or Dialect Coach: STCSA: Kimberley Akimbo (with MTC), The Glass Menagerie, Jack Maggs, The Children, The Normal Heart, Single Asian Female, Antigone, Eureka Day, Hibernation, Jasper Jones, Gaslight, The Appleton Ladies Potato Race, A View from the Bridge, Dance Nation, Sense and Sensibility. State Opera South Australia: Carousel. Theatreworks: Anti-Hamlet. Monash University Student Theatre: Noises Off. Citizen Theatre: Crestfall. Young Australian Broadway Chorus: The Secret Garden. MOFO Theatre Co.: Absurd Person Singular. Red Stitch Actors Theatre: Penelope, Motherfucker with a Hat. Redroom Theatre Company: Himmelweg. The Honeytrap: Scarborough, The Mistakes Madeline Made, Savage in Limbo. As Actor: STCSA: Ripcord. Opera Australia: Cavalleria Rusticana | Pagliacci. Don’t Look Away Theatre: The Resistable Rise of Arturio Ui, The Great God Mogadon. Essential Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet. Proper Villians Theatre: Julius Caesar. Black Apple Theatre: Girls Do Gertrude. As Director: WIT Inc: Macbeth. PMD Productions: Blood and Ice, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth. Film: As Dialect Coach: Diabolic, Awoken. TV: As Dialect Coach: A Second Chance: The Series. As Dialogue Coach: The Hunting. As Actor: Neighbours. Positions: Lecturer Voice Flinders University Drama Centre, Former Lecturer Voice VCA, Former Lecturer Voice Adelaide College of the Arts, Former Board Member Australian Voice Association. Training: VCA, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.

CHARMIAN GRADWELL
Additional Voice & Text Director

Sydney Theatre Company: Purpose, Circle Mirror Transformation, Happy Days, Picnic at Hanging Rock, 4000 Miles, Sweat, The President (with Gate Theatre, Dublin), 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.

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Dean Bryant

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Mitchell Butel, Mark Saturno and Emma Jones

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An Iliad
From 13 Apr

David Wenham stars in Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s acclaimed and dynamic adaptation of Homer's Iliad.

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The River
From 30 Mar

Mysteries and moonlight abound in this haunting dissection of a relationship.

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My Brilliant Career
From 21 Mar

"The holy grail of Australian musical theatre" The Age. Australia's most beloved classic novel like you've never seen it before.

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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
Sam Meers AO
Heather Mitchell AM
Kate Mulvany OAM
David Paradice AO
Annette Shun Wah
Rosie Williams

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