Lee Lewis
Director

Lee Lewis is one of Australia’s leading stage directors and as Artistic Director has led Queensland Theatre, the state company based in Brisbane, Australia and Griffin Theatre Company, Australia’s new writing company.
While at Queensland Theatre, despite pandemic restrictions, the company returned to production in late 2020 and managed to produce eight shows in 2021 and seven shows in 2022, while also building their significant statewide Youth and Education programme.
For Griffin Theatre Lee directed the world premiere of Prima Facie, The Almighty Sometimes, Kill Climate Deniers, The Homosexuals or Faggots, Rice, Gloria, The Bleeding Tree (three Helpmann Awards), 8 Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, Masquerade (co-directed with Sam Strong), Emerald City, A Rabbit for Kim Jong-il, The Serpent’s Table, Silent Disco, The Bull The Moon and the Coronet of Stars, The Call, A Hoax, The Nightwatchman, and; for Griffin and Bell Shakespeare: The Literati; for Bell Shakespeare: The School for Wives, Twelfth Night, for Belvoir: That Face, This Heaven, 2000 Feet Away, Half and Half, A Number, 7 Blowjobs and Ladybird; for Melbourne Theatre Company: Gloria, Hayfever, David Williamson’s Rupert, which toured to Washington DC as part of the World Stages International Arts Festival and to Sydney’s Theatre Royal in 2014; for Sydney Theatre Company: Mary Stuart, Honour, Love Lies Bleeding and ZEBRA!; for ATYP: Battlegrounds and Citizenship; for Darwin Festival Highway of Lost Hearts; for NIDA: After Dinner, Big Love, Shopping and Fucking, and The Winter’s Tale; and for WAAPA: As You Like It. She also directed the revival of Max Lambert’s and Katharine Thompson’s musical Darlinghurst Nights for The Hayes.
Lee was the first person to receive a Master of Fine Arts from NIDA in Directing. Her thesis was published by Currency Press as a Platform Paper under the title Cross-Racial Casting: Changing the Face of Australian Theatre. She was the 2007 Richard Wherrett Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company. She started at Griffin as the Associate Director in 2008, becoming its Artistic Director in 2012. Many of her productions have been nominated for awards, but most notably, her production of Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree won three Helpmann Awards including Best Play, Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Director.
Her production of Prima Facie starring Sheridan Harbridge was the beginning of the remarkable journey of that play around the world, to the West End, to Broadway and now into film and novel. Known as a champion of playwrights, she has specialized for many years in the first productions of new works, but her body of work reveals a deep love of classics and working with young people.
Willy Russell
Playwright

Willy Russell’s career spans more than four decades; born in Liverpool in 1947, he left school at 15, became a women’s hairdresser, part-time singer/songwriter before returning to education and becoming a teacher.
Russell’s breakthrough work, commissioned by Liverpool Everyman, “John Paul George Ringo…and Bert” transferred to the West End winning Best Musical – Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics Awards.
Two of Willy’s best-known plays have female protagonists, “Educating Rita” (Olivier Award for Best Comedy and “Shirley Valentine “ (Olivier Award – Best New Comedy & Best New Actress, Tony Awards, Broadway – Best Actress). Both became successful films – Julie Walters and Pauline Collins who played the roles on stage received Oscar nominations as did Willy Russell for the screenplay of Educating Rita.
“Blood Brothers,” (Laurence Olivier Award, Best New Musical, 1983), played for 24 years becoming the 3rd longest running West End musical. Major foreign productions include a 2 year run on Broadway, with recent productions in Japan, South Africa, Korea and Australia. The UK tour is still playing to packed houses.
As well as writing for theatre and screen, Willy Russell published his critically acclaimed debut novel “The Wrong Boy” (2000), which was subsequently translated worldwide.
“Our Day Out,” originally written for TV, about a school outing, has been adapted for the stage as “Our Day Out – The Musical”. Premiered at Liverpool’s Royal Court in 2010 to rave reviews it was revived a year later for another sell out season.
Major UK and international productions of Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine and Blood Brothers are staged every year. January 2023 was the 40th anniversary of Blood Brothers opening at The Liverpool Playhouse and the production of Shirley Valentine starring Sheridan Smith completed a sell out run in the West End at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London in June 2023. It was nominated for two Olivier Awards – Best Revival and Best Actress for Sheridan Smith
For the last few years, Willy has been developing his skill as a painter, with his artwork being exhibited in Liverpool and London. He continues to explore the various forms of fine art and print making.
Willy Russell continues to be one of the most celebrated and widely produced writers of his generation with works regularly being produced throughout the world.
Simone Romaniuk
Costume and Set Designer

Simone Romaniuk is a live performance designer for theatre, opera and festivals.
Theatre set and costume designs include: for Brisbane Festival / Sydney Festival: Bananaland; for Queensland Theatre: Tiny Beautiful Things, The Almighty Sometimes, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Macbeth, Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman, Venus in Fur, Bombshells, Kelly, Head Full of Love, Fractions, The Little Dog Laughed, Australia Day, The Pitch, The China Incident, The Removalists, An Oak Tree, Man Equals Man, Waiting for Godot, Eating Ice Cream, Beckett x 3, Ruby Moon; for Sydney Theatre Company: The Crucible, Seneca’s Thyestes; for Unicorn Theatre, London: The Hunting Lodge; for Brisbane Festival: Macbeth, The Wizard of Oz; for Ensemble Theatre: Suddenly Last Summer, Clyde’s, Honour, Kenny, The Last Wife, Luna Gale, Shirley Valentine, Frankenstein, Casanova.
Opera set and costume designs include: for Victorian Opera: Eucalyptus; for Pinchgut Opera: Rinaldo; for State Opera South Australia: La boheme, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Love Burns, Boojum!; for Queensland Conservatorium: Iolanthe; for RNCM, Manchester: La Vie Parisienne; for Opera Queensland: The Mikado, The Merry Widow, Space Encounters, The Magic Flute.
Simone was Creative Director of Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival and Moon Lantern Parade from 2015 – 2019, which was shortlisted twice in the Australian Production Design Guild awards and won Best Major Festival at the South Australian Tourism Awards 2019. In 2012 Simone was resident designer with Queensland Theatre and prior to that was an affiliate artist with the company. She has won four Matilda Awards for Queensland Theatre productions.
She holds a Bachelor of 3D Design from Queensland College of Art and a Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Design) from NIDA.
Paul Jackson
Lighting Designer

Paul Jackson APDG is a multi-award-winning lighting and set designer, dramaturg and theatre maker whose practice encompasses theatre, opera, dance, music theatre, concerts, and live events. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT.
Paul has designed lighting for The Australian Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Berlin Staatsballett, West Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Victorian Opera, West Australian Opera, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Black Swan Theatre Company, Gordon Frost Organization, TML, The Production Company, Bell Shakespeare, Playbox, Malthouse, Belvoir, Queensland Theatre, Circa, Ballet Lab, Circus Oz, Chunky Move, World of Wearable Art New Zealand, Opera Australia, Arena, Kage, Australian Art Orchestra, La Mama, Taylor/Keene, not yet it’s difficult performance group, Chamber Made and many others.
Paul has designed and co-designed sets and performance environments for companies and organizations including Belvoir, Malthouse, Berlin Staatsballett, Chamber Made, La Mama, Stephanie Lake Company, Melbourne Workers’ Theatre, Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin, Ranters, not yet it’s difficult, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Festival, and Griffin. He has worked as a dramaturg on a range of projects and has extensive experience in technical and production management.
Paul has collaborated with a diverse range of directors and choreographers including Barrie Kosky, Benedict Andrews, Neil Armfield, Michael Kantor, Marion Potts, Lee Lewis, Sarah Goodes, Matt Lutton, Anne-Louise Sarks, Paige Rattray, Simon Phillips, Andrew Upton, Adena Jacobs, Kip Williams, Anouk van Dijk, Philip Adams, Sarah Giles, Lucas Jervis, Jorma Uotinen, Renato Cuoccolo, Simon Stone, Peter Evans, Javier de Frutos, Yaron Lifschitz, Stephanie Lake, Cathy Marston, Natalie Weir, Remi Wörtmeyer, Sam Strong, Lucy Guerin, Moira Finucane, Susie Dee, Samara Hersch, Julian Meyrick, David Pledger, Gale Edwards, Tom Wright, Kate Champion and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
A key creative on several seminal Australian performance pieces, his work has featured in festivals and programmes in the United States, Asia, Europe and the United Kingdom. Listed in The Bulletin’s Smart 100, he was the Gilbert Spottiswood Churchill Fellow for 2007. Paul was an Artistic Associate and Resident Artist at Malthouse Theatre from 2007-2013, and an Artistic Associate at Melbourne Theatre Company from 2022-2024. In 2017, he received an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship.
Paul has won a Helpmann Award, two Sydney Theatre Awards, seven Green Room Awards, a Critics’ Award for Theatre in Scotland, and six Australian Production Design Guild Awards. In addition, he has received four Helpmann Award nominations, thirty-three Green Room Award nominations, six APDG nominations and four Sydney Theatre nominations. Paul is accredited with the Australian Production Design Guild.
Committed to mentoring emerging designers, Paul has lectured in design at the University of Melbourne, NMIT, RMIT University and Victorian College of the Arts. He was a founding member of not yet it’s difficult performance group, was a member of Melbourne Workers’ Theatre Artistic Advisory Group and has been on the Board of St Martin’s Youth Arts Centre.
View Paul’s work at Pauljacksondesign.com.au
Marcello Lo Ricco
Sound Designer

Marcello is a multi-award winning sound designer. Based in Melbourne, Marcello has worked extensively in theatrical productions, tours and events around Australia.
Recent Australian tours include The Woman In Black (Gooding & Woodward Theatrical) as Australian Associate Sound Designer. Sooshi Mango: Home Made (TEG Dainty) as Sound Designer and Sound Engineer.
Marcello’s most recent musical theatre shows are Come From Away (CLOC), Billy Elliot the Musical (Footlight), School Of Rock (PLOS), Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (Babirra), Kinky Boots (ETC) and Pippin (WMTC).
Annual concerts and events include the Green Room Awards (2023, 2024), Australian Musical Theatre Festival, Young Australian Broadway Chorus, Music Theatre Guild Of Victoria – Bruce Awards (2009 – 2023), Starbound
On new Australian written shows, Marcello has sound designed the first staged productions of Quasimodo – The Musical (Samuel Kristy), My Brilliant Career (Dean Bryant & Mathew Frank), The Dressmaker: A Musical Adaptation (James Millar & Peter Rutherford), NED – A New Musical (Adam Lyon, Anna Lyon, Marc Mcintyre), Flowerchildren – The Mamas & Papas Story (Peter Fitzpatrick), Life’s a Circus (Anthony Costanzo) CrossRoads (Anthony Costanzo & Peter Fitzpatrick), Atlantis & Happy People in concert (Mathew Lee Robinson), Songs From The Middle & Angry Eddie (Eddie Perfect). Driftwood The Musical (Jane Bodie, Anthony Barnhill).
Marcello has received awards for sound for The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Miss Saigon, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Legally Blonde, Mary Poppins, Chicago, The Wedding Singer, Hairspray, Mamma Mia!, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, We Will Rock You, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sound of Music, The Boy From Oz, Chess and Come From Away. Marcello has received Green Room nominations for sound for The Beautiful Game (Manilla St), Falsettos (StageArt) and Kinky Boots (James Terry).
Brady Watkins
Composer

As Composer/Sound Designer – Tiny Beautiful Things (Belvoir St Theatre); Flowers in Antarctica, The Appleton Ladies Potato Race, A Thousand Points from Zero, Tiny Beautiful Things, A Dream Play, Othello, Metamorphoses, Moth, Wisdom, The Trial (Queensland Theatre); Scaredy House (Counterpilot); Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes (Offside Theatre); SWARM (Dead Puppet Society); Away, The Neighbourhood (La Boite); Seawall (THAT Production Company)
As Sound Designer: Round The Twist the Musical (Queensland Theatre, QPAC); Meet Your Maker (Blak Social, Brisbane Festival); Unconditional (PlayLab, Brisbane Powerhouse & Brisbane Festival); First Casualty, Bernhardt/Hamlet (Queensland Theatre); Fancy Long Legs (La Boite, the little red company, Brisbane Festival); The Last Five Years (La Boite); Bigger & Blacker (La Boite, Sydney Opera House).
As Sound Operator – A Very Naughty Christmas: Melbourne, Sweet Charity, Edges: A Song Cycle (Woodward Productions); Medea, Triple X, Antigone (Queensland Theatre); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (STCSA, Queensland Theatre).
As Associate Sound Designer: The Wider Earth – 2022 National Tour (Dead Puppet Society)
As Deputy Head of Sound: The Lord Mayor’s Christmas Carols [2023, 2024] (the little red company)
As Ableton Programmer: Bananaland (QPAC & Brisbane Festival)
As Sound Swing: Hamilton: An American Musical (Michael Cassel Group) Training: Bachelor of Music Technology – Queensland Conservatorium of Music (2013-2015)
Positions: Sound Associate – Queensland Theatre (2022-2024); Sessional Academic Mentor – QUT Creative Industries (2022-2024); Composer/Sound Designer – La Boite Artist Company 2021-22
Jennifer White
Dialect Coach

Jennifer White is a leading Dialect, Voice & Performance Coach based in Sydney. She coaches local and international film, TV, theatre and musicals, and has worked for Warner Bros Pictures, Sydney Theatre Company and Opera Australia.
For film and TV, Jennifer’s credits include as Dialect Coach on Cate Blanchett’s award-winning Netflix drama series Stateless, as coach to Rachel Griffiths on the Stan series Bali 2002 and on the films Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, Peter Rabbit, I Am Woman and Seriously Red.
For Sydney Theatre Company, she’s coached 11 plays including the sold-out premiere seasons and 2024 national tours of RBG: Of Many, One starring Heather Mitchell and Julia starring Justine Clarke. She also coached on director Kip Williams’ STC productions of On the Beach, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and All My Sons.
Further theatre includes Belvoir Street Theatre’s The Drover’s Wife written by and starring Leah Purcell, Melbourne Theatre Company’s Solomon and Marion, Griffin Theatre’s Rice directed by Lee Lewis, and over 18 plays for Ensemble Theatre.
For musical theatre, Jennifer’s coached 3 productions of West Side Story for Opera Australia, the Australian tours of Chicago and Six the Musical, and In the Heights at Sydney Opera House.
For Neil Gooding Productions, she’s coached multiple stage shows over 20 years, including the play Stalking the Bogeyman and musicals The Bridges of Madison County, Dogfight and Sweet Charity.
Jennifer graduated from NIDA and was a senior Lecturer there for 12 years coaching voice, dialects, text, voice-overs and performance on the BFA Acting and MFA Voice degrees.
Neil Gooding & Alex Woodward
Producers
Neil Gooding:
Neil is currently one of the producers of Back To The Future in the West End, Broadway and on the US Tour. This year, Neil was one of the producers of Harmony, Sunset Boulevard and Gypsy on Broadway, and has produced the Australian productions of The Woman In Black and Peter And The Starcatcher, as well as being the General Manager for the Australian tour of Rent. Other producing credits include the premiere of What’s New Pussycat in Birmingham, Islander (New York), Drummer Queens (Australia), LEAP (Australia), The 39 Steps (Off-Broadway), The Empire Strips Back (US Tours & Paris), the Helpmann Award winning Sweet Charity, the Australian premiere of Dogfight, High Fidelity, Handle With Care (NYC) starring Carol Lawrence and Alan Cumming’s one-man version of Macbeth (Broadway).
Neil was the director of Passion, at the Arts Centre in Melbourne for Life Like Touring. He also directed the Australian premiere of Dogfight by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (Hayes Theatre), the national tour of Thank You For Being A Friend, and the World Premiere of Truth, Beauty And A Picture Of You. Neil has produced and directed Sing On Through Tomorrow by Matthew Robinson, LOVEBiTES by Peter Rutherford and James Millar, Love Letters, Irving Berlin: Songs In The Key Of Black (Lucy Maunder), The Divine Miss Bette starring Catherine Alcorn, as well as being one of the producers of the hit Australian play Holding The Man in the West End starring Jane Turner and Simon Burke. In 2009, he produced the original tour of Breast Wishes and directed and produced the Australian premiere of Gutenberg! The Musical! for which he was nominated for a Helpmann Award and a Green Room Award for his direction. In 2008, Neil produced (with WhiteBox) the World Premiere of The Hatpin starring Caroline O’Connor, Peter Cousens, Barry Crocker AM and Melle Stewart, which then went on to perform at the NYMF in New York. Neil also served as the Assistant Director on both of these productions.
Neil is the author of Back to the 80’s (which is now produced hundreds of times around the world every year), and Popstars – and was the founding Chairman of Hayes Theatre Co in Sydney.
Alex Woodward:
Alex is an accomplished producer and theatre-maker with nearly two decades of experience in Queensland’s performing arts industry. As the driving force behind Woodward Productions, Alex specializes in creating gateway theatre experiences that attract new audiences to live performance through accessible, engaging, and innovative productions.
Notable achievements include the Australian tour of The Woman in Black, which captivated over 75,000 audience members, and the original work Plied and Prejudice which took over space at Brisbane’s Northshore and Alex conceived the hit adults only Christmas show A Very Naughty Christmas which has been running annual since 2017 and has performed in London, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and Gold Coast. Alongside Woodward Production achievements he has led the charge with general management of multiple QPAC musicals for Prospero Arts including Jersey Boys and Pirates of Penzance in Concert.
In addition to their Australian successes, Alex is making an international impact with A Very Naughty Christmas and Plied and Prejudice. These shows are being presented in London, further solidifying Alex’s reputation as a pioneering theatre producer. With a passion for storytelling and audience development, Alex continues to push boundaries, crafting theatrical experiences that resonate with diverse audiences and expand the reach of Australian theatre.