Charles Sanders
Director 

Biography here

Stephen Sewell
Playwright 

 Well known for his film and theatre work, including his AFI Award winning script of The Boys (1998) as well as plays such as The Blind Giant Is Dancing, It Just Stopped and Kandahar Gate Sewell is one of the most celebrated and experienced writers in Australia. He chaired the Australian National Playwrights Centre for a number of years and is the recipient of numerous awards, including a two year Australia Council Literary Fellowship. and the prestigious ANCP Award for Significant Contribution to Australian Theatre (2004). 

Sewell has worked as theatre writer, dramaturg, screenwriter, script editor, theatre and film director, lecturer, workshop supervisor and speaker. His work has covered a wide variety of fields and activities, from cabaret to musical theatre, drama and as screenwriter or script editor with some of Australia's most significant films. In addition to his theatrical and film careers, Sewell has published three novels, Babylon, Animal Kingdom and The Captive and numerous articles, as well as conducting writing intensives. 

His directorial debut, the feature film Embedded, was released recently and he is casting his second feature film, Sometimegirl. Sewell is Head of Writing for Performance at NIDA, in Sydney.

Owen McCarthy
Lighting and AV Designer

 Owen Iosefa McCarthy is a freelance performance designer working across New Zealand. Since graduating from Toi Whakaari’s Bachelor of Design for Stage and Screen in 2011 he has been collaborating with theatre, dance and film practitioners to develop scenographic design solutions. 

His diverse practice requires him to work in many different roles to create set, costume, lighting and projection elements for live performance.

Dushyant Kumar
Production Manager

Dushyant has been working in the arts industry for over 20 years. In 2004 he co-founded Higher Ground Inc (HGI), which for 9 years operated as a year-round not-for-profit arts organisation and multi-disciplinary arts centre. He is Production and Technical Services Manager and Chairperson of the association for Blenheim Music and Camping Festival. 

Françoise Piron
Stage Manager

After working as a Librarian in Canberra and Melbourne, Françoise trained as a Theatre Stage Manager at the Victorian College of the Arts. Since 1995 she has worked as a Stage Manager, Production Manager and Project Coordinator for many Adelaide arts companies including Brink Productions, Adelaide Festival of Ideas, Carclew, Womadelaide, Windmill Performing Arts, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide Festival of Arts, State Theatre Company of South Australia and The Body in the Garden Writers’ Festival.

She dreams of an arts world where sustainable actions support the creation of new and exciting works and events.

Terence Crawford -  Actor: Max Lewin 

Terence began his career in his home city of Newcastle in 1980 before studying at NIDA. His more recent stage credits include The Seagull, Hedda Gabler, Attempts on her Life, King Lear, Romeo & Juliet and Speaking in Tongues (State Theatre Company of South Australia); Hypochondriac (Brink Productions); and Blackbird (Flying Penguin Productions). In 2017 Terence toured Australia as O'Brien in 1984, and earlier this year that production racked up more than a hundred performances with its tours to Auckland and Singapore. Terence’s film credits include The Babadook, A Month of Sundays, Boys in the Trees, Rabbit and Remembering the Man. 

As a playwright, Terence has had work produced by Griffin Theatre Company, New Theatre, Theatre of Image and Sydney Theatre Company and has had work produced on radio and television. His plays include Shondelle the Tiger, Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, and Love’s Triumph. In 2005, Currency Press published Terence’s first book on acting, Trade Secrets, and in 2011 published his second, Dimensions of Acting: An Australian Approach. Terence is Head of Acting at Adelaide College of the Arts and is an Adjunct Professor of Adelaide University’s J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. He earned his Masters with a dissertation on Chekhov, and a PhD with a sociology of Australian theatre practices. He has been a proud member of Equity since 1980 and is a founding member of the Arts Party.

Terence first encountered the work of Stephen Sewell as a 22-year-old NIDA student playing the role to which he is currently returning. In the interim, he acted in Stephen's Dreams in an Empty City in the 1986 Adelaide Festival, and has directed two other of Stephen's plays,Sisters (1999) and Traitors (2000). He is delighted to be reunited with Stephen, with the four colleagues here who he had the privilege of teaching at AC Arts, and with other old friends and colleagues.

Max Garcia-Underwood - Actor: Mr Heinitz

  Max Garcia-Underwood is an actor and musician from Adelaide. Max completed his acting training at the Adelaide College of the Arts (AC Arts) in 2017. Onstage credits include One for the Road, Little Eyolf, Twelfth Night, Woyzeck and The Skin of Our Teeth (AC Arts). In addition to his acting role, Max also performed as a musician in Cloud 9 and Mother Courage and Her Children (AC Arts). He performed in the production Tears, Beers, and Beautiful Girls for which he was also the co-writer, composer and musical director. 

Most recently he appeared in the ABC iView series F*!#ing Adelaide (Closer Productions) and directed The Hummingbird Effect for the Adelaide Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2018).

Max is thrilled to be making his professional theatre debut in Welcome the Bright World.

Suzanne Merrall
Creative Producer

Biography here

Karla Urizar
Production & Costume Designer 

Originally from Adelaide Karla Urizar has worked as a Set & Costume Designer in Sydney for many years. She studied Theatre Design at the Centre of the Performing Arts in Adelaide, graduating in 2000 before going on to study Film Design at the Australian Film Television & Radio School in Sydney. On graduation she won the Fox Studio Award for Design Excellence. She has worked extensively in theatre, but is currently working mainly in film & television, and so is excited to return to her hometown and her first love, theatre, for the production of Welcome the Bright World, which she will be joining as Set & Costume Designer. 

Some of her previous work includes Production and Costume Design for the feature films Embedded which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2016, and Lost Things. She was nominated for an AFI Award for her set and costume design on the highly stylised film JabeBabe. She has also designed a number of short film productions including Jammin in the Middle E for Virus Media and Road both for SBS and Paul McDermitt's The Scree which won Best International film at Flickerfest and best Craft film at 2005 Melbourne film festival. Her set design for Foxtel won the BDA Silver Promax Award for Best Set Design.

 Some of her Theatre Design work includes set and costume design for Director Nicholas Papademetriou's production of Lady Windermere's Fan, and costume design for his The Importance of Being Earnest, both for Darlinghurst Theatre. Other set and costume designs were for the Australian premieres of Enda Walsh's The Small Things with director Sarah Goodes and working with Director Joseph Uchitel on the following productions: Jon Fosse's scarifying Death Variations; the lavish Empress of China and Mother and Child all a part of BSharp seasons at Belvoir St. She also designed costumes for the Sydney premiere of Stephen Sewell's renowned Myth Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America in 2003 and United States of Nothing for the Griffin Theatre. 

Her other work includes Set decorator on the television series Here Come the Habibs and Home & Away and designing set and costumes on interactive video installation art works, commercials and music clips. She also works a lot with the Artist/Director Professor Dennis Del Favero, of iCinema, her set design work featured as part of the controversial 3D interactive virtual world experience, Scenario, which opened the 2009 Sydney Film Festival. As well as other Multi-media Art Installations including his piece on the poet Paul Celan, Todtnauberg, You & I (2009), Limbo (2006), Half Life (2005), Testamento and Deep Sleep (2003), all of which have toured extensively throughout the world. Karla's work with Professor Del Favero is regarded as highly innovative and a cutting-edge use of technology.

Bianka Kennedy
Design Assistant 

Bianka is an emerging designer whose creative career journey only started a few years ago after changing career paths by studying props making and scenic art, eventually quitting her day job to study live production design; design for theatre, dance and film. Bianka is a recent graduate of AC Arts and is a finalist for South Australian Student of the Year. Her design roles include set, costume and props. Additionally, she has produced public art works for City of Adelaide and local schools and will deliver a commission for SA Power Networks later in 2018. She also works part time for a visual arts not-for-profit. Bianka is an Australian Production Design Guild member and on the SA Steering Committee.

Anna Cheney - Actor: Fay Ashkenazi & Minister Frankl

  Anna is a multi-award winning actor currently based in Sydney after graduating from the Adelaide College of the Arts and receiving the South Australian Rising Star Award during her final year.

Recently Anna's performance credits include starring in Jackie Chan's international blockbuster Bleeding Steel, performing alongside Richard Roxburgh in ABC TV's Rake and touring Australia with David Walliams' hit comedy Mr. Stink directed by Jonathan Biggins. She has toured numerous productions with Bell Shakespeare including Romeo and Juliet at the Sydney Opera House and The Melbourne Arts Centre.  She has performed for State Theatre SA and was invited to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with critically acclaimed, sell-out show Love Child.  

Other screen credits include McLeod’s Daughters, Oranges and Sunshine and Look Both Ways.  Theatre credits include Sweeney Todd, Orphans, Centrelink the Musical, Richard III, The Laramie Project and The Dark Room.

Anna is a proud and active member of the Equity Diversity Committee.

Georgia Stanley - Actor: Rebecca Lewin& Gabrielle

 Georgia graduated from Adelaide College of the Arts in 2015 where she appeared in productions including The Bacchae, Timon of Athens, Much Ado About Nothing and Middletown. House of Sand’s Welcome the Bright World is her debut professional production.

Roman Vaculik - Actor: Sebastian Ashkenazi

 Roman Vaculik trained at the Flinders University Drama Centre, and is a veteran of stage, screen and television. Welcome the Bright World will mark his return to stage after a 3 year break from the arts. Between 2013 and 2015, he was involved in the creative process and was an original cast member of Fight Night. The show enjoyed a 2 year world tour across 3 continents including Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, regional Holland, Edinburgh, London, Plymouth, Hong Kong, Sydney, Adelaide and others. His film credits include, The King is Dead, a feature film directed by Rolf de Heer and Almost Midnight, an ABC miniseries. 

He has also performed in Three Sisters, romeo&juliet, Mnemonic and Attempts On Her Life for STCSA, 4:48 Psychosis (BRINK), The Hit (Malthouse), Checklist for an Armed Robber (Vitalstatistix), and The Return, The Half Windsor and Marathon for Freshtrack Prod.

Eliza Sanders
Assistant Director

Biography here

Mario Späte
Composer & Sound Designer

 Mario Späte (aka Badcop) is a producer / writer / sound designer / mixing engineer based in South Australia. His work takes him from contemporary music to theatre and television. Mario has worked and written with some of the biggest names in Australian music, toured internationally and his productions have received airplay on Triple J and commercial radio.

Mario co-wrote and produced Tkay Maidza's break-out singles 'Brontosaurus' and 'Handle My Ego' putting her in the Australian conscience. Other artists he's worked with include; Allday, Urthboy, Woodes, Evan Klar, Heaps Good Friends, MANE, Flamingo, JP Fung, Nakatomi, Nicole Millar, KLP, Jake Stone (Bluejuice), Okenyo, The Land Below (Sweden) and ARIA winning artists, Megan Washington and Montaigne.

His theatre credits include compositions for Patch Theatre, No Strings Attached, Restless Dance and the Adelaide Centre for the Arts. Co-founder of The Misery Children Theatre Company, the company won a coveted Melbourne Greenroom Award for their self-devised show Mutzenball and a Critics Circle Award for his score of Bash and Sons & Mothers. 

His work on the show 19 Weeks received huge claim, with a sell-out season during the Adelaide Fringe. It also received the top prize of Best Theatre 2017 and was invited to the Edinburgh Fringe and a season in New York. His work has had several major commercial synchs including national ads for Mazda and Samsung here and in the USA. Recently he made his television debut, composing the score for Closer Productions ABC show, F*!king Adelaide.

Sundance Bilson-Thompson
Physics Consultant

Sundance Bilson-Thompson was awarded his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Adelaide in 2002. His recent work focusses on the foundations of the Standard Model of particle physics, and attempts to unify general relativity with quantum field theory. He is actively involved with teaching and tutoring students and outreach activities

Melissa Newton-Turner
Education Artist

Melissa Newton-Turner is a passionate and highly experienced Drama teacher and Education Consultant and has worked in early childhood to tertiary Arts education for over 25 years. She is currently working as education consultant with Windmill Theatre Company.

Creator of the successful resource, ‘Outside the Square’ and co-publisher of Sue Rider’s play, The Pink Twins, Melissa has presented at state, national and international conferences.

Melissa has also worked as Queensland Ballet’s acting coach and mentor and private acting coach to past principal dancer, Clare Morehen. She has served as board member for Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre Company and was Dramaturg for choreographer, Joseph Stewart’s highly acclaimed, Sweet Meniscus as part of Brisbane’s 2014 Anywhere Theatre Festival. 

Patrick Frost - Actor: Dr Mencken & Mr Lewin Sr. 

 Patrick began his career in University theatre in the late 1960’s. He went on to Theatre ’62 and then joined the first South Australian Theatre Company ensemble at The Playhouse, touring Australia in 1975 with David Williamson’s The Department. He has featured in three seasons for the Melbourne Theatre Company and toured nationally in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia for the Sydney Theatre Company. He has been part of State Theatre of South Australia productions for over 40 years including Away, Blithe Spirit, Twelfth Night, Design for Living, Lion Pig Lion and as Father Dewis in Buried Child. At Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre he played Jimmy Jack in Flying Penguin’s critically acclaimed Translations. He also played John in the best Ensemble Cast Award winning production of Michael Hill’s play Boxing Day Test. He played the title role of Macbeth for Foul Play and appeared as The Father in their widely acclaimed production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. Patrick was part of the ensemble at the 2016 Fringe in Sandpit’s Ghosts, Toast and the Things Unsaid which won the Fringe Award for Best Interactive Theatre. He was the voice of the police officer in the State Theatre of South Australia’s recent production of Terrestrial by Fleur Kilpatrick.

Patrick’s screen credits include The Sullivans, Glad Rags, Blue Heelers, Neighbours, McLeod’s Daughters, Deadline Gallipoli, Shut up Little Man! – an Audio Misadventure, as well as many TV commercials and short films. Recently, he appeared in the award-winning documentary Remembering the Man” and the TV series Wolf Creek.

Patrick has been a proud member of Equity for 45 years and is the immediate Past President of Equity (SA/NT) of the MEAA.  

Jo Stone - Actor: Anat Lewin 

 Jo Stone graduated from Flinders Drama Centre and works in theatre, television and film. She formed Stone/Castro with Paulo in Europe 2002. Theatre credits include: The Country /Martin Crimp (Stone/Castro) at the Adelaide Festival 16, Stephen Sewell’s Infected (NIDA/ Charles Sanders), Decomposition (Stone/Castro), White Rabbit, Red Rabbit (Nassim Soleimanpour), Blackout (Paulo Castro), Information for Foreigners (Benedict Andrews), Danton’s Death (Paulo Castro), Congratulations (Stone/Castro), B-File (Paulo Castro) (nominated Best performer for a Green room award 07), Superheroes (Stone/Castro), Pyjama Girl (LadyKillers) and Please Continue by Duncan Graham (David Mealor), MiWi 3027 reading development (STCSA/ Country ARTS SA) Julian Merrick. Directions include: Blue Love (Jo Stone/Shaun Parker), Dis-integration (DanceNorth), SOF#1 and Untitled (AC Arts), Private Lives (Feast Festival 09), and Superheroes (Stone/Castro). 

Movement directions include: STCSA’s productions Pornography and Metro Street (nominated for a Helpmann Award), Thursday for Brink Productions and Death of a Clown (Bando/ Portuguese National theatre). Dance theatre/ Opera performances include: Foi (Sidi Larbi Cherokaui) and 9x9 (Christine de Smedt) both for Co les Ballet C de la B, film/dance theatre piece Blue Love (co-directed/performed with Shaun Parker) nominated best short film Australian Dance Awards. Constanza Macras’s productions Big in Bombay and Back to the Present, Creation 2002  (Vera Mantero), Writing to Vermeer (Peter Greenaway), Madam Butterfly (Moffatt Oxenbould /Matthew Barclay) State Opera SA.

Film credits include: short films The Big Nothing (Sharptooth Pictures) (nominated Best Actress in Web Series FirstGlance Film Festival Hollywood), Grounded (Luke Wissell), Cosmogenesis Club (Connor McCarron), Meanwhile at the Abandoned Factory (Michael Cussack/ Anifex), Erotic Muse (Jordy Pollock). 

Feature films: Going for Gold (Glen Pictures) and Double Happiness Uranium (Cole Larson). TV credits: Children’s TV series Music Shop (Ch:9 Series 1 and 2), Changed Forever, Plonk Series 2, guest role on ABC mini-series Anzac Girls and Pine Gap to be released in 2019.