Current Panel Members

Panel Head:
KIRSTEN VON BIBRA is a theatre director and teaching artist. She has been directing classical and contemporary based material, training actors and conducting workshops for organisations such as MTC, for 30 years. She was a Lecturer in Acting at VCA for three years, where she directed text-based productions, including Chekhov’s Three Sisters, and Hélène Cixous’s The Perjured City. She recently returned to freelance practice and is currently researching/adapting a Chekhov story.
Members:
GORKEM ACAROGLU is a theatre director, writer and dramaturge. She has gained a reputation for making socially relevant theatre such as The Habib Show, Haneef the Interrogation and most recently Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime, winner of an Australian Writers' Guild Award. She has a long-standing commitment to bringing otherwise unseen perspectives to Australian stages, having worked with a diverse range of Australian artists.
MELANIE BEDDIE is a graduate of Sydney University and VCA. She was co-founder of the $5 Theatre Co. and is artistic director of theatre company The BRANCH. She works as an actor, dramaturg and director. Since 1990 she has been creating text-based theatre for both large and small scale companies. In 2002 she co-founded the Dramaturgies forum, and is currently a Lecturer in Acting at VCA School of Theatre.
ELIZABETH DRAKE is a composer and a pianist. She in passionately interested in the theatrical performance of music and in inter-disciplinary performance. She has won numerous awards for her compositions and performances including an AFI Award and APRA-AGSC Award for best film score for Japanese Story. She won the Green Room Award for composition for the new Australian theatre work, Cargo.
GEORGINA NAIDU studied acting at the VCA. Best known for her role as Phrani Gupta in ABC TV's SeaChange, her other TV credits include At Home With Julia, Satisfaction and Dirt Game. Film credits include The Boys Are Back, Playing for Charlie and Mall Boy. Georgina's most recent theatre credits include Yet To Ascertain The Nature Of The Crime - Melbourne Workers' Theatre, Fearless N - Kantanka, and Roulette – La Mama.
DANNY PETTINGILL is a Lighting Designer and Theatre maker based in Melbourne working in Theatre, Space and Architecture. He also works as a Set and Production Designer in theatre and film and works commercially designing lighting commissions for retail, residential and corporate projects throughout Australia. Current interests include the extension of his lighting practice into using projectors and designing video for theatre and installation projects.
LAURENCE STRANGIO is a director, dramaturg, theatre-maker and educator. He has worked with ASTRA, La Mama, Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Festival, Playbox and Red Stitch. He is completing a Masters in Direction at the VCA. Laurence has served on the Independent Theatre, Theatre: Companies and Alternative and Hybrid Performance panels. He received an Outstanding Direction award for his 2000 production of Portrait of [Dora].
MEG UPTON is a theatre researcher, drama educator and theatre education consultant. She has consulted extensively with both major and independent theatre companies, working with creative teams to develop resources and programs for young people studying theatre. She was Education Manager with Playbox/Malthouse Theatre for eight years, and is proud to have developed and curated a dynamic young and emerging artists’ theatre festival, 3DFest. More recently Meg was a lead researcher on a major national project, TheatreSpace, which examined young audiences and theatre going. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne with a focus on the pedagogies of live performance analysis.
On Leave:
JOHN BAILEY is a journalist and critic whose work regularly appears in The Age, The Sunday Age and RealTime. He also lectures and teaches across a variety of disciplines including professional writing, English and Cultural Studies.
MARK WILLIAMS has been a practising lawyer for nearly thirty years serving the arts, entertainment and information communities. He completed a D.Phil. on seventeenth-century dramaturgy at Oxford University (1989) and performed, wrote and directed professionally until his day job took over completely in 1993. He was President of the Association 2005-10 and elected a Life Member in 2011. He is also an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University's School of
Art.