STC Appoints Three Resident Directors

Sarah Goodes, Kip Williams and Sarah Giles will take up positions of Co Resident Directors at Sydney Theatre Company from 1 January 2013. Each will direct a main stage show in 2013 and as part of their roles will conduct workshops and script developments, take part in STC’s Rough Drafts program and facilitate readings and dramaturgical assignments. They will participate in artistic programming and propose development projects, while exploring opportunities for career path development for emerging artists. Additionally they will represent STC at industry events and take part in the company’s education and community programs.

Andrew Upton said “I’m very excited that these three directors, each of whom have developed and honed their skills at STC in recent years, will play key roles in the day to day artistic life of the Company. They bring to their roles intelligence, a keen awareness of the issues facing our industry and an inspiring understanding of the power of theatre. I’m looking forward to working closely with them in developing a defining vision and style for the STC of the future.

“STC is a big company that produces a broad range of work and I feel very strongly that we need more working directors embedded in the centre of the action. With the whole artistic team I’m keen to really nail the kinds of works that only STC can pull off, in terms of style, scale and quality. While they have established their own credentials as directors, Sarah, Kip and Sarah are in the early stages of their careers and so will bring a new energy and point of view to the Company’s work” Upton said.

Goodes, Williams and Giles will be appointed to part time positions for an initial one year term. The Company expects that they will continue to develop their work on other stages around the country.

The three Co Directors will join Upton’s existing artistic team which includes Director of Programming and Artistic Operations Rachael Azzopardi, Casting Director Serena Hill, Literary Manager Polly Rowe, Voice and Text Coach Charmian Gradwell and Resident Director - Community Projects, Stefo Nantsou. Co Resident Designers Renée Mulder and David Fleischer will continue into a second year with STC in 2013 working more broadly across the main stage.

Sarah Goodes will direct her third main stage production for STC in 2013; Vere (Faith) by John Doyle. She has previously worked with STC as director of The Splinter by Hilary Bell and Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness by Anthony Neilson, and as an Assistant Director on Honour in 2010 and on Elling in 2009. She was also Assistant Director on Ray’s Tempest for Belvoir in 2005. As Director she has worked on The Sweetest Thing, The Small Things, Black Milk and Elling for B Sharp, The Colour Of Panic for the SOH Studio, The Schelling Point, Vertigo and the Virginia, Hilt and What Happened Was for Tamarama Rock Surfers and The Unscrupulous Murderer Hasse Karlson Reveals the Gruesome Truth about the Woman Who Froze to Death on the Bridge for Darlinghurst Theatre. She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Kip Williams made his STC main stage directorial debut with STC’s Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas earlier this year and in 2013 will direct Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. He is currently Assistant Director for Neil Armfield on STC’s The Secret River, opening in January, and has been Assistant Director on some of STC’s most ambitious productions of recent years; The White Guard, Loot and Gross und Klein, as well as Victorian Opera’s The Turn of the Screw and Opera Australia’s Cosi Fan Tutte. For Sydney Chamber Opera he has directed Ich Habe Genugg/Nunc Dimitis and Through the Gates (also for Sydney Biennale), for Princeton Theatre Fifth of July, for National Theatre Melbourne One For The Road and for NIDA, Lord of the Flies and Not I. He has recently directed Fallout for Tamarama Rock Surfers and The Lighthouse for Sydney Chamber Opera. Kip graduated from NIDA with a Master of Dramatic Art (Directing) in 2010.

Sarah Giles was STC’s 2011 Richard Wherrett Fellow. She directs Mariage Blanc by Tadeusz Różewicz for STC in December 2012 in Wharf 2 and will make her main stage STC debut with Mrs Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw in March 2013. Sarah was awarded a 2011 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Director of an Independent Production for The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg. She has directed Money Shots and Ruby Moon for STC and was Assistant Director on STC’s Tot Mom, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Optimism. She has directed Kreutzer VS Kreutzer for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, The Pigeons for Griffin Independent, That Face for Red Stitch and The Herbal Bed for New Theatre and a production of The Maids for La Mama. She has also been Assistant Director on MTC’s The History Boys and Griffin’s Strange Attractor. She has been an Affiliate Director at Griffin Theatre Company in 2009 and trained at University of Melbourne and NIDA.