Theatre Criticism

Peter Mares is lead moderator with The Cranlana Programme, an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to developing the ethical decision-making skills of Australia’s leaders. Peter is also contributing editor at Inside Story magazine and adjunct fellow at Swinburne University’s Centre for Urban Transitions. He is a former ABC broadcaster and the author of three books, including No Place Like Home: Repairing Australia’s Housing Crisis (Text 2018).

Stephen Sewell has been responsible for some of the most provocative and electrifying Australian plays of the past twenty-five years.

These include The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea**, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Traitors, Dust, The Garden of Granddaughters, The Sick Room and Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America. Recent plays include The Secret Death of Salvador Dali, The Three Furies and It Just Stopped. He has written a number of screenplays, including the acclaimed The Boys, adapted from Gordon Graham’s play of the same name.

Alison Croggon is an award-winning novelist, poet, theatre writer, critic and editor who lives in Melbourne, Australia. She works in many genres and her books and poems have been published to acclaim nationally and internationally.

She is arts editor for The Saturday Paper and co-founder of the performance criticism website Witness. Her most recent book is the creative non-fiction Monsters, out in March 2021, from Scribe Publications.

Julian Meyrick is a director, theatre historian and deputy chair of PlayWriting Australia. Until recently he was associate director and literary advisor at the Melbourne Theatre Company.

A Research Fellow at La Trobe University and until recently Associate Director and Literary Advisor at Melbourne Theatre Company, Julian has directed many award-winning productions for MTC, STC, SASTC, the Griffin, MWT and his own kickhouse theatre.

As a historian he has written an account of Nimrod Theatre, a history of MTC, and a Platform Paper on the problems facing Australian theatre. He is is Deputy Chair of Play Writing Australia and a member of the federal government’s Creative Australia Advisory Group.

Cameron Woodhead is a senior theatre critic for the Age and is a prolific reviewer of performing arts in Australia.

At the age of 18, Cameron Woodhead wrote his first book reviews for the Age and Australian. Over 15 years as a freelance arts journalist and critic, he has contributed to a wide range of newspapers and magazines. He has been a theatre reviewer at the Age since 2004, and also writes a weekly books column.