Amy Campbell
Amy Campbell is one of Australia’s most accomplished creative talents with a career spanning all areas of the entertainment industry.
Amy made her directorial debut with A Chorus Line (Darlinghurst Theatre Co) as part of the Sydney Festival followed by a hugely successful season at The Sydney Opera House and most recently directed & choreographed The Wizard of Oz – in concert (Prospero Arts) and Smashed – The Nightcap (Hey Dowling) for Sydney Festival 2024.
Amy’s extensive list of choreographic credits include the Sydney Theatre Award Nominated Once (Darlinghurst Theatre Co), In The Heights – Nominated for a 2019 Helpmann Award and winner of the Sydney Theatre Critics Award (Blue Saint Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co), the Australian premiere of Violet (Broadway World Australia Award), the national tour of HAIR (Sydney Opera House and Peace Productions), An Act Of God (Darlinghurst Theatre Co), Spring Awakening (ATYP), the original Australian work Guilty Pleasures (Blue Saint Productions), Oklahoma for The Production Company, Velvet Rewired Australian Tour (Peter Rix Management) and Velvet Hamburg (Collien Konzert & Theatre GmbH). In 2022 Amy created choreographed and directed the original show LEAP.
Amy was also the Choreographer/Movement Director for The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s productions of Funny Girl, Porgy and Bess and was the Australian Resident Director of Hamilton (Michael Cassel Group).
Brittanie Shipway
Brittanie Shipway is a singer, actor, playwright and dramaturg. Her main passion lies in new Australian works, having workshopped over 40 musicals in the past 8 years as an actor, writer and dramaturg.
Recently she wrote and starred in her debut play A Letter For Molly at the Ensemble Theatre, under the directorial helm of Ursula Yovich. A Letter For Molly was developed in 2020 as part of Belvoir’s shutdown residency, and received funding from both Create NSW and the Australia Council for the Arts. This debut play was a semi-finalist piece in the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award (2021) and nominated for Best Play for the 2022 Broadway World Awards.
Her next play Senser, premiered at Theatre Works in 2022, directed by Miranda Middleton, featuring original music and lyrics by both herself and Jess Newman.
In 2022, Brittanie was the recipient of the prestigious Dreaming Award from the Australia Council of the Arts as well as Create NSW to develop her musical Yellow Rock. This new Gumbaynggirr musical also received the 2022 APRA AMCOS Professional Development Awards (Music Theatre) and a Koori grant from Create NSW. Yellow Rock will be developed and showcased in 2023.
Brittanie has also written and performed her queer audio piece Salt & Biber for ABC Radio, and has written a short story Gözleme which was recently published by SBS Voices. As a dramaturg, Brittanie has worked on Laura Murphy’s musical Zombie! at The Hayes, Hannah Reilly’s new musical The Deb, and Priscilla Jackman’s play adaptation of Girls In Boys’ Car (NTOP). Her creative collaborations with Miranda Middleton have seen Brittanie dramaturg a variety of Middleton’s works, including Pear Shaped (Theatre Works), Paper Stars and Ally Morgan’s award winning cabaret Not Today.
As a performer, Brittanie has made her mark at the Sydney Opera House as Hermia in Bell Shakespeare’s worldwide premiere of The Lovers. She recently starred as Margaret Whitlam in the new Australian musical The Dismissal, as well as a national tour of Rolling Thunder Vietnam with the John Farnham band. She has also performed alongside Natalie Bassingthwaite and Paulini as the Arbiter in Chess, Kay in a national tour of The Sapphires, The Witch in Big Fish, Claire in Ordinary Days, Lauren in Kinky Boots, Mary in Jesus Christ Superstar, Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, Bianca in Othello and in Sport for Jove’s epic Rose Riot.
Brittanie is passionate about diverse stories being told on Australian stages, and has worked closely with Theatre Works to create a playwriting program First Stories to empower First Nations storytellers. She hopes to leave behind a legacy that encourages artists to breathe voice into their own stories, and forge their own path in the creative industry.
Katherine Thomson
Katherine is writer for theatre, feature film, television, documentary, and radio.
She began her writing career in community theatre and was fortunate to have her second community theatre play for Theatre South Wollongong picked up by Richard Wherett at the STC and transferred to the STC Wharf. Her plays include Diving for Pearls; King Tide; Harbour commissioned to open The Sydney Theatre (now the Ros Packer); Wonderlands, a play about Native Title; Barmaids; Navigating and a musical theatre piece Darlinghurst Nights with Max Lambert, remounted by Lee Lewis for the Hayes Theatre in 2018.
Her fourteen plays have been directed by Des Davis, Ros Horin, Richard Wherrett, Marion Potts, Adam Cook, Angela Chaplin, and Robyn Nevin amongst others. She has a new play in development. Katherine has adapted two of her plays for radio drama, including one aired by BBC World Service about the handover of Hong Kong.
Television writing started with A Country Practice and includes Halifax fp, Grass Roots, Wildside; Snowy; Answered By Fire; House of Hancock ; Schapelle,; Back to the Rafters 2022; Doctor Doctor and A Place to Call Home as Script Producer and writer.
She’s written historical documentaries for ABC TV as well as Darwin’s Brave New World for Canada CBC and the ABC; two feature documentaries for director Gillian Armstrong; currently has feature films in development with Arcadia and Studio Canal/Byzant; and has won numerous Premier’s Literary awards and industry awards.
Laura Tipoki
Laura Tipoki is Maori, a mother and was raised in a very musical family. Laura was Music Director of the Australian and New Zealand productions of Hamilton and is currently Associate Music Supervisor for the International Tour. Laura recently made her conducting debut at the Sydney Opera House as Music Director for Cameron Mackintosh’s Miss Saigon which then toured to Melbourne.
Laura worked as Music Director of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s School Of Rock throughout Australia and then supervised the production into it’s China tour, the Australian tour of Wizard Of Oz with Anthony Warlow, Julie Andrews’ My Fair Lady and Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Miserables International Tour and Associate Music Director for the Australian tour. Other credits include Wicked, Mary Poppins, Chicago, Love Never Dies, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Dr Zhivago, as keyboardist or Associate Music Director. Laura was Music Director for her sister Patrice Tipoki’s debut album A Musical Heart. Laura was keyboardist on the Love Never Dies DVD recorded and filmed in Melbourne in 2012.
Michael Tyack
Michael has been involved with many major musicals including Cats, Phantom Of The Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard, Spamalot, South Pacific, Anything Goes, The Lion King, Wicked, The Addams Family and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Over 40 years he has musically directed many shows including The Wizard of Oz, Jerry’s Girls, Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, High School Musical, The Boy From Oz (original production and the arena tour), Tivoli, The Witches of Eastwick (Green Room Award winner), Mary Poppins ( Green Room and Helpmann award), The Production Company’s Dusty, Brigadoon and The Boy From Oz as well as several productions at the Hayes Theatre. He also has extensive cabaret and concert credits with local and overseas artists. Most recently he was MD of Come From Away.
In 2020, Michael was honoured as a Member Of The Order Of Australia (AM) for services to the Performing Arts.
Jonathan Ware
Jonathan is currently New Work Development Producer at Sydney Theatre Company, where he drives the development of a wide-ranging slate of works for the stage. Recent projects include Into the Shimmering World by Angus Cerini and Julia by Joanna Murray-Smith.
Dramaturg credits include FANGIRLS by Yve Blake (2019 Belvoir/Queensland Theatre, 2021 National Tour, 2022 Sydney Opera House, 2024 Lyric Hammersmith/Sonia Friedman Productions); Dubbo Championship Wrestling by Daniel and James Cullen (2022 Hayes Theatre Co). He trained as a Stage Manager (VCA) and then worked in London for Sonia Friedman Productions, Sadler’s Wells and DigitalTheatre.com. Following further study at Melbourne Law School (Juris Doctor) and VCA (Masters of Dramaturgy), he joined Sydney Theatre Company in 2017 as Executive Assistant to Kip Williams. Positions: 2024 Sydney Theatre Awards Independent Panel. Awards: 2021 NSW Music Theatre Fellow (Create NSW/Hayes Theatre Co); for FANGIRLS includes AWGIE, Sydney Theatre, Green Room, and Matilda Awards, also ARIA nomination.