Melissa Bubnic is a writer for stage and screen. She is the recipient of commissions and prizes from the Sydney Theatre Company, Arts Victoria, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, La Mama, Transport Accident Commission’s ‘Make a Film, Make a Difference’ competition, Platform Youth Theatre and the Children’s Literature Board of Australia. Melissa adapted Mariage Blanc by Tadeusz Różewicz (dir. Sarah Giles) for the Sydney Theatre Company, co-wrote Hazel Curtis: Fear Doctor with Petra Kalive (dir. Jason Geary), wrote Shedding (dir. Sam Strong) for La Mama, and Citizen Corps (dir. Clare Watson) for Platform Youth Theatre. Her play Stop. Rewind (dir. Anne Browning) premiered at Red Stitch Theatre in Melbourne in 2010 and toured Australia in 2012. In 2011 Melissa completed a Masters in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her play, Beached, which won the 2010 Patrick White Award from the Sydney Theatre Company premiered at the Melbourne Theatre Company in April 2013. Melissa has written for TV series Shameless, and is developing numerous TV projects, including an original comedy-drama series for Channel 4, and an original sitcom with Clerkenwell Films. She is currently writing her first feature film screenplay, an adaptation of Jamaica by Malcolm Knox for Black Milk Productions.

Shannon Murphy

Director

Shannon is an award-winning director and deviser who has worked professionally and internationally in the USA, Australia, Hong Kong and Europe. Nominated for a 2008 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Director for My Name is Rachel Corrie; the production won Best Independent Production. She has been a Studio Director at Griffin and a recipient of the Mike Walsh to study under Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne Theatre in Berlin. In Australia she has directed Porn.Cake, This Year’s Ashes, Heartbreak Hotel, Crestfall and Beached for Griffin, My Name Is Rachel Corrie and Bliss, Tusk Tusk for the Sydney Theatre Company, Circle Mirror Transformation, and Liberty, Equality, Fraternity for The Ensemble, Trapture, The Age of Consent for the Old Fitzroy Theatre, The Wreathe for Bell Shakespeare, Fear & Misery of the Third Reich and Garbage for Fuel for the Florida Players, The One-Eyed Man is King for F.I.N.D. at the Schaubühne. She has assisted for Marion Potts, Brendan Cowell, Wayne Blair and Neil Armfeld. As a deviser Shannon co-developed King Lear: The Storm at Home for the Virginia Stage Company and is part of the performance collective Sandsthroughthehourglass Sydney Morning Herald’s Most Thrilling Theatrical Event Award winners for 2010. Shannon has already established herself as one of Australia’s leading directors with an impressive resume. Considered most influential NIDA graduate of the decade by Sydney Magazine, her work reflects someone who is willing to lay down the blue print of new territories rather than simply follow what is already established.

James Browne

Designer