Haul out the holly it’s the time we adore, it’s STAGES season finale for 2024.

Throughout Season Seven we featured 81 Episodes showcasing an exciting array of stellar guests covering the gamut from on stage and back stage, to behind the scenes and front-of-house. All captivating conversations with celebrated creatives about craft and career.

In the 2024 finale episode we welcome back various STAGES regulars to acknowledge the conclusion of the seventh season of the podcast. A perfect addition to your Christmas Eve as you ready for the festivities this week and an exciting new year ahead.

This season finale episode features Mitchell Butel, Rhonda Burchmore, Trevor Ashley, Lauren Schmutter (music by Ron Creager & Tina Messina), Geraldine Turner and STAGES festive co-host, Kate Fitzpatrick. All more ready than ever to embrace exciting new adventures.

And thank you dear listeners for joining us in another year of the STAGES podcast. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and the best of times in 2025. The STAGES podcast will be back in March 2025.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Emma Matthews is currently head of Classical Voice and Opera Studies at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She is Patron of the Wesfarmers Young Artist Program at West Australian Opera and is a highly acclaimed and awarded soprano. 

She has performed with all the state opera companies and the major Australian symphony orchestras; and at the Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Huntington Festivals, with conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marko Letonja, Sir Charles Mackerras and Simone Young.

Emma has sung the title roles in Partenope, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lakmé, The Cunning Little Vixen and Lulu. Other roles have included Leila (The Pearlfishers), Amina (La Sonnambula), Philomele (The Love of the Nightingale) by Richard Mills, Ilia (Idomeneo), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Marie (La Fille du Regiment), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Zdenka (Arabella), the four heroines (The Tales of Hoffmann), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Almirena (Rinaldo), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Cunegonde (Candide).

She is equally in demand on the concert platform, embracing a wide repertoire including the Requiems of Mozart, Brahms and Fauré, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, masses by Poulenc, Villa Lobos, Haydn and Mozart, and Handel’s Messiah. Emma has also appeared as a special guest with José Carreras at the Sydney Opera House, and the New Year’s Eve Gala concerts for Opera Australia.

Career highlights include her Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut in the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras, Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo conducted by Yakov Kreizberg and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Ismene (Mitridate) for Sydney Festival.

More recent roles include Violetta (La Traviata), Fiorilla (Il turco in Italia), Gilda (Rigoletto), the Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) for Opera Australia and Rosina (The Barber of Seville) for West Australian Opera. 

Her recent concert appearances include the Strauss Gala for State Opera South Australia, the national tour of From Broadway to La Scala, Les Illuminations with Ensemble Liaison, Mozart arias with Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl Concert and Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson (Copland) (released on disc for MSO Live in March 2014), and the ‘Jewel Song’ from Faust (Gounod)  and the ‘Mad Scene’ from Hamlet (Thomas), also with the Melbourne Symphony, Mozart Requiem and arias with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and recitals at Government House Sydney, with Ensemble Liaison and Sydney Omega Ensemble, featuring at Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Christmas concerts and Voices in the Forrest, Canberra as well as Duparc Songs with Simone Young and the ANAM Orchestra.

Further engagements have included The Space between the Notes, written especially for Emma by Paul Grabowsky and Steve Vizzard, at the Victorian Arts Centre; An Evening in Vienna with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Leila (The Pearlfishers) and the New Years’ Eve gala concert for Opera Australia; Violetta (La Traviata); a national tour of Voyage to the Moon – a baroque opera pasticcio for Musica Viva and Victorian Opera; Messiah with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Stonnington Opera in the Park and recitals at Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival, Perth Town Hall, the Melbourne Recital Centre and for Recitals Australia at Ukaria. Emma also portrayed Nellie Melba, in a new play, Melba: An Operatic Drama, by Nicholas Christo, presented at the Hayes Theatre, Sydney.

Emma’s album of bel canto arias, Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo, was released by Deutsche Grammophon / ABC Classics to critical acclaim. Her album of Mozart arias with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Marko Letonja conducting was released by ABC Classics in February 2014, and her most recent recording of bel canto arias with ABC Classics and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Andrea Molino conductor), “Agony and Ecstasy” was released in September 2016.

Emma Matthews returns to the Opera Australia stage in the New Year - as the Fairy Godmother in Massenet’s CENDRILLON. Marking the first time OA performs Massenet’s Cinderella (Cendrillon), Laurent Pelly’s highly acclaimed production will make its Australian debut after seasons at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House, playing the Sydney Opera House from January 2nd to March 28th.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Pamela Rabe is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and awarded actors, recognised for her immense body of work on stage and screen. Canadian born, she is a graduate from the Playhouse Acting School, in Vancouver, and for the past several decades she has worked constantly in theatre across the country and around the world. 

Her work has encompassed State theatre companies and commercial theatre with dynamic performances in productions of new work and established classics that extend to God Of Carnage, Blithe Spirit, Dinner, The Misanthrope, The Marriage of Figaro, The Taming of the Shrew, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Heidi Chronicles, The Cherry Orchard, Little Murders, As You Like It, Tristram Shandy, A Servant of Two Masters, Heartbreak House, Too Young For Ghosts, Visions, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Medea, Top Girls, 84 Charring Cross Road, The Winter’s Tale, The War of the Roses, The Serpent’s Teeth, Gallipoli, Season at Sarsparilla, The Lost Echo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Holy Day, The Rover, Private Lives, Three Tall Women, Lost in Yonkers, Much Ado About Nothing, The Ham Funeral, Stronger, Miss Julie, Woman Bomb, Boston Marriage, The Apple Cart, Cho Cho San, Do Not Go Gentle, The Marriage of Bette & Boo, The Glass Menagerie, Ghosts, Footfalls, Seventeen, The Children, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Hamlet.

Forays into the musical theatre include stellar turns in Name, Grey Gardens, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, My Fair Lady and The Wizard of Oz.

Pamela won the 1997 AFI Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for the film The Well and also appeared in the films Cosi, Sirens and Paradise Road. Her work in television includes The Secret Life of Us, Mercury, The Bite, Rosehaven, CrashBurn, Stingers, Deadloch, Bay of Fires and Wentworth.

An equally accomplished Director, her productions have adorned the stages of the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse. They include Daniel Keene’s The Serpent’s Teeth: Citizens with The Actors Company, Elling, In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play and Solomon and Mary, Vanessa Bates’ Porn: Cake, and Jumpy by April de Angelis.

Pamela is presently on the Sydney stage with in Tracy Lett’s gothic family saga August: Osage County, playing Matriarch Violet Weston. The production plays at the Belvoir Theatre until December 22nd.

In 2025 she will direct and perform in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the STC and deliver a delicious Mrs Danvers in Rebecca for the MTC.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Guy Noble is an Australian musical composer, conductor, pianist and broadcaster.

He studied piano in the early 1980s at the Sydney Conservatorium. On a scholarship from the Australia Council he travelled to London where he worked for four years, including a stint as presenter on BBC Radio 3. 

In 1984, he was pianist in the Sydney Youth Orchestra and from 1984 to 1986 in the Australian Youth Orchestra. Noble was the inaugural recipient of the Brian Stacey Memorial Trust Award for emerging Australian conductors in 1998; the trust, in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, financed the composition and recording of Noble's Flute Concerto, written for Jane Rutter. In 2022 he was appointed as the conductor and host of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Guy Noble regularly conducts the Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, West Australian, Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony orchestras and has worked with the Canberra Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia and the Malaysian Philharmonic orchestras. He has been Musical Director and Musical Supervisor for musicals including Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, Hello Dolly!, South Pacific, Man of La Mancha, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Gypsy and the Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

He has recorded 12 CDs and ABC Classics in Australia has released his comedy sketch CD entitled The Guy Noble Radio Show.

He has also conducted and presented concerts with performers including Harry Connick Jr , Dianne Reeves, The Beach Boys, Ben Folds, Clive James, David Hobson, Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Randy Newman.

He is a former host of the ABC Classic FM radio breakfast program and he writes a regular column in Limelight magazine.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

It’s the time of year where folk are jetting off on holidays - a key destination for many theatre fans is to head to the West End of London or the bright lights of Broadway - theatre precincts which guarantee excitement and awe.

Two gentlemen who make their own annual pilgrimage to the Great White Way or the West End -  are ‘Man in Chair’ Simon Parris, and Publicist Ian Phipps. The two theatre aficionados join the STAGES podcast regularly to offer a round-up of the shows they’d seen on recent trips to the theatre meccas. 

They offer abundant tips regarding what to see and how to secure tickets … so, they’re back again - this time to appraise their recent trips to New York and the Broadway season looming - a delicious appraisal of what is on, what has been, and what we can expect to see in coming months.

We also look at the abundance of musical offerings locally in 2025.

Simon Parris is a theatre reviewer based in Melbourne. His review blog ‘Man in Chair’ regularly reviews musicals, plays, opera and the arts. Access to these reviews can be found at simonparrismaninchair.com

Ian Phipps is one of Australia’s leading publicists, promoting theatre and its stars around Australia. If you know that a show is happening, no doubt it’s because Ian has communicated this to you via a myriad of masterful means.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Roger Hodgman is a freelance theatre and screen director.

He was Artistic Director of the Vancouver Playhouse for four years and Melbourne Theatre Company for twelve.  He has worked in drama schools in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – including five years as an acting teacher and director at the East 15 School in London, two years as Director of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver and four years as Dean of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts.

He has directed over 150 stage productions for numerous companies including MTC, STC, STC of S.A, QTC, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Shaw Festival (Canada), TML Enterprises, Australian Opera, New Zealand Opera and Victorian Opera.

He has received Green Room Awards for Best Director in the Theatre, Opera and Music Theatre divisions and a Helpmann for best director (Musical) and numerous nominations. Productions he has directed have won Green Room, Sydney Critics and Helpmann Awards for best production for Theatre, Musical and Opera.

Many of his stage productions have toured Australia including Skylight (described by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of the stage highlights of the 1990s), Art, Private Lives and successful commercial productions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Fiddler on the Roof.  He counts numerous Shakespeare productions and a number of Stephen Sondheim productions as highlights of his career, along with working in Canada with Tennessee Williams on two new plays.

He directed many productions for The Production Company from its second show, She Loves Me to the last, Ragtime. Others include Grey Gardens (Helpman Award) Follies, Showboat, Curtains, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which also had an acclaimed separate commercial production in Sydney). 

His productions for Victorian Opera have been very varied – most recently Banquet of Secrets (by Paul Grabowsky and Steve Vizard), Nixon in China, Parsifal and The Who’s Tommy.

Since leaving MTC in 2000, he has also worked as a screen director, directing over 80 hours of TV Drama including Stepfather of the Bride (Chicago Film Festival Award for Best Telemovie), many episodes of A Secret Life Of Us (AFI nomination for Best Director), Lockie Leonard (BAFTA nomination and AFI Award for Best Children’s Series, Mustangs,, A Place To Call Home (first episode) and Wentworth.

He has served on many committees including the Board of NIDA, Drama Committee of the Australia Council, Cultural Advisory Committee for Melbourne City Council (Chair), Advisory Committee to the Victorian Ministry of The Arts, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (Chair of Drama panel), Vic College of the Arts Board and the Artistic Directorship of HotHouse Theatre.

He currently lives in Tasmania with his wife, Pamela Rabe, and has been directing an annual Shakespeare production in Hobart, and frequently travelling interstate to work.

He was awarded an AM in 2023 for his services to theatre in Australia.

Melbourne-born, Suzanne Jones embarked on a career in main stage live entertainment after completing degrees in economics and music. She got her start in the entertainment industry as a sound engineer at Arts Centre Melbourne, which soon led to the role of Head of Sound for System Sound, touring large-scale music theatre productions around Australia and Asia.

After a hiatus of several years to explore other industries and interests – including a successful stint as a stockbroker – Suzanne’s love of live entertainment ultimately drew her back, joining the team at the Gordon Frost Organisation. During her time with GFO Suzanne produced dozens of Australian tours in various capacities, which provided the blueprint for her own dynamic and rewarding career pathway.

A dynamic commercial executive in the world of theatre and live events, Suzanne has drawn on her close connections with some of the world’s foremost creators of live entertainment and a global network of trusted promotional partners to deliver the world’s most loved and most prestigious productions to audiences in Australia and across the globe.

Her unerring commitment to bring the most iconic music theatre productions and live events to Australia has helped showcase the exceptional talent pool that exists in this country, across performance, design, technical and commercial roles, while delivering a positive social and economic impact.

Forming her own company, JONES, in 2017 was the culmination of this experience. It is under this banner that Suzanne co-produced the Australian tours of the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Wizard of Oz, Chicago The Musical, Pippin, 9 to 5 The Musical, Madagascar, 2:22 A Ghost Story. 

Recent productions have included the brand new interactive magic show Metaverse of Magic, the current tour of Chicago The Musical and the Australian premiere of Peter and the Starcatcher. 

Inspired by the idea that theatre has the capacity to transport the audience, Suzanne is committed to producing shows which offer audiences an opportunity to transcend everyday life to spend a few hours experiencing exciting new possibilities that shift their thinking. 

Suzanne is also motivated to contribute to her community and to act as a mentor for young, disadvantaged LGBTQI+ people by helping them to access opportunities that might otherwise seem out of reach.

In 2025 JONES Theatrical Group is looking forward to presenting Hadestown with our wonderful partners at Opera Australia as well as the return of the smash hit musical The Book of Mormon.

Suzanne lives in Sydney with her wife, Leone, and their dog, Boots.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Australian audiences over the past two decades have been thrilled by the periodic performances directed by dynamic UK theatre visionary, Emma Rice. Productions of Tristan & Yseult, The Red Shoes and Brief Encounter have enthralled attendees at Sydney and Melbourne Festivals.

She returns to our shores in January 2025 with her company Wise Children and an acclaimed production of Wuthering Heights, playing an exclusive and limited Sydney season prior to a South East Asian tour. Anyone who has ever seen an Emma Rice production knows that we are to be treated by another glorious experience of consummate story-telling. 

Emma Rice is the proud Artistic Director of her company, Wise Children, and an internationally respected theatre-maker and director. 

For Wise Children, Emma has adapted and directed the productions The Buddha of Suburbia, Blue Beard, The Little Matchgirl and Happier Tales, Wuthering Heights, Bagdad Cafe, Romantics Anonymous, Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and Angela Carter’s Wise Children.

As Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe: Romantics Anonymous, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Little Matchgirl (and Other Happier Tales).

As joint Artistic Director of Kneehigh: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Tristan & Yseult, 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, The Wild Bride, The Red Shoes, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae, Cymbeline (in association with RSC), A Matter of Life and Death (in association with National Theatre), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre); Brief Encounter (in association with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers Productions); Don John (in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic); Wah! Wah! Girls (in association with Sadler’s Wells and Theatre Royal Stratford East for World Stages); Steptoe and Son and the West End production of Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Emma received the Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre award at the 2019 UK Theatre Awards and in 2022 was named one of Sky Arts’ ‘50 most influential British artists of the last 50 years’.

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Stuart Maunder is Artistic Director of Victorian Opera. Beginning his career in stage management at the then Australian Opera, Maunder has a long history in opera, as a director and arts administrator. 

He served in senior management roles at Opera Australia from 1999 to 2008 before being appointed General Director of New Zealand Opera in 2014. He was appointed Artistic Director of State Opera South Australia in 2018. In his time at State Opera, Maunder proved himself a passionate advocate for finding a distinctive Australian voice, championing Australian repertoire, developing the next generation of Australian artists while still pursuing a balanced repertoire designed to reach the widest possible audience.

His work as a director is highly revered and has ensured Stuart Maunder has remained a consistent presence on Australian stages for over three decades.

A frequent collaborator with Victorian Opera, Maunder has directed several popular productions including four musicals by Stephen Sondheim (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Little Night Music), Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen and a co-production of Richard Meale’s Voss with State Opera South Australia. Maunder’s production of Sweeney Todd was co-produced with New Zealand Opera and toured New Zealand and Australia following its debut in 2015.
Victorian Opera recently announced their exciting season for 2025. Stuart Maunder joins STAGES to elaborate on this exciting season and to share great insight into a celebrated career.
The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Grant Piro began his career in the early 1980’s soap opera Sons and Daughters and has since appeared in more than 100 productions. His work has been recognised with several Green Room Award nominations and two wins (The Merry Widow and The Producers) as well as AACTA and Helpmann nominations.

Best known to young television viewers of the 1990’s as the cult TV host of Couch Potato, just a small sample of Grant’s multiple television credits include; Janus, Correlli, GP, Wildside, Seachange, City Homicide, Blue Healers, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, SeaPatrol, Jack Irish, HalifaxFP, The Librarians, Good Guys Bad Guys, CrashBurn, Newton’s Law, How To Stay Married, Wanted, Ex PM 2, and My Life is Murder. He also featured in the biopics for Olivia Newton John, INXS, Hoges, and Warnie. More recently in ABCTV’s flagship comedy UTOPIA and its flagship drama The Newsreader3.

A few of Grant’s feature film appearances include Rolf deHeer’s horror classic Bad Boy Bubby, Darkness Falls, The Outsider, The Condemned, Crime and Punishment, Mr Accident, The Lighthorsemen, Crocodile Dundee in LA, Mormon Yankees: The Spirit of the Game, Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, Predestination, and alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Escape From Pretoria.

As a performer Grant’s one true love has always been the theatre. Highlights have included the world premiere of Realism, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, The 39 Steps, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, His Girl Friday, and The Odd Couple all for the Melbourne Theatre Company. As well as Moby Dick, The Merry Widow, Taking Steps, The Producers, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Under Milk Wood, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hand to God, Oklahoma, Death Of A Salesman, A Christmas Carol, and credits his ultimate highlights as being Connor McPherson and Bob Dylan’s Girl From The North Country for GWB, and performing opposite his wife Marina Prior AM in Hello Dolly!

Grant is back on stage in GWB’s annual festive delight - A Christmas Carol, as Mr Nigel Fezziwig. The Old Vic’s big-hearted, smash-hit production of A Christmas Carol returns to the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne for a third triumphant season from 22nd November!

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au