Tyran Parke is a Director-Actor-Teacher whose work has garnered much admiration and triumph. As an actor, he has played roles professionally in musicals, contemporary plays, television and Shakespeare.

As a teacher, he has worked for the National Institute of Performing Arts, (NIDA), The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) but it is at The Australian Institute of Music (AIM) where he is currently course co-ordinator for the Melbourne campus.

Professional Directing credits include the musicals; Rent,  Jekyll and Hyde,  Lovebites, Cheek to Cheek, King of the World, the plays; Great Expectations, Pool(no water), Thom Pain, Barnum, The Laramie Project, The Opera, The Fairy Queen and many concerts.

He has worked at the Hayes Theatre several times both as both an actor and a director when he was the helm of The Goodbye Girl  and Anyone Can Whistle for Neglected Musicals, Rob Mills is Surprisingly Good (and national tour) and Stalker- the musical.

He has also directed the critically acclaimed ‘Big Fish’ in Sydney and ‘Ordinary Days’ at Chapel Off Chapel. And productions of Barnum starring Todd McKenney and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Lachy Hulme.

Tyran has a built a strong reputation for interpreting the work of Stephen Sondheim. These productions include, ‘Assassins’, the all-star concert of ‘Follies’, and ‘Into the Woods’. He directed the new Australian musical,  ‘Crossroads’ to great acclaim in Melbourne, the national tours of “From Broadway to La Scala’ with Lisa McCune, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, David Hobson and Greta Bradman, and ‘Tapestry’ starring Debra Byrne and Vika Bull.

In 2023, Tyran directs Jonathan Larsen’s tick, tick … BOOM! for seasons in Melbourne and Brisbane.

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Strykermeyer is a drag performer of unique powers and enormous skill. His work has enamoured audiences around the world. His ability to conjure a crowd is harnessed with immense theatricality; drawn from the combination of idiosyncratic invention in performance; and the greasepaints that contribute to the creation of an arresting and hypnotic aesthetic.

Migrating to Australia as a boy from the UK, his family found residence in the Goldfields town of Kambalda in Western Australia. The contrast of geography and climate built a resilience in the young Stryker and forced avenues to escape - in imagination and by train!

Landing in Perth in the 70s he entered his first nightclub - Matches on William street. The lure of the stage called and his place in the world was found. This was the time of a different drag scene. Experimental and exciting, it drew a queer community together and launched the careers of a bounty of burgeoning artists.

Established performer Audrey Woodstock-Rose guided Stryker in the early days providing lessons in stagecraft and an appreciation of Asian theatre styles such as Kabuki, Noh, and Butoh; influences that resonate in Stryker’s performance repertoire.

Early song choices that supported his developing style included Gary Numan’s Are Friends Electric? and Iggy Pop’s I’m Bored, which he performed in ‘boy drag’.

Considered one of the best make-up artists in Australia, Stryker contributed to the drag aesthetic on the film Priscilla - Queen of the Desert; ultimately being awarded the British Academy of Film and Television Award for Best Make-up and Hair Design in 1994.

Today he continues to contribute a vivid artistic and considered temperament to queer and art spaces around W.A. Collaborations with fellow performer Ash Baroque inspire his creativity and ensure we continue to be enthralled by his vast talents.

Stryker the man, is a modest gentleman who possesses years of experience and knowledge; whilst retaining a passion for his art and craft. He is a treasured and gifted artist who has been an avant-garde presence on the queer scene for several decades. What a treat that he shares all of that in this riveting episode of the STAGES podcast.

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Jacob Steen has commenced a very exciting time in a performer’s career. He is making his professional debut in the musical Mary Poppins; now touring around Australia, presented by Disney, Cameron Mackintosh and Michael Cassel.

An exciting and joyous time indeed, but one that presents its share of challenge, discovery and discipline. Jacob is keen to share his experience thus far and provide insight for the novice performer ‘waiting in the wings’ and the audience who are fascinated by the theatre and the backstage of showbiz.

Jacob completed first year of the Bachelor of Music Theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, prior to the opportunity to join Mary Poppins. He has trained in Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Acro, Musical Theatre and Contemporary under Renie Ann Martini OAM at the May Downs School of Dance from 2016 until 2020. His training begun with jazz and tap under Jodie Greenwood at Upstage Dance Academy.

Jacob has been a proud member of Actor's Equity since 2022.

It is indeed a recent professional debut and STAGES is delighted to welcome Jacob onto STAGES and applaud his new adventure ‘on the boards!’

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Gerry Connolly is an accomplished Australian actor, comic and musician on stage, in cabaret, film and television.

For half the reign of Queen Elizabeth 2, he rendered Her Majesty in a celebrated and vivid portrayal across many stages and platforms. This turn began life at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in revue, and along with his rendition of Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen, quickly became the basis of stage shows such as Men and Women of Australia, I CONnolly, Gerrymander Joh, Pianomaniac and Gerry Connolly: Alone or with Others?

Gerry is widely acclaimed across Australia as a comic of tremendous skill and observation, enjoying enormous success at the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Comedy Festivals, as well as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2012 he brought his own brand of comic and classic taste to the Richard Tognetti Festival Maribor, in Slovenia.

His theatre credits include Wuthering Heights (shake & stir), The Marriage of Figaro (QTC), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (MTC), Once in a Lifetime (STC), Cyrano de Bergerac (MTC), Little Murders (MTC), A Royal Commission into the Australian Economy (Melbourne Comedy Festival), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (GFO), Anything Goes (Opera Australia/GFO), Sydney Opera House: The Eighth Wonder (Opera Australia), The Pirates of Penzance (Essgee), Fledermaus (Opera Queensland), Summer Rain (STC), Urinetown (MTC) and Tomfoolery (MTC).

Gerry’s television credits include Gerry Connolly Show (ABC), Fast Forward (Channel 7), Kath & Kim (Channel 7), Spicks ‘n Specks (ABC), Dead Gorgeous (ABC), Mystery of a Hansom Cab (ABC), A Royal Commission into the Australian Economy (Channel 7) and various Current Affairs and panel programs, including Celebrity Roasts for Bert Newton, Molly Meldrum and Brian Henderson.

Gerry is presently on stage as Mr Paravicini in Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. The production kicks off a national tour at the Theatre Royal in Sydney … and celebrates the 70th anniversary of the iconic thriller.

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Nicholas Hammond first appeared on Broadway as the ten-year-old son of Sir Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers in Graham Greene’s The Complaisant Lover, winning enthusiastic praise from the New York critics. From that first footstep onto the stage of the Barrymore Theatre, Nicholas has had a lifelong love of acting, whether on stage, film or television.

He has had the good fortune to work all over the world, and with many of the greatest artists of the time. He has been featured in over 40 films, some 250 television shows and countless plays in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Theatre Company, and national tours all over the United States, Great Britain and Australia, performing the works of Graham Greene, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Alan Ayckbourn, Sean O’Casey and Neil Simon among many others.

His global film career includes films from Lord of the Flies to Ladies in Black and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and starring in his own American prime time series The Amazing Spiderman. But, as he and his film “siblings” always say, no matter how many wonderful roles he plays, most people will always think of him as Friedrich Von Trapp in the most successful film musical of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.

Nicholas’ connection with Rodgers and Hammerstein has continued since making that film, and in 2019 he won first prize at the British Television Awards for a BBC documentary he wrote and presented, Climb’d Every Mountain with Nicholas Hammond, comparing the fictional story of the film to the factual story of the real Von Trapps, many of whom are his close friends to this day.

For the Gordon Frost Organisation (now Crossroads Live Australia), he toured Australia and New Zealand with Dame Julie Andrews in a hugely successful two-person show, a wonderful reunion 50 years after they made the film.

Nicholas Hammond returns to the stage in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. The fact that Julie Andrews played Ella in the first production of the show makes the connection even stronger, and for Nicholas to play Sebastian now, is a joy.

Cinderella plays Sydney’s Lyric Theatre from October 23rd.

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Ash Flanders is a multi-award winning playwright and screenwriter from sunny Melbourne. In 2006 he and Declan Greene formed theatre company Sisters Grimm and together they have written a dozen shows including Summertime in the Garden of Eden (Theatre Works, Griffin Theatre), Little Mercy (STC), The Sovereign Wife (MTC), Calpurnia Descending (Malthouse/STC) and Lilith: The Jungle Girl (MTC).

Ash has also created the solo shows Meme Girls (Malthouse), Special Victim (Feast Festival), Playing to Win (Arts Centre Melbourne), Ash Flanders is NOTHING and End Of (Darebin Speakeasy) as well as SS Metaphor at The Malthouse Theatre.

Ash has been invited to present work for the Emerging Writers’ Festival, The Wheeler Centre’s Show of the Year as well as Women of Letters, where his letter was chosen to be published in the book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Women of Letters. His erotic Golden Girls fan fiction became the short film Divine Decadence of Cheesecake which played Frameline, Out On Film, LLFF Canada and other international film festivals.

He co-wrote the web series FRIENDLY (over 10K views) and has a slate of fresh screen projects in development, including a series taken from the world of his solo shows.

Ash will premiere a new play, This is Living, at The Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, in 2023. Over the next 2 months, Ash will be performing a solo show, also penned by Ash; titled End Of.  It plays the Griffin Theatre in Sydney from October 13th to November 5th.

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. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).

www.stagespodcast.com.au

Alexander Berlage is an award-winning director and lighting designer. He is co-artistic director of the Old Fitz Theatre.

He is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Production, returning three years later to complete his Masters in Direction.  Delivering a focused and creative flair since childhood, it would seem that his career was always assured.

As a lighting designer, Alexander has worked for Sydney Theatre Company, Opera Queensland, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sydney Chamber Opera, Sydney Dance Company, Griffin Theatre Company, and Redline Productions … just to name a few!

Alexander’s directing work includes American Psycho, Cry-Baby, Young Frankenstein; Gloria, There Will Be A Climax and Mr Burns.

His productions command easy engagement and seduce with a vibrant and quirky aesthetic - guaranteeing audiences, delight and reward.

In October Berlage stages Let the Right One in for the Darlinghurst Theatre Company - A supernatural thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat

A visceral stage adaptation of the best-selling Swedish novel and film, Let The Right One In is a modern-day horror story with a twist … superbly crafted for the stage by Jack Thorne, the award-winning writer of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, this blood-thirsty thriller will set your heart racing with its shocking conclusion.

Let’s revisit my conversation with - Alexander Berlage.

The Stages podcast is available from Apple podcasts, Spotify, and where you find your favourite podcasts. www.stagespodcast.com.au

With episodes nearing 300 in the STAGES archive, it’s time to revisit conversations featured in our previous seasons.

STAGES spotlights such episodes, in case you missed them the first time ‘round - or so you can simply savour, a second listen.

Either way, you’ll accessing precious oral histories from the people who were there, on and around our stages.

Kate Fitzpatrick is one of our great actors. She was born in Perth but grew up in Adelaide. It was in this city that she developed her passion for art and cricket and classical music. Her potential as a visual artist was recognised by Jeffrey Smart, who awarded her a travelling art scholarship to Japan. Her love of cricket lead her to an appointment as the world’s first female Cricket commentator. And classical music has sustained her through a vast array of experiences in a career that has rewarded and challenged.

At the age of 18 she was accepted into NIDA to study Acting. This instigated her move to Sydney and a career as one of our favourite actors. Her triumphant theatre roles include The Lady of Camellias, Hamlet on Ice, Rooted, Insignificance and Kennedy’s Children.

She was there at the beginning of a burgeoning Australian theatre working in seminal works at The Jane Street Theatre, The Old Tote Theatre and Nimrod. She created the role of Magenta in the original Australian production of The Rocky Horror Show and began her career alongside iconic Australian directors like John Bell, Rex Cramphorne and Jim Sharman.

She has been a regular face on our film and television. And an unmistakeable voice on radio. Kate has made an impression across all mediums.

Kate joined me for Episode 99 of the podcast over a long lunch and a candid conversation. She detailed an extraordinary life in the theatre and some extraordinary experiences with some extraordinary people.

Kate has since become a regular on the STAGES podcast, co-hosting our annual Christmas episode. She is tremendous fun and tells a great story - as you’ll hear in this compelling conversation from the STAGES vault.

The Stages podcast is available from Apple podcasts, Spotify, and where you find your favourite podcasts. www.stagespodcast.com.au