Adrienne Costello

Founding member

An actor, director and teacher, Adrienne has worked extensively with Brisbane Indie theatre company, heartBeast Ensemble, in addition to actively fostering community engagement in the Arts. She is a founding member of The Curator’s Theatre and was on the management committee for heartBeast.

Theatre: heartBeast Ensemble (Directing) Julius Caesar; (Directing/Acting) Vivien Leigh’s School for Scandal; (Acting) Hamlet, Six Characters In Search of an Author, Lear, Away, cloudCuckooland; Beauty is Difficult, Cherry Orchard, Oberon, Beautiful Frankenstein, Vivien Leigh’s School for Scandal; Cement Box Theatre: Scott of the Antarctic on Ice Arts advocacy: Youth in Arts Vacation School (Producer and Presenter), Artz@theCoalface (Producer) Community Engagement: Woman Images (TAFE), Herstoria (TAFE), Everyman (St Mary’s Church, Ipswich), The Christian Brother (St Edmund’s Alumni) Arts education: Primary and Secondary (including Musical Direction, Festival plays and major school events); Performance and Communication Studio working with both young people and adults on AMEB and Trinity College, London exams as well as communication and audition skills.  Adrienne has presented at conferences and adjudicated drama festivals and eisteddfods and is a passionate cultivator and promoter of the Arts in all its many forms.

Amanda McErlean

Associate Artist

Amanda is a founding member of The Curators’ Theatre. As a proud member of MEAA since 2000, Amanda has performed in many roles across a range of media. Her most recent performances for TCT were Goneril in King Lear Monster Show!, Marie Antoinette in Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists and Anita, the grieving mother in Philip Ridley’s compelling two-hander Vincent River.

In 2017, Amanda co-created, produced and performed the solo role of Simone in The Quighting Time with TCT as part of the Anywhere Festival. Her performance credits include -  

Theatre: The Curators’ Theatre: Uncle Vanya, The Quighting Time, Vincent River, The Revolutionists, King Lear Monster Show!; Hummingbird Theatre Company: Talking Heads - A Woman of No Importance; Observatory Theatre: The Turquoise Elephant; Make Theatre: Mortality and Polity (Adelaide Fringe Festival and Brisbane season); Black Light: Crave (Metro Arts); Emerge Project and Judith Wright Centre: Generation Pizza, Carbon Footprint Cabaret, Going Down (Ten x Ten Squared), Lexie Turns To Stone, Perfect 10; Stage Door Productions: The Hollow; Starbuck Productions and QPAC: Murder on the Nile; Diane Gough Productions: Brave New World Order; Improbable Theatre (UK) and Brisbane Festival: Sticky; Canberra Philharmonic: Land of Smiles, Paint your Wagon, Camelot; Canberra Opera: Iolanthe. 

Web Series: Two Weeks, Scout. 

Television: Slide (Playmaker Media/Hoodlum Entertainment). 

Film: Rise, A Heartbeat Away (dir. Gail Edwards), Pipe Dream, Welcome to the Lucky Country (dir: Peter Hegedus) 

Community Engagement: Amanda has a long history of simulations training, offering her skills in role-playing to the Corporate sector.

 Training: Amanda studied in the acting program (Advanced Diploma in Performing Arts) TAFE Queensland - Southbank Campus. She has trained extensively with master teachers and professional artists including Jean-Pierre Mignon, David Field, Scott Williams (Impulse Company), Margi Brown Ash, Andrea Moor and Steven Mitchell Wright. Amanda has attended NIDA Summer School (Sydney) and worked extensively at Chris Sommer’s scene studio. Awards: Nominee Matilda Award – Best Emerging Artist.  Amanda has worked for over a decade as an Usher and Tour Guide at QPAC.

Naz Mulla

Photographer

Naz has been a professional freelance photographer since the mid 1990s. His formative years were spent studying the arts, including fine art, literature, drama and philosophy. Whilst attending Rhodes University, Naz specialised in a photojournalism degree and was fortunate enough to work in the field as a stringer for a few news agencies after he graduated. 

After spending a few years in the trenches, shooting news events, conferences and editorials, Naz took the leap into the world of commercial photography and continued his growth as a visual artist. The opportunities available to him allowed Naz to travel and work in many corners of the world. 

A few of his cherished assignments include working as a documentary photographer for UNESCO on a health education project, being commissioned and published by the Museum of Central Africa in Belgium on a project focussing on Southern African art and sculpture and photographing the iconic Queen Mary 2 cruise ship whilst she was being built in St Nazaire, France, and during her inaugural cruise.

Naz has been a resident of Brisbane for the last fifteen years and continues to work as a freelance photographer. Apart from his daily life as a freelancer, Naz is now working on long term projects with a variety of subject matters from performance art to the ever changing world of urban built environment. His aim is to produce photographs that are historically significant and which chart contemporary culture and its story. naz@nazmulla.com

Bronwyn Naylor

Associate Artist

Bronwyn has worked in Australia and in the USA as a director in theatre, and an actor in theatre, TV, film, advertising and radio.   Her stop / start career in the performing arts spans 30 years, stopping a while to raise three boys and pursue a career in education as a Secondary drama teacher.  She has been a guest member of The Curators Theatre, also assisting on core management committee.

Highlights of her artistic career include:

As actor: Children of the Black Skirt 2022, Anywhere Festival’s 2021 Audience Award winner Plucked; QSE 2021 Apprenticeship Dare To Share; Short and Sweet Festival 2014 Best Actor, Best Production, Best Comedy Awards Nuns Gone Wild; Mixed Doubles; Chicago; Cloud 9; Stairway to Happiness - A One Woman Play; and La Rhonde.

From her early career she worked with QTC Theatre In Education team and main house production The Front Page. Living in Kansas City for 2 years she was an actor with the Missouri Rep Theatre and other Independent Theatre in Kansas City, USA. Film: Op Shop; Dallas Boy; Jackie McKimmie’s AFI Award Winning film Stations; ABC Educational film BYO; Promotional film – various; TV commercials – various 100% and 50%.

As director: PIP theatre Grand Horizons 2023, Lightning Bolt Production’s Hello! Gaz Rhumbo 2022; A Clockwork Orange; Minefields and Mini Skirts; Black Comedy, and more than 60 productions in an educational setting.

TRAINING:  Creative Arts - Theatre Major, DDIAE (now USQ); Postgraduate in Education, Secondary, QUT; QLD Shakespeare Ensemble - Apprentice 2021, Linklater Training QSE 2021; Jeff Seymour Actor training/workshop.

AWARDS: Best Actress Short and Sweet, Nuns Gone Wild, 2010; AFI Award Stations Jackie McKimmie 1982

Lauren Roche

Associate artist

Lauren brings a range of versatile skills to The Curators’ Theatre. As a performer she is an actor, singer, dancer and presenter.

Lauren’s first production for The Curators’ was Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (Regina). Other theatre credits include; That Production Company When the Rain Stops Falling (Young Gabrielle York, Judith Wright Arts Centre), Doubt (Sister James), God of Carnage (Annette Raleigh), Pains of Youth (Marie), A Lie of the Mind (Sally), Two Weeks with the Queen, all directed by Tim Wynn;  Ipswich Music Theatre Company Mary Poppins (Mary), Ladies in Black (Patty), Wicked (Nessarose), Les Miserables and The Sound of Music (Elsa Schraeder); Ipswich Little Theatre: An Inspector Calls, Stepping Out, Sin Sex & the CIA, Sex, Drugs Rick ’n’ Noel; Redcliffe Music Theatre: Mary Poppins; Play reading The Destruction of You and Me by Tammy Weller as part of That Production Company’s Performance-In-Progress season; Other: Presenter work includes Ipswich City Council (ICC) Mayor's Christmas Carols, ICC’s New Year’s Eve Events, Ipswich Art Awards, and numerous ICC Ipswich Festival events. 

Lauren has a strong appreciation of community-based organisations and has been involved with the Blackstone-Ipswich Cambrian Choir Inc. for  more than twenty years. She was also an active committee member of the Regional Arts Development Fund (Ipswich Division) for several years, working alongside like-minded creatives to foster local artists.  Awards: Gold Palm Theatre Award for Best Actress (Mary Poppins); Training: Bachelor of Business (University of Queensland), ATCL (Associate Diploma in Speech & Drama-Performing, Trinity College, London), Certificate of Performance - Singing (Australian Music Examinations Board).  Short Courses-NIDA (Acting) and Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble (Absurd Theatre). 

Further to her involvement with the arts, Lauren is an award-winning retail marketing professional, receiving an Excellence in Marketing Award at Queensland Property Council’s Shopping Centre of the Year Awards.

Malika Savory

Malika Savory is a Meanjin/Brisbane based Japanese Australian actress.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Acting: Stage and Screen from the Australian Performing Arts Conservatory. Theatrical credits include La Boite Assembly (2023 - La Boite Theatre, Actor), Proof (Ad Astra, Catherine Understudy/Catherine), Pierrot (Backbone Youth Arts, Pierrot) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (APAC, Hermia). She currently trains with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre Company’s Advanced Dojo Ensemble and with Gareth Harris. Student film credits include lead roles on projects associated with Griffith Film School, QUT, SAE, QSFT and NYFA. Malika is currently part of ATYP’s Youth Advisory Body and Script Assessment Panel. She is currently studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts: Creative Writing at QUT.

Beth Scott

Associate artist

Beth Scott is an up-and-coming designer and production artist. In 2019, she debuted her work for The Curators’ Theatre, designing the lighting for Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. This was followed by creating the lighting design and operating both lighting and sound for Phillip Ridley’s Vincent River. In 2021, Beth engaged in a number of productions around Brisbane; Lighting Designer/Operator/Assistant Set Designer - The Revolutionists (The Curators), Lighting Designer - This Wide Night (A Moveable Theatre), Lighting Designer - The Lamarie Project (Queensland Theatre) and Design Associate - Metamorphoses (Queensland Theatre/ Dead Puppet Society).

Beth is an alumna of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Technical Production, Queensland University of Technology), a course that provides intensive training across multiple performing arts forms and technical disciplines. She graduated with a huge passion for set, vision and lighting design.  Her love for lighting, first found expression in 2017 when she lighting designed The Motherf**ker with the Hat, (QUT’s Season of Contemporary American Plays). This was followed by multiple design roles including set designing the 2018 Season of Contemporary American Plays featuring QUT's third-year acting students.  A mammoth undertaking, the design involved three back to back plays: Good People; Spike Heels; Rapture, Blister and Burn. 

Since graduating, Beth has continued taking on multiple roles in the live theatre industry, including: 2018 - Assistant Stage Manager - Sydney Festival (Parramatta), Assistant Stage Manager - Spinifex Gum (Sydney Festival - Sydney Opera House)  2019 - Lighting Designer - Ghosts (The Curators’); Technical Coordinator - Brisbane Festival (Treasury Brisbane Arcadia, a social/performance space); Set Designer - High School Musical (All Hallows' School); 2020 - Lighting Designer - Vincent River (The Curators’), Local Flyman - Happy Prince (Australian Ballet, QPAC) and The Book of Mormon (QPAC) 2021 - Lighting Designer/Operator/Assistant Set Designer - The Revolutionists (The Curators’), Lighting Designer - This Wide Night (A Moveable Theatre), Lighting Designer - The Lamarie Project (Queensland Theatre), Design Associate - Metamorphoses (Queensland Theatre, Dead Puppet Society), Lighting Designer - Fight with all your Might the Zombies of Tonight (Brisbane Girls’ Grammar) and Local Props - Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (QPAC) 2022 - Local Flyman - An American in Paris (QPAC).

Beth participated in the La Boite Theatre Company’s Twenty-One Program (2019), a program designed to 'engage with twenty-one emerging artists in a six-week skills development and showcase program’. Beth was a production artist and in collaboration with the other artists (writers, actors and directors) designed the lighting, set and vision for six monologue pieces. As well as embracing her creative side, Beth works around Brisbane as a theatre technician and mechanist. She has always had a strong passion for creating; believing that through the theatre and the arts, we have the power to leave a message that not only resonates with audiences but moves them to action.

Patrick Shearer

Associate artist

Philip Ridley’s Vincent River is Patrick’s third production with The Curators’ Theatre.  Patrick Shearer has been acting and performing for the screen and stage since 2016. His most recent theatre roles include Dr Black and Jack Cobalt in the Brisbane Immersive Ensemble hit, Cluedo! The Interactive Game, as well as Puck in their immersive adaptation, The Midsummer Carnival. His earlier roles include Dan Kelly in Ad Astra’s Matilda Award-winning production of Kelly, Osvald in The Curators' critically acclaimed Ghosts, and Juliet, Portia, Hermia, Ophelia and Witch in The Curators’ spellbinding piece, The Third Beauty, Shakespeare’s Women. Patrick’s recent screen roles include Max Zoric on ABC's mystery series Harrow (Hoodlum Entertainment and ABC Studios), and Douglas in the AIFF20 (Australian Independent Film Festival) Jury Award-winning indie short, Crack. Other film credits include The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space, A Girl Called Lola, Between a C**k and a Hard Place and Roommates.  

Patrick appeared in 4MBS Shakespeare Festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (dir: Eugene Gilfedder), in which he reprised the role of shrewd and knavish sprite, Puck. 

Training: Patrick holds an Advanced Diploma in Acting for the Screen and Stage (The Performing Arts Conservatory, 2017). During that time he performed in Romeo and Juliet and Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia. He is currently studying at The Bristol Old Vic School (UK) in the school’s Master of Fine Arts (Professional Acting) program.

Sherri Smith

Associate artist

Sherri’s previous theatre credits include Sonia in Uncle Vanya (The Curators); Animal
Farm (Powerhouse); Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare Festival) and MJ in Mania (Brisbane Arts Festival).  

Film credits include Edge (Short film), Smile the Series, Practise Patience (Pilot TV series) 

Special interests include the stage fight sector, with qualifications to see her engaged as Fight Choreographer for Hamlet (HeartBeast Theatre Co) and Project Eden Vol. 1 (Mad Anth'mProductions).

Elizabeth Wherrett

Founding member

Elizabeth is a founding member of The Curators’ Theatre and an actor who has now turned her talent to stage managing. She recently stage managed TCT’s productions of Philip Ridley’s Vincent River and Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. Elizabeth was also a producer on both productions.

As an actor, Elizabeth previously worked with the widely respected Salamanca Theatre Company in Tasmania over a period of years. Here she developed, performed in and toured shows into schools, colleges and community theatre venues state-wide and interstate. She worked with several independent theatre companies in Tasmania including Breadline Theatre Company, Illusion Circus, The Round Earth Company, as well as the Tasmanian State Theatre Company. Elizabeth was also a founding member of Zootango. Her performance work includes Prometheus (written and directed by Richard Meredith), I Must Have One of My Own (written and directed by Anne Harvey), Little Brother Little Sister, Dusthog (written and directed by Les Winspear), Annie’s Coming Out (dir: Kerry Dwyer), The Ship that Never Was (written and directed by Richard Davey), Juke, The Whale - the Biggest Thing that Ever Was (dir: Barbara Manning), Much Ado About Nothing, Ptarmigan Man, Equus, Seasons Greetings, Henry and Peter and Henry and Me (dir: Peter Kingston, Theatre Royal, Hobart) and a one woman show, The Death of Minnie (dir: Sandy McCutcheon, Theatre Royal’s Back Space). Her most recent performance work was Casca in heartBeast Ensemble’s 2019 production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Elizabeth brings extensive experience in social work, social justice and public service senior executive management to The Curators’ Theatre. She was responsible for program and departmental governance in state and regional governments in Tasmania and Queensland and now looks forward to developing this bold, new, independent theatre company. Training: Bachelor of Social Work (UNSW), Graduate  Diploma - Social Science (Public Sector Management, UTAS).