About me

David Berthold is one of Australia's most prominent theatre directors and cultural leaders. He has directed for most of Australia's major theatres companies, as well as internationally. He was most recently Artistic Director of Brisbane Festival, one of Australia's major international arts festivals, directing five record-breaking festivals, 2015-19.

He is currently Director in Residence at NIDA.

He has led transformational change in many organisations. He was the Artistic Director of La Boite Theatre Company (2008-14), rebuilding audiences, repertoire, and government and private support; Artistic Director of Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company (2003-2006), transforming it into Australia's leading new writing theatre and one of the nation's most visible and successful arts companies; Artistic Director of the Australian Theatre for Young People (1999-2003), building the company into Australia's flagship theatre for young people - and the world's largest - with many national and international collaborations; Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company (1994-99), Australia's premier theatre company; and Artistic Associate of the Queensland Theatre Company (1991-94). He was the Festival Director of World Interplay 2007, the world's largest festival of young playwrights. In 2013 and 2014, he curated a stream of independent theatre for the Brisbane Festival.

He is a board member of Australian Plays Transform, a Trustee of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, a member of the Helpmann Awards Theatre Panel, a member of the NSW Government's Theatre and Musical Theatre Arts Advisory Board, sits on the Judging Panel of the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting (NSW Premier’s Literary Awards), and formerly a member of the QUT Creative Industries Faculty Advisory Committee.

He has directed major productions of Australian plays by Elaine Acworth, Vanessa Bates, Adam J A Cass, Brendan Cowell, Nick Enright, Daniel Keene, Caleb Lewis, Tony McNamara, Tommy Murphy, Louis Nowra, Debra Oswald, Hannie Rayson, Stephen Sewell, Alan Seymour, Katherine Thomson, Karin Mainwaring, Ian Wilding, Tennessee Williams and David Williamson as well as plays by Aristophanes, Jim Cartwright, William Congreve, Brad Fraser, Neil LaBute, Christopher Marlowe, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Philip Ridley, Shakespeare, Sam Shepard, Leo Tolstoy and Tennessee Williams for companies including Griffin, ATYP, STC, Melbourne Theatre Company, Belvoir, 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, Sydney Festival, Sydney Opera House, Playbox Theatre, Black Swan, NIDA, QUT, Opera Queensland, Auckland Theatre Company, the Royal National Theatre London, and Theater an der Parkaue Berlin.

His recent productions for La Boite include Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Ruben Guthrie, As You Like It, Tender Napalm, The Glass Menagerie, Cosi, I Love You, Bro, and Tommy Murphy's multi-award winning adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's memoir Holding the Man, which also had seasons for Griffin Theatre Company, Sydney Opera House, Belvoir, Melbourne Theatre Company, Brisbane Powerhouse, and a 2010 season in London's West End. He also recently directed the premiere of Louis Nowra's Boyce Trilogy for Griffin Theatre Company; Tommy Murphy's Saturn's Return for Sydney Theatre Company (in two versions); Mozart's Così fan tutte for Opera Queensland, Marlowe's Edward II for QUT, Louis Nowra's Cosi and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing for NIDA, and a national tour of the concert drama Rolling Thunder Vietnam. His production of Tommy Murphy's play, Mark Colvin's Kidney, opened at Sydney's Belvoir in March 2017.

Popular posts from this blog

Holding the Man - A Personal Reflection

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Last week, a film crew landed in my living room. I was to be interviewed for a documentary called John and Tim , being made by Waterbyrd Filmz, about the lives of John Caleo and Timothy Conigrave. Conigrave wrote Holding the Man , a candid and magical memoir of his 15-year relationship with Caleo. I was being interviewed because I directed the theatrical adaptation of the book. In 2005, as Artistic Director of Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company, I commissioned  Tommy Murphy  to adapt the memoir. By November 2006 we had it onstage at the Stables Theatre. We remounted it six times, including at the Sydney Opera House, Belvoir and Melbourne Theatre Company, and most recently in 2010 in London's West End. There have bee n productions in San Francisco and Auckland, with others coming up. For such a particular Australian story, it's a remarkable trajectory. Conigrave was born in 1959 and went to Xavier College in Melbourne, an elite Jesuit school (also attended by Bill Shorten...
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Australian Theatre Forum: Playwrights and Audiences

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Ahead of the Australian Theatre Forum in Canberra this week, The Australian newspaper today floated a couple of articles to get people talking. Firstly, Rosemary Neill followed up her Weekend Australian report on what appears to be a surfeit of adaptations on the Australian stage with an incendiary opinion piece on how in "some areas of the theatre there is an astonishing lack of respect for dramatists". She quotes Andrew Bovell as describing the growing popularity of refurbished foreign classics as "lazy", "easy" and "conservative", and takes swipes at Simon Stone, Andrew Upton and Malthouse Theatre. There should be a place for such adaptations, and a place for new plays. I don't know how anyone could reasonably argue otherwise. Indeed, such adaptations have always been part of our theatre menu, although perhaps not as obviously as now, and auteurs and authors have always shared the cooking. The question is one of balance....
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Australian Theatre Forum: A View

I dropped into the Australian Theatre Forum in Canberra for its last day on Friday. I attended all of ATF 2009 in Melbourne, but none of ATF 2011 in Brisbane. I adored the experience of that first ATF and so really wanted to experience just a little of what ATF 2013 had to offer. Upsides? Sounds like there were at least three highlights, each of which I missed. Firstly, there were the opening day keynotes. Medical anthropologist and social historian Lenore Manderson and futurist Kristin Alford , founding director of Bridge8, kicked off. Their question was “Do we even have a future?” Many found it very stimulating to begin with the thoughts of two scientists. Then David Milroy, the first Artistic Director of Yirra Yaakin Aboriginal Theatre, gave a stirring and good humoured account of the growing appetite for black stories and a provocation for how we work together as a theatre community. Many I spoke with were moved and inspired.   The second highlight was a day tw...
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