About Us
Our Directors
Our team of Directors are made up of some of the top theatre and educational specialists across Australia & New Zealand.
All of our Directors have extensive experience both nationally and internationally having work on major commercial productions across musical theatre, theatre, television and film.
Each of our Directors combine their creative talents with a detailed focus on the educational outcomes of the production to equip our actors with the appropriate tools to inspire, educate and entertain our school audiences.
Anthony O'Donohue
Emma Powell
Graham Pages
Jolyon McDonald
Liz Kirkman
Meaghan Davies
Simon Gleeson
Simon Goudie
Adam Mitchell
David Hynes
Our Writers
Craig Christie B.Ed began his career teaching secondary school English, Literature
and Drama in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs before moving on to establish No Mates
Productions, creating original musicals in educational, community and commercial
settings in 1991. Initially focussing on theatre for schools he undertook creating his
annual Children’s Book Week musicals. He has written twenty-six Book Week
musicals to date that have been seen by over 3 million school children internationally
and currently tour Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Craig’s commercial stage musical theatre works include Crusade and Eurobeat.
After winning Best New Musical and breaking box office records at the Edinburgh
Festival 2007, Eurobeat went on to tour the UK culminating in an acclaimed West
End season in 2008. His musical Hey Florence based on the true stories of active
duty nurses has had a series of standing ovation performances in Nashville, New York
and Singapore. His recent projects include the new musical Get On With It written
with London based writer Amy Golden about her life as a person with profound
cerebral palsy which premiered in London in July 2016 and the much anticipated
sequel to Eurobeat – Eurobeat Moldova – that premiered at the 2016 Edinburgh
Fringe Festival where it was awarded Best Musical. His current projects include a
new work Journeys of Destiny in collaboration with UK dramatist Ava Hunt and the
University of Derby which explores the refugee experience.
Craig has worked consistently in educational settings since the establishment of No
Mates Productions, being awarded residencies in a variety of government, private and
international schools throughout Australia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. He has
run a number of acclaimed professional development workshops for teachers in both
primary and secondary schools in the areas of literacy, theatre and integrating drama
into the broader curriculum. In 2018 he enjoyed tenure lecturing third year musical
theatre at Federation University and is currently working on community projects with
the University of Derby and University of Auckland.
Craig Christie
Dean Bryant & Mathew Frank
Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank met at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where they workshopped their first musical, Prodigal.
Prodigal was produced at Chapel off Chapel in 2000, winning the Green Room Award for Best Original Score. In 2002 the show premiered off-Broadway at the York Theatre Company, the first Australian musical to be produced in New York City. The off-Broadway cast recording is available on JAY Records. Virgins: A Musical Threesome premiered at the Tower Theatre, Malthouse in 2006 and toured to the New York Music Theatre Festival later that year. Once We Lived Here premiered at fortyfivedownstairs in 2009, winning the Green Room Award for Best New Musical. The Silver Donkey, based on Sonya Hartnett’s award-winning novel, is currently in development.
Both Dean & Mathew have a passion for educating young people through the arts with both having worked over the last 10 years in several youth training organisations. For 8 years Mathew was the Head of Music at the Childrens Performing Company of Australia.
They have written, directed and performed in a number of educational musicals for Perform! including The People In Your Pocket, Dollars & Sense, Wipeout and Rock Me Galileo.
An evening of their work, All Roads Lead to Home, was part of the 2004 Melbourne Festival. Their songs were featured in the Amy Winehouse-inspired episode of Channel Ten’s Mr & Mrs Murder. Dean and Mathew created Britney Spears: The Cabaret for Christie Whelan-Browne which has played numerous seasons around the country to rave reviews. Dean’s other cabaret work includes Liza (on an E) and I’m Every Woman for Trevor Ashley, which have played seasons from the Sydney Opera House to the West End and Newly Discovered for Hugh Sheridan (Opera House and Festival Theatre).
Most recently Dean created Gaybies for the Midsumma 25th Anniversary, which played a triumphant season at the Sumner Theatre, MTC featuring Magda Szubanski, Todd McKenney, Virginia Gay, Kate Kendall, Christie Whelan-Browne, Christina O’Neill, Ben Mingay and many other favourites.
As musical director Mathew’s credits include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Geoffrey Rush, The Drowsy Chaperone and Next to Normal (Melbourne Theatre Company) and the upcoming The Pirates of Penzance (The Production Company). He has been Associate on many more, including Spelling Bee, Urinetown, The Sapphires, Poor Boy (all MTC).
Dean has directed for the MTC (Next to Normal), The Production Company (Anything Goes, The Producers and upcoming The Pirates of Penzance), Red Stitch (Straight) and OzOpera (Hansel and Gretel) and directed the Australian premiere of The Last Five Years (fortyfivedownstairs, Stables and Q Theatre). He is worldwide Associate Director on Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – the Musical (Australia, NZ, West End, Broadway, Italy, Brazil, UK tour and Sweden).