Julian Meyrick
A Research Fellow at La Trobe University, and until recently Associate Director and Literary Advisor at Melbourne Theatre Company, Julian has directed many award-winning theatre productions including for MTC: Thom Pain, Enlightenment, The Ghost Writer, A Single Act, Cruel and Tender, Dinner, The Memory of Water, Blue/Orange and Frozen; for STC: The Vertical Hour, Doubt and The Snow Queen; for the Griffin: October. Other credits include many new Australian works such as Luke Devenish’s Grace Among the Christians, St. Rose of Lima and Fun and Games with the Oresteia. He directed Fever and the inaugural production of Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? for the Melbourne Workers Theatre and won the 1998 Green Room Award for Best Director on the Fringe. He is involved in Australian drama at all levels and as a director and dramaturge has developed countless individual plays. He was responsible for expanding the Affiliate Writers Scheme at MTC and for initiating the Hard Lines new play program. He is Deputy Chair of PlayWriting Australia and an Adjunct Professor at Deakin University. As a theatre historian he has published a history of Nimrod Theatre, See How It Runs (2003), a history of MTC, The Drama Continues, a Currency House Platform Paper, Trapped By the Past, and academic articles on post-War Australian theatre, the theory-practice nexus, and contemporary dramaturgy. He is currently researching a series of case studies from Australian theatre in the post-Whitlam era, focusing on the relationship between cultural policy and creative practice. He is a member of the federal government’s Creative Australia Advisory Group.