Mary-Ann Vale – Director/Senior Agent
Mary-Ann was previously the General Manager of Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre. She was a founding member of Tightrope Theatre Co in Sydney and worked at Griffin Theatre Company at the Stables Theatre in Sydney for 9 years. Her roles there included Board Member, Administration, Membership Secretary, Front of House Manager and Producer of the Sunday Cabaret and the Performers Club. Mary-Ann was awarded “Life Member” at Griffin Theatre Co in 2001 and The Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation (now in partnership with NIDA) in 2000.
Moving to Noosa for 10 years saw her producing for The Drama Queens and assistant producer and Director for Theatre ‘s’. During that time, she also ran her own business as a Teacher of Acting, personal management to a singer and directed 25 plays including the main productions for The Noosa Long Weekend Festival. She was Assistant Director of Rabbit Hole for QTC in 2008 and also directed “Spirits in Bare Feet” at USQ for the Breez Finance Children’s Festival 09. She also conducted acting workshops at USQ.
Through Arts QLD she gained grants to attend “Acting for Camera” workshops in Paris in 2005 and The World Conference Shakespeare Master Classes in 2006. Mary-Ann is a Performing Arts- graduate DDIAE/strong> (now known as USQ). She worked professionally as an actress in Sydney for 18 years in theatre, TV & film and also produced and directed. Mary-Ann has also had experience as a Casting Director for TVC’s in the past couple of years.
“To find out more about Mary-Ann’s time at Griffin Theatre, please purchase the book Griffin Redux. It is dedicated to Mary-Ann Vale for her remarkable contribution.” (John Senczuk – Author)
Raquel Bénassy – Senior Agent
Raquel’s career began with dance, which she studied at The Queensland Dance School of Excellence and later at the Victorian College of Arts (VCA). Raquel then travelled to London where she was accepted into Rose Bruford College. During her time there she achieved a first-class BA (Hons) in Acting. Raquel leveraged both her dancing and acting skills and performed professionally in Europe and Australia.
On returning to Australia, Raquel retrained as an Accounts Assistant and worked in a busy finance office for 7 years while working with BMEG on a casual basis and as a private acting coach. She began working with BMEG full-time in 2019 and is thrilled to consolidate her Arts and Financial backgrounds into the role of Senior Agent.
Erica Fryberg – Literary Agent
Erica is an award-winning writer, producer, editor, academic, and executive arts manager. She has published with most of the major performing arts companies in Australia, and in anthologies by Pascal Press, Jacaranda Wiley, Macmillan, University of Queensland Press, and Oxford University Press. Awards received include: Australian Postgraduate Award, Bachelor of Arts (Honours First Class), George Essex Evans Scholarship for English, the Margaret Piddington Prize for Excellence in Humanities, and first prize in the Open Division of the 2022 ESU Roly Sussex Short Story Competition.
Erica has extensive experience in major arts companies in Australia and abroad, including Opera Australia, Scottish Opera, Sydney Symphony, Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Festival, Queensland Theatre, Musica Viva and Opera Queensland. At Queensland Theatre she managed the Writing Program from 2007-11, including the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award. From 2015-20 Erica produced Opera Queensland’s annual season and programs, and managed a wide variety of stakeholder relationships, artist casting, negotiations and artist contracting.
Erica has just completed a Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing at The University of Queensland. As well as working as BMEG’s Literary Agent, she is also currently Executive Producer of The Rowan’s Story Project for Assembly of Elephants.