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 and the Margaret Piddington Prize for Excellence in Humanities. Recently she was awarded 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. A strong communicator and relationship builder, she negotiated successful outcomes with venues, government, and major partners; and maintained a healthy culture with artists, delivering professional support, pastoral care, and ensuring artist satisfaction and enjoyment.
Directing credits from earlier in Erica’s career include The Soldier’s Tale, The Insect Play; and stage credits include She Stoops to Conquer, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Bacchae, Whose Life is it Anyway (theatre), The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers, HMS Pinafore (musicals).
Erica is currently also working with Griffith Review and completing a Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing at The University of Queensland.
Merran Regan – Marketing Manager
Merran has worked in arts marketing, theatre publicity and casting for 35 years. She has a BA Communications degree with majors in Journalism, Psychology and Film Production from University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a Diploma of Acting from Ensemble Studios Acting School. She was Director of her own arts PR and Marketing companies, firstly More Publicity P/L then Merran Doyle Publicity P/L for 18 years from the early 90’s through to 2010. Clients included Glen Street Theatre, Parramatta Riverside Theatres, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Sydney Fringe Festival, New Theatre, shows and events at the Sydney Opera House, Belvoir St Theatre and many more.
Merran has worked as publicist on many national tours including Circus Oz, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Miriam Margolyes’ Dicken’s Women, and over 200 theatre shows throughout her career. She was Senior Publicist with the Olympic Arts Festival during the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and was Communications Director at Ensemble Theatre for more than a decade managing the publicity and marketing teams, before taking on a part-time role at Ensemble Theatre in casting and events. For the last five years she has presented an arts program In The Spotlight with Merran Regan on Northside Radio regularly interviewing actors, directors, playwrights, producers, artists, singers and musicians on her Wednesday afternoon Drive Show. With her extensive experience in arts media and marketing, we warmly welcome Merran to the BMEG team as Marketing Manager.