BMEG

Benjamin Schostakowski is an award-winning director from Brisbane, QLD who lives in Sydney, NSW.

In 2017, Benjamin was named a Glorias Fellow and travelled to New York City to learn from renowned Canadian director Robert Lepage on the US premiere of ‘887’ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He also attended workshopping rehearsals for a new Broadway musical directed by Tony Award winning director Des McAnuff (Jersey Boys). In 2016, Benjamin worked with Channel 7 as a Directing Attachment on the TV series A Place to Call Home, Season 4. In 2015, Benjamin was invited to attended rehearsals at the New York Theatre Workshop on the world première of the musical Lazarus by David Bowie and Enda Walsh, directed by renowned director Ivo van Hove.

In his career, Benjamin has worked with Queensland Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Opera Queensland, Brisbane Festival, Channel 7, NIDA, QUT, Griffin Theatre Play Project and Triple J Unearthed.  He worked as Artistic Director of the Festival of Australian Student Theatre from 2009 -2012 and in 2011 was appointed Associate Artist with Queensland Theatre Company under the Artistic Direction of Wesley Enoch. His production of A Tribute of Sorts (co-created with Dash Kruck and Emily Burton) premiered at La Boite Indie in 2012 and won four Matilda Awards. The production was then remounted by Queensland Theatre Company with the assistance of Metro Arts in 2014.

Credits include: Elizabeth I (Wonderland – Brisbane Powerhouse), Eurydice (QUT), Disgraced (Melbourne Theatre Company – Assistant Director), The Realistic Joneses (QUT), The Hänsel and Gretel Tapes (Dixon Place, New York), Reagan Kelly (NIDA) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (La Boite),  Cosi (La Boite, Dir. David Berthold), Private Lives (Melbourne Theatre Company, directing attachment, Dir. Sam Strong), A Tribute of Sorts (La Boite Indie and later Queensland Theatre Company), KLUTZ (Brisbane Festival), A Spectacular of Sorts (World Theatre Festival – Brisbane Powerhouse), Genesis (Brisbane Festival, Dir. Ben Knapton) and The Glorious Nosebleed (Metro Arts).

Benjamin also directed the music video for Ride For Me by Ry for Triple J Unearthed which premiered on Rage in 2013.

In 2018 Benjamin will direct a new version of Peter Pan for the Victorian College of Art, Melbourne and Carking It for the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney. 

Courtney Stewart is a Director, Actor, Dancer and Teaching Artist. She has worked on a number of productions and developments of new Australian work such as Single Asian Female by Michelle Law, A Ghost in My Suitcase by Vanessa Bates, Australian Graffiti by Disapol Savetsila, This Witch by Shari Indriani, Siti Rubiyah by Katrina Irawati Graham and Barbaric Truth by Jordan Shea.

Courtney was also the Assistant Performance Director for the City of Sydney 2016 Chinese New Year Lunar Lantern Festival.

As a dedicated Teaching Artist, Courtney currently works with Sydney Theatre Company, NIDA and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, specialising in producing and facilitating creative, EdTech and special access workshops in the areas of drama, film-making, editing, music, coding, Virtual and Augmented reality, robots for space exploration and physical computing.

Courtney is a proud member of MEAA and is the Secretary of the Equity Diversity Committee and a delegate to the National Performer’s Committee.

Bjorn Stewart has directed an array of comedy and dramas through different mediums. With a degree majoring in Performance Art, Bjorn approaches his subject with multifaceted views, actively seeking ways to tell a story in interesting and sometimes unconventional ways. Bjorn has also been an attachment to Robert Merchant Master Class, learning Mike Leigh’s directing technique. 

Most notably Bjorn has directed ‘Last Drinks at Frida’s’, a short film funded by Screen Australia and premiered at Sydney Film Festival 2017, International Premiere ImagineNATIVE Toronto 2017, and selected for Flickerfest 2018 Best of Australian Shorts program. 

Bjorn is a co-founding member of the Cope ST, a collective that pushes the boundaries of Australian identity through satire, in 2017 Bjorn directed his team of creators to create sketches for the Comedy Channel’s series ‘The Slot’. The series showcased an eclectic range of Australia’s top content creators such as Skitbox, Aunty Donna and Bondi Hipsters. 

In 2018 Bjorn will be working with Australia’s top horror directors Colin & Cameron Cairnes in association with Screen Australia and ABC, creating his own horror short soon to be released