Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Breaking Screen, a podcast about the Australian screen industry and the creative people within it. I'm your host, Caris Bizzaca and I'm recording this podcast from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, where I'm very grateful to be a visitor and be able to work on these lands. Always was, always will be.
Speaker: Today's episode features Sarah Goodes, an award-winning Australian theatre director known for championing new Australian work. She has directed more than 20 new productions for major companies including Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company, with recent highlights including Break of Day by Stevie Rogers from Old House Theatre, The Talented Mr Ripley for Sydney Theatre Company, Julia by Joanna Murray-Smith starring Justine Clarke, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which sold out in Melbourne before touring to Sydney.
Speaker: In 2025, she started Jacaranda Productions with actor-producer Diana Glenn after they met at AFTRS, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Their goal? To create multi-medium stories by finding ideas that start in theatre and developing them into TV, film and online productions, and vice versa.
Speaker: They launched with Amplified, the exquisite rock and rage of Chrissy Amphlett, which toured nationally, and are in post-production for Coltrane, a Noir VR ah project with New Canvas.
Speaker: Throughout the podcast, Sarah talks about making the decision to expand into a new career path and the benefits and challenges of that, the differences and similarities between directing theatre and screen, advice for directors wanting to build sustainable careers, and much more.
Speaker: Here's that chat.
Speaker: And so we always ask the same question at the beginning of every podcast and it's about inciting incidents, which is a term that you might be familiar with in screenplays hour in plays. But would you be able to tell me what the inciting incident of your career was I remember seeing a very, very independent small production of Wuthering Heights in a very small theatre that no longer exists in King's Cross called the Lookout Theatre, I think it was called, and um that I think where there were like four people in the audience. And when I came out afterwards, I was you know really moved by it and then I remember seeing the actress come out and get in her car and and drive off and I love the contrast between you know, these imagined worlds and the real world. and
Speaker: And I remember I've never forgotten the image. and actually there were quite a few incidences when I saw things and quite often it was when there was just one or two people in the audience. And I i loved the idea that story can be for millions of people or one or two people. And it's always the same energy and world building that's required to create another world that people can step into.
Speaker: Yeah. And what is it about directing that you're drawn to? the main thing I'm directed to with directing is world building. And so the writer, you know, obviously is the first and arguably, you know, the origin of most stories. And I love the process of reading their work, working with them, talking with them, And then the next step, which is creating that world with actors, creatives, and then finally, particularly in theatre, but I think in film and screen too, it's the final ingredient is the audience. So it's this sort of layering effect as you bring that world together. And from the years and years I've i've been doing this, if you spend enough time
Speaker: and go deep enough in that world building, the story is held and and quite often audience, whether that story speaks to them or not, they know the world they're stepping into and occupying for that period of time.
Speaker: m And so you you have directed more than, I think it's 24 plays, but correct me if I'm wrong. What have been some recent highlights?
Speaker: I've actually got a play on at the moment that's just about to close on Saturday called Break of Day. And um it's a new Australian work by Stevie Rogers. And I've loved working on that. I think, you know, we're living in a time of, you know, IP is king and everyone needs to know what a story is to go and visit it. But this was a brand new story about us. Mm-hmm. in Australia and a subject that's not written about a lot, which is sort of, you know, the working class and what it's like to to be working, you know, night shifts and in a warehouse and trying to raise a kid. and um And it's written with such... warmth and joy and depth that I've really loved that. And Stevie wrote and it was that great journey of stories. Sometimes they sort of swim around, you know, waiting to be caught and it was this sort of perfect meeting of times with Kat Stewart in it and Richard Piper and Chum and just this and all these new young actors, Sherry- Lee Watson, who's sort of a big superstar now and Theo Clarke. it was sort of that coming together of a great cast as well.
Speaker: Yeah, amazing. Yeah, I think by the time this is released, it will have closed, finished up its run. but But when you said that it was a brand new story, so you do have a bit of a reputation for bringing new Australian work to the stage. I think it might be 17 works to the main stage.
Speaker: Why is this important to you? Look, it's it's always been my driving passion and it's the driving passion behind Jacaranda that Diana and I have set up as well. is It's just the importance of having our own stories and seeing our own stories on stage. I think I know that it sort of sounds obvious, but I think at the moment when we have this sort of streaming services that are this endless tide of of stories coming from overseas, it's it's easy to forget the feeling that audiences and people get to see their own lives. um
Speaker: And no matter how much work I've done, I always come back to it. And even if it's an adaptation of something known, it's it's done through an Australian writer's very unique perspective of that. But the one of the main ones was I developed a play called Sunday with the Melbourne Theatre Company with a writer, Anthony Weigh And it was about Sunday Read and Sidney Nolan and Joy Hester. and And it was developed over COVID. So it took a very long time to come to fruition. But by the time it opened, it was just Melbourne had just opened after these kind of grinding, soul-destroying lockdowns.
Speaker: and just seeing the audience being able to hear about the river and the light and their city and the beauty of that countryside, it was extraordinary. It was it was really beautiful to look at an audience sort of sighing with love for the city that they're in and, and you know, really good new Australian work and look the new, you know, TV series of... um my brilliant career is is evident of it, it's always universal. Like a really good story is, you know, culturally specific but always has a universal kind of undertone to it. So there's no reason they shouldn't, or and they are, you know, being picked up overseas.
Speaker: And then I did a show years ago at Sydney Theatre Company called Battle of Waterloo written by a First Nations writer, Kylie Coolwell. And she's an extraordinary writer and she way before sort of Blue Jasmine she'd She'd written the first scene of a play where she'd imagined streetcar set in the the towers in Redfern and the company and myself kind of worked on it to bring that into a full length play and watching that audience and particularly when we had the community come in and see their lives and their spaces on stage you know it's it's beautiful and even even with break of day and and I spent some time recently with a Jac aranda went down and had a residency at Shark Island with a documentary maker, Ian Darling, and he's just recently done a film called The Valley. And he was showing us his portraits of all of the people he'd interviewed and he said he'd had a photographic exhibition. And he said some of the people were sort of just crying when they saw their pictures up there. And and we were talking about it and it's sort of that that idea that our lives are worthy of being elevated and and celebrated is
Speaker: is really powerful and it's easy to forget you know in the great engine of storytelling or the machine of storytelling that at its core it's about reflecting our lives back to us and the importance of if we're not going to write our stories no one else is you know and um so yeah so it's a it's it's sort of a main passion for myself but also for jacaranda And so we'll talk about Jacaranda in just a minute, but before we get to that, I was wondering what you feel are the similarities between theatre and screen or the differences?
Speaker: I see them as... very similar ultimately in the idea of world building and you know mining a story for its you know universal and and specific themes one of the things that I'm hoping to work in film and one of the things that excites me most is the close-up because it's very hard to do a close-up in theatre although you spend most of your time just sort of trying to bring the actors down stage and bring all the elements into focus on them so you start to think very deeply about
Speaker: I think when I'm directing theatre I'm always thinking in terms of camera angles and frames, but you have to do it in this sort of 3D spatial thing which makes you're always thinking about the figure in the space. and And I think you are in film and screen too, but you're able to have more control over that and you're able to tell a far more kind of psychological journey just by having a close-up of the face and the eyes.
Speaker: So I think but in terms of, you know, performance and world building, they're very similar. But even in a weird way, it's like, you know, back in the day, you know, when you had to do film photography, you had to really know your subject and your light before you got that photo right. Whereas now digital, you can shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot till you you get it. And I think the the craft of theatre makes you really study the subject.
Speaker: of the play, of the performance in a lot of depth because then you have to capture it and repeat it. Whereas in film you can put all the elements there but the performance really you're just looking for that one take that's going to capture it.
Speaker: Now two Jacaranda productions. So you started in 2025, production company with Diana Glenn, as you said, but how did it actually come about?
Speaker: Well, Diana and I have been friends for years and we've worked together. She's ah ah you know an award-winning actor and um we've done a couple of plays together and she started studying the Masters of Screen Business at AFTRS and she suggested that I do it as well. And while we were studying together, we started to think about a production company which could kind of move across mediums. And the focus started to we started to look at because she's got these incredible screen credits and relationships. And I have a lot of very strong theatre relationships and experience and bringing those worlds together, which I know hasn't isn't anything new. But I just, we both started sort of talking about how, you know, some of Australia's greatest films were all plays to start with, you know, Lantana, Cosi, Baby Teeth. And when you're working on a play, you're so inside the DNA of a play.
Speaker: it makes sense to start thinking about what the screen adaptation of that might be. And in a world too, we might be thinking about how a film or a screen adaptation might move into theatre. So we wanted to sort of start focusing on a more kind of circular economy where how some projects could feed other projects. And we we're very interested in a company from England called Francesca Moody, who, you know, was behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, where this idea is that you're an incubator for story, And then you find the right home for that story. But we have a real focus on new Australian work and and how we can be a part of the national conversation in a way. You know, like when I did a play recently called Julia and it was written by Joanna Murray-Smith and it had Justine Clark in it and it was about the misogyny speech. It was an incredibly successful play and production and extraordinary performance by Justine. And what was incredible to witness in that was the sort of cathartic atonement that audiences had by coming and sharing that moment in Australian history again. And it's something sort of we've been talking about a bit about that collective experience and of new Australian work and the power it has at ah at the moment to sort of have this sort of soothing or reflective function in society.
Speaker: ah And so on that point, you've kind of answered it there, but what kind of projects are you hoping to make through Jacaranda Productions? And could you talk a little bit about Coltrane, which I think was your first project? Yeah, so actually our first project was um a show called Amplified, the exquisite rock and rage of Chrissy Amplett. And that was something that was sort of a long time in development and sort of hit the ground as we launched the company, which was really exciting and it's done incredibly well and toured everywhere. But Coltrane came about from AFTRS actually. Nathan Anderson, whose new canvas, approached us and and it's been an incredibly thrilling and exciting project and it's been led mainly by Diana. as She's the the main performer in it and the main producer on it with Nathan. And Nathan had said to us really early on, he said he was really interested in
Speaker: theatre in the VR ah space, because it's a 3D kind of, you know, world that you sit in. And as a result, there's been this incredible melding of these mediums of theatre, of film and of technology. And Diana had sort of set up the filming of the, because it's narrative driven as opposed to sort of action driven and it's about a private detective set in Hong Kong and you sort of follow her sort of solving this mystery and it's got a noir feel to it, like a real kind of rear window, Blade Runner-y atmosphere to it.
Speaker: And we worked closely with VCA and the Theatre and Film School down in Melbourne. And I was rehearsing Break of Day because I was directing it at the start, but then Damien Walsh Howling picked up the direction of because to move into the theatre show. But I came across one day when they were at VCA and there were all these kind of recent graduates sort of running the room and and they were extraordinary. And then we had all these sort of theatre actors and film actors that I'd brought from a project that I'd worked on. And then Diana had all of these incredible film people and then there were the tech people and it was like this really exciting moment of possibility about how all these siloed things might start coming together with new technology. Yeah, it was it was a moment, you know, where we were like this is really interesting and this is really exciting because it's new and it's making things that weren't possible suddenly possible.
Speaker: And it's also theatre and screen are so collaborative anyway, but it's kind of even expanding further on that with with other areas. Yeah, it was there was something about having the tech guys in there too that were just kind of trying brand new things in the moment and we were able to respond to them. And that's something that we're really interested in moving forward on because, you know, it takes incredible, it was such a risk ah but when you do something like that, you sort of broken the back of it a little bit and you sort of then start seeing what all the other possibilities might be.
Speaker: And so mentioned the Masters of Screen Business at AFTRS, which you completed last year in 2025. What prompted the decision to undertake further study and also in an area outside of theatre?
Speaker: um Well, it's a really good question. One of the main reasons I decided to is that I'd had five years as a resident director at Sydney Theatre Company, sorry, four years and then five years at Melbourne Theatre Company.
Speaker: And you sort of reach a level where you're you're thinking about what's next. And one of the things I love the most is bringing teams of people together to tell a particular story. And that becomes harder sort of the higher up you go in the theatre world sometimes because you actually have to be inside the companies for those resources. And we thought, well, why don't we try and develop a new way of making, you know, theatre of of scale outside or in collaboration with those companies.
Speaker: But also, I just wanted to zoom out and see things from a different perspective. And the course was so brilliant for that. Like it allowed me to step out of theatre, look at film and television. But the beauty of the course is that it's very forward facing. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: It's very much about innovation. It's very much about big thinking, about what's possible, about what the future is, about how to adapt to change, what interruptions are. And at a time and an age where you might start to sort of start thinking, look, the world's changing around me and I don't have to be a part of it, it forced you to go further into it. And I was able, taking that distance from theatre to see what its real impact what its real strengths are in this particular current environment and how some of the things that are happening is sort of breaking everything down and what the opportunities come from that. So to be, I always sort of think all storytelling in a way is very anthropological. You know, you're you're telling stories in the context of the time in which you are alive and the age you are and the context of which you're telling it. So it sort of has that feel to it, the course, you know, it really makes you sort of
Speaker: look at the whole of everything, the country where we're in, the technology, the past, the future. and And it's very, very difficult at times. It was really challenging. And at other times, it was really, really exhilarating.
Speaker: to be made to work quickly, to be made to think big, to sort of jump into things and investigate them and then jump onto the next thing at a time when, you know, you've spent so long in one thing that you start to solidify a little bit. So it's really great for your brain. It's really great to step outside and look at things from a different perspective and to look at the possibilities of working in other mediums.
Speaker: And in terms of making that decision to do ah further study, why did you choose AFTRS? Why this particular course?
Speaker: Well, Diana was there already and she was really enjoying it and being really challenged by it. um But AFTRS has always been... the place where the great, a lot of the great people in the industry have come from. And then the people who were the lectures there were really, really supportive as well. They understood that, you know, i was directing shows and running things and have a family and they understood that the pressure with which you're sort of under when you're studying at this stage in your life and career. So that was really great. You could do it remotely and in person and, know,
Speaker: I'm a big believer at the moment that the real thing that universities can offer is interaction with people working in the industries. people can You can find anything online. you know you When you study uni online, it's what's the difference between just educating yourself through everything?
Speaker: Places like NIDA and AFTRS, their strength is that when you go there, you're constantly meeting people and hearing from people that are out in the industry working and you're making connections with them and you're right in it because they're coming to you. And that's the most important thing. You really need those opportunities and AFTRS really offers them.
Speaker: And so were people in the course from the screen industry or did you find it was a mix and how important was that cohort? Well,
Speaker: The people we were studying with were a real mix. I sort of met the people who were coming in to do the lectures, you know, and so the people that were coming to talk to you in the subjects, you know, there were people like Kate Armstrong Smith from Othelia there was Nathan, there was people that had set up businesses, there were people that were, you know, the people you they were bringing in to to teach you or to give a lecture to were people in the industry.
Speaker: And like how long did it take to finish the course? Because I've heard it's quite flexible. Yeah, it's quite flexible. It took me about two and a half years, I think, or two or three years even.
Speaker: I can't really remember. It's a bit of a blur. But um i would go I would come up to Sydney. I live in Melbourne, but I'd come up to Sydney and do some subjects, but the rest was sort of online. o And what do you feel are some of the things that you learnt from that two, two and a half years that you've since been able to apply to your career directly?
Speaker: God, it's just happened so quickly. But I think having the courage just to start the company, you know, i think what it teaches you is to, it teaches you to have the courage. It teaches you to stand up and and go, well, there's only one way to do this and that's by starting it, you know, and by researching and thinking deeply, writing a plan, getting it out there, standing by it and taking risk. Yeah.
Speaker: And i think I think that's the biggest thing. It's like, you know, I've always taken risk in theatre, but for this, particularly with Coltrane and also with Amplified, I don't know whether we would have had the courage to do to do what we did had we not done the course. You know, Amplified was like this white knuckle ride as well. We had these incredible people at UMAC who commissioned it, but then we sort of had to develop this new work in front of a live audience until it kind of landed, which is a, very different way of making work and and utterly terrifying.
Speaker: particularly for Sheridan, the performer and main writer. But it was great. and And at the time we were sort of putting a website together and forming relationships and starting Coltrane and buying the rights to a couple of other books. And, you know, we then applied and got funding from Create Australia. So it's happened so quickly it's hard to reflect on exactly what that was. But all I know in my heart was that it was this courage to...
Speaker: you know anytime you sort of tried to quit afters they'd go don't quit keep going and um you need that and there was something about getting that capstone done which nearly killed me but I actually looked at it just the other day and went that's really good and I'm glad I did it that idea of pushing yourself with support what's what's the capstone that's that's the final project you have to do and i actually did it on on jacaranda But, you know, tried to wriggle out of it many times and Peter and Pia were like, don't give up, don't give up, which you need. You need, everyone needs support and encouragement.
Speaker: o And um I'm interested because there are a lot of people that become experts in their field and then they either change professions or they expand on what they've already been doing, which is kind of what you've done with theatre and then expanding into screen. And I was just wondering, how did you find that experience of reintroducing yourself as something outside of the role people have come to know you for? And and what would you say to someone who's considering doing the same by like jumping or expanding into a different career path?
Speaker: Well, it's really interesting because I think it's happening a lot, you know, like I think a lot of actors are moving into directing and people are far more willing to stand up and say i can do this you know and and I'm actually doing this anyway and I remember talking to a producer at STC and I was telling him you know we did this production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Red Stitch and it started there and and then I sort of was saying you know it should go to the comedy and and brought in a producer to have a look at it and and then I was like I should go to STC and then and he was like you're
Speaker: Obviously, I'm not saying I was producing or the people at Red Stitch were producing it, but I was doing it anyway, particularly as a director at a certain level. You're starting to pick the stories. You're starting to pull the team. You're starting to develop it and and look at where it can go and what the audience is. And you're like, well, this is producing. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And it feels great because it's such a collaborative art form and so is Screen. And everybody knows if you get that team ride, the work's better, the environment's better. It's really all about that. And so it's a really great thing to do because you're sort of doing, sometimes you're doing it anyway and you sort of just then own it and sort of build things around it and actually go, we've got something really good to offer here. Particularly someone like Diana who people love and love working for and, you know, and so that environment of that working environment is a really important part of what we're doing and looking after each other and, nurturing stories over a longer period of time.
Speaker: They're the priorities of what we think is really important to to how we work and that's sort of become our focus. oh And I'm wondering as well like what advice you would have for any directors listening hoping to build a sustainable career?
Speaker: i was thinking about that question and I was thinking Look, it's so different for for everyone. And the one bit of advice I would have is that even when you're not earning much money, still look after your money. Because the thing that I found is you just learn bad habits. Like when you're working and you're... You're having to work second jobs to get by and you're getting a tiny bit of money here and a tiny bit of money there. You think it's not worthy of management, but it is because what you learn are good habits. i've found that I found that really difficult because starting in independent theatre, there was never any money. So therefore I just sort of didn't focus on it. i always had another job and actually you should be more focused on those habits and
Speaker: of putting your tax away, of saving, or figuring out what you're earning, and even though you're paying for everything from another job, to still be rigorous with money, even if it's not a lot of money.
Speaker: oh Well, that brings us to our Pay It Forward segment, which is where you're asked a question from a previous guest and then you come up with a question for our next guest. So our previous guest was Queer Screen CEO Benson Wu And Benson's question for you was. If you have the power if you have the money, what's the first thing you would do to help change, to help improve this industry?
Speaker: If I had the power and the money, i would make tickets cheaper across the board to everything. So everybody could come. If you weren't, um you know, and if you didn't have any money, you could get a free ticket.
Speaker: I love that. Make art available for all. For everybody. Everybody. The really expensive tickets just make me sad. I just think it should be a social a social kind of function, a necessary social function.
Speaker: Definitely. Well, we will leave it there. But thank you so much for your time today and for chatting to me all about your career. Thank
Speaker: That was director Sarah Goodes and a big thanks to her for joining me on the podcast as well as to our sponsor AFTRS the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. This episode was produced and edited by myself with logo design by Shara Parsons and music by Seb 'SebOTage' Gavrilovich. If you enjoyed listening, please hit that subscribe button and leave us review.
Speaker: See you in a fortnight.
