Chris Mead

Chris, now an Associate Professor, is the Head of Theatre, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne. Prior to this he was Literary Director of Melbourne Theatre Company where he established Australia’s most rigorous and generous new theatre writing platform, the $2.3m Next Stage Program. Other jobs have included: inaugural artistic director, Playwriting Australia; Literary Manager, Company B Belvoir; curator, Australian National Playwrights’ Conference; Festival Director, International Festival for Young Playwrights; and Literary Manager, and Wharf 2LOUD Producer, Sydney Theatre Company. Recent directing credits include Matthew Cooke, Hera Fox, Stephanie Jack, Carrie McLean and Andy Vagg’s A mouthful of ‘c’ words (MONA FOMA/Salamanca 2023); Ross Mueller’s A Strategic Plan (Griffin 2017), Richard Frankland’s Walking into the Bigness (co-director with Wayne Blair, Malthouse Theatre 2014), which won Best Performance for VCE Theatre Studies and was nominated for three Green Rooms (Best New Play, Best Ensemble, Best Production), Ian Wilding’s Rare Earth (NIDA 2011) and Quack (Griffin 2010), and Damien Millar’s The Modern International Dead (Griffin 2008) which won Best New Play, Sydney Theatre Critics’ Awards and the WA Premier’s Literary Award, as well as being shortlisted for the NSW, Queensland and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Chris has a PhD from the University of Sydney, was awarded an inaugural Dramaturgy Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2004, was selected to attend New Visions New Voices at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center in 2008, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2019 and was a judge for Yale’s prestigious Windham Campbell Award in 2015-2016. His monograph on institutional racism and outreach strategies was published by Currency House in June 2008; and Chris wrote introductions to Currency Press volumes by Lachlan Philpott, Caleb Lewis, Hannie Rayson and Lally Katz. In 2009 Chris was named as one of Sydney’s 100 creative catalysts, he sat on the steering committee for the 2011 Australian Theatre Forum, on the Board of Arena Theatre Company (2008-13), the artistic directorate of Hothouse Theatre (2011-2014) and the Board of Theatre Network Victoria (2013-2015). In the past five years he has worked closely with writers such as Patricia Cornelius, Anchuli Felicia King, Joanna Murray-Smith, Benjamin Law, David Williamson, Eddie Perfect, Tom Holloway, Merlynn Tong, Aidan Fennessy, Emme Hoy, Diana Nguyen, Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner, Nathan Maynard, Margot Morales Tanjutco,  Andrea James and Jacob Boehme.