JOHN BACH

John Bach is a prolific New Zealand actor who has worked in theatre, film and television for many years. His on screen credits include over 120 films and television shows including Good bye Pork Pie, Utu, The Lord of the Rings, The Last Tattoo, The Great Bookie Robbery, the lead in the Duggan series and playing Alexander Graeme Bell in The Sound and the Silence. His theatrical credits range from experimental theatre in London to most recently working at the Court Theatre in Christchurch on Homeland, Blackbird, The Year of the Rat and The Raft.

MEL DODGE

Mel Dodge has an MA in Acting from ArtsEd, London. Mel's credits include Uncle Vanya (for which she won the 2007 Chapman Tripp Actress of the Year Award), Rabbit and Mammals at Circa Theatre. Who Needs Sleep Anyway and No Moa for Downstage Theatre. My Heart is Bathed in Blood, The Country Wife, Kiwifruits and Shop Till You Drop for the Fortune Theatre. She also performed as Una in the Court Theatre production of Blackbird. Other credits include Collected Stories, Taming of the Shrew, Enchanted Tales and Waiting for Godot. Mel has a production company called BRAVE for which she has written and performed Steel Ballerina, Jane Austen is Dead, Fight or Flight, The 1/4 Pounding and Anything to Declare which toured to the Edinburgh fringe in 2006.

STEPHANIE McKELLAR-SMITH

After receiving a 'Best New Director' award from the NZ Theatre Federation in 1983, Stephanie attended, on scholarship, a theatre summer school in the Hawkes Bay. This led to her being offered a position as director-in-training with Theatre Corporate in Auckland.
During her time with Theatre Corporate Stephanie directed and acted for the studio and main theatres and became assistant director and artistic director of the community theatre company.
In 1987 Stephanie took up the position of Artistic Director of the Auckland Youth Theatre and Drama School. During her four years there she was awarded an AGC Young Achievers Award which funded her attendance on a Directors Course at Regents College in London with the British Theatre Association.
Stephanie was a founding member of The Other Company, a professional theatre company which performed for both the general public and toured extensively throughout New Zealand schools for ten years.

Throughout her career Stephanie has directed and produced a wide range of shows including; Stretchmarks at Theatre Corporate, Cinderella for AYT and TVNZ, Auckland Town Hall, Objection Overruled for the Customhouse Theatre, Auckland, Comedy of Errors for the Pumphouse Theatre, The Sneeze for Central Theatre, Me & My Vice for the ASB Laugh Festival and a season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Underpants for Ohio Northern University (USA), and for the Court Theatre; The Great Piratical Rumbustification, the world premiere of The Raft by Carl Nixon, Blackbird by David Harrower and most recently Home Land by Gary Henderson.

In 2006 and 2007 Stephanie appeared in the world premiere of Gary Henderson's Peninsula at the Court Theatre and in the later tours of this production to the Brisbane and Nelson Arts Festivals. In 2008 she appeared in The Gods of Warm Beer by Peter Hawes, also at the Court Theatre.

Stephanie has also appeared in numerous roles in television productions, short films and TVCs including playing Judy Billingham in Shortland Street and Reebie in the NZ Feature Film Fifty Ways of Saying Fabulous.

Stephanie is the co-ordinator of the acting programme with NASDA which provides a full-time Bachelors degree in Musical Theatre (BPA) and has directed a wide range of plays and musical for the school over the past ten years.