‘Curtain Up!’ - Stage Director/Designer and Theatre Polymath; John Senczuk
A theatre polymath, NIDA graduate John Senczuk’s multi-award winning career spans forty years with his work seen nationally and internationally in commissions for opera, dance and drama.
He worked concurrently as an academic, with fifteen years at the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong (creating and teaching courses in Scenography, Directing and Dramaturgy) before taking senior positions at Toi Whakaari, New Zealand Drama School, and WAAPA (Program Director—Production, Design and Arts Management; Head of Design).
He was Chairman of Griffin Theatre Company in 1985, appointing the Company’s first artistic director; founding Chair of Paul Mercurio’s Australian Choreographic Ensemble; and sat on the Boards of Theatre South, Currency House, Dramaturgical Services Inc., The Seymour Group and Matt Lutton’s Thin Ice.
For ten years, from 1989, John was associate director of Wollongong’s Theatre South where his credits on over thirty productions as director/designer included Hamlet, After Dinner, Twelfth Night, Christian Brothers and The Time is Not Yet Ripe. He has also directed drama, opera and musicals: Bony Anderson (Seymour Group); Flesh and Blood (Festival of Sydney); Irene (with Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds,) and the premieres of David Williamson’s When Dad Married Fury, Justin Fleming’s Kangaroo and John Aitken’s The Enchanters.
John collaborated with Gale Edwards on the book & lyrics for the musical Eureka!, and wrote the Opera libretto for African Queen.
Highlights of his career as a designer include L’Orfeo (Oslo Summer Festival) and Sons of Cain (West End). He collaborated on over twenty productions for the Sydney Theatre Company, including David Williamson’s Dead White Males and Heretic, and the Australian premiere of Into the Woods; and has worked extensively in both the subsidised and commercial theatre nationally.
John submits his PhD Theses (Flinders University) in 2022.
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