Grace Barnes started her directing career as an assistant director at Sydney Theatre Company on Into the Woods and has since been a staff director at Opera Australia, and an associate or resident director on War Horse, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Sunset Boulevard, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof.  Originally from Scotland, she ran her own theatre company Skeklers Theatre Company for five years and her work as a playwright has been produced throughout Scotland including at the Citz in Glasgow, the Royal Lyceum and the Traverse in Edinburgh, and at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Grace has written the book for two musicals, Nevermore and Crossing, which premiered at the Tony Award winning Signature Theatre in Arlington.  A third musical The Blue Poppy should have premiered at Signature in 2020 but was cancelled due to the pandemic. 

Grace has a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, and has published academic analysis on musical theatre in the journal Studies in Musical Theatre, and has contributed a chapter to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Global Musical.  Her book on the place of women within musical theatre Her Turn on Stage was published in 2015, and in 2022 her book National Identity and the British Musical: from Blood Brothers to Cinderella was published by Methuen Drama.  Earlier this year, Grace’s creative biography of the first women to swim for Australia in an Olympic Games, In Search of Mina Wylie, was published.   

The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au