Anthea Williams

Anthea is an award-winning director, dramaturg and Churchill Fellow. She specialises in new work. Though born and raised in Christchurch she is currently based in Sydney. Her recent credits include Winyanboga Yurringa (Andrea James – Belvoir), Since Ali Died (Omar Musa – Griffin) and The Humans (Stephen Karam – Red Line Productions). Since Ali Died won Best Cabaret at the Sydney Theatre Awards and will tour Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide this year.

From 2011 to 2017 she was Associate Director – New Work at Belvoir. For Belvoir she directed Hir (Taylor Mac), Kill the Messenger (Nakkiah Lui) Forget Me Not (Tom Holloway), Cinderella and Old Man (Matthew Whittet) and was dramaturg on a number of works including The Drover’s Wife (Leah Purcell), Brother’s Wreck (Jada Alberts), This Heaven (Nakkiah Lui) and Small and Tired (Kit Brookman). 

Anthea was awarded Best Director in a Mainstage Production at the Sydney theatre Awards 2017 for Hir. Hir won several other awards including Best Mainstage Production.  

She wrote and directed Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin which has toured New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom and was part of the 2017 Sydney Festival. It will tour internationally and nationally again in 2019 and has appeared at the Sydney Opera House and the Brisbane and Darwin Festivals as well as here in Christchurch at the Buskers Festival in January 2019.  

From 2007 to 2011 Anthea was Associate Director bushfutures at London’s Bush Theatre, where her directing credits include Two Cigarettes, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas, Turf, suddenlossofdignity.com and the musical The Great British Country Fete. Her work toured Britain extensively including The Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Ustinov Bath, The Tobacco Factory Bristol, the Norwich Playhouse, North Wall Arts Centre Cambridge and the Latitude Festival.    

Anthea’s other directing credits include The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and #KillAllMen (NIDA), The Real You (SmackBang) and Quiet (Fontanel – 45 Downstairs). Prior to working at the Bush Theatre, she was the Co-Artistic Director of SmackBang Theatre Company and the producer of Massive Company, both in Auckland, New Zealand. 

Anthea also works in Television and Film. In 2018 she was one of the inaugural women supported through Create NSW #SheDirects. Anthea was also supported through Screen Australia Talent + and Developing the Developer. She also works in development at Causeway Films (The Babadook, the Nightingale). 

She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts (Directing) and the University of New South Wales.

Anthea is thrilled to be directing The Pink Hammer back home in Christchurch for The Court Theatre