Meet the Creatives
Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll
by Ray Lawler
Denny Lawrence – Director
Denny Lawrence has worked in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA as an actor, writer, producer and director in film, theatre and television. His many screen credits include four feature films, numerous telemovies and miniseries and literally hundreds of hours of series television. Many of his productions have won nominations and awards, including at the AFI and BAFTA Awards.
He was producer and director on the ABC series MDA, which gained an International Emmy Award nomination and won an AFI Award for Best Series and Best Actor and Actress. He has also won a number of awards for screenwriting. He continues to work regularly in theatre where his credits include the award-winning Sky and The Old Boy (both for the Ensemble Theatre), A Woman Knows (Tisch New Theatre, NY), A Soldier Dreams (Theatre East, NY) and has recently directed a new musical, High Time, starring Philip Quast.
For Red Stitch in Melbourne he directed Loyal Women, Belleville and the acclaimed production of Love, Love, Love.
For HIT Productions he has directed Love Letters (2014 & 2015), All My Love (2015, 2016 & 2018), Educating Rita (2016) and Always…Patsy Cline (2016, 2017 & 2018), Shirley Valentine (2017 & 2018) and Peter Quilter’s Glorious! (2018) and My Brilliant Divorce (2019).
Adrienne Chisholm – Set & Costume Designer
Originally trained as a Graphic Designer, Adrienne later went onto complete a post-graduate diploma in Theatre Design at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1996. Since then Adrienne has designed Sets, Costumes and puppets for such companies as: Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Playbox, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Circus Oz, Back to Back, Polyglot Puppet Theatre, The Wiggles, Art Play, Danceworks, Ivanov and The Lower Depths for Ariette Taylor Productions. Chookahs Festivals for the Victorian Arts Centre, Weave Movement theatre, Numerous Productions for the Ballarat University Musical Theatre Course, Syncopation and Café Rebetika for The Follies Company, and 17 productions for 45 Downstairs including Ivanov, Progress and Melancholy and Café Scherezade. Adrienne was a founding member of highly-acclaimed The Keene/Taylor Theatre Project designing sets and costumes for all of their seasons and was a Green Room Award recipient for her Set Design for The Burlesque Hour now seen all over the world. For Andrew Kay Productions Adrienne has designed costumes for, ‘Thomas the Tank Engine the Musical’ seen across Asia and ‘Masterclass’ starring Amanda Muggleton. Adrienne was Parade and Float Designer for Melbourne’s much-loved Moomba Parade in 2010. Adrienne has designed 15 productions for HIT Productions including David Williamson’s most recent works, Managing Carmen and When Dad Married Fury. Motherhood the Musical, Louis Nowra’s Cosi, Diving for Pearls and The Club to name a few, and recently 2018’s 25th anniversary tour of Hannie Rayson’s Hotel Sorrento. She designed Cabaret show Between the Cracks with performer Sara Ward aka Yana Alana which received several Greenroom awards and a part of the 2018 Edinburgh Festival. Adrienne has designed many times for Red Stitch Actors Theatre including, Trevor, HIR, Lovesong and most recently Dance Nation. Adrienne has for many years worked within the Education Departments of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Parks Victoria and the Child Witness Service for the Justice Dept, illustrating and designing games and other Educational tools to assist their work with children.
Niklas Pajanti – Lighting Designer
Niklas Pajanti is an award-winning lighting designer whose practice ranges across contemporary art forms and performance styles including theatre, dance, opera, circus, musical theatre, comedy, events, exhibitions and public spaces. He has designed for Australian & International companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse, Chunky Move, Victorian Opera, Ilbijerri and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and many more. Career highlights include designing lighting for the Helpmann Award winning production of Angels in America, as well as Wild Duck for Belvoir which toured to Austria, Holland & London and lighting Rupert for Melbourne Theatre Company which also toured to Sydney’s Royal Theatre and the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC. Niklas has won 2 Green Room Awards and received 11 nominations across all categories as well as being nominated for Helpmann and Sydney Theatre awards for his lighting designs.