BIOGRAPHIES
Kate Miller-Heidke
BIRD & COMPOSER
Kate Miller-Heidke is an award-winning singersongwriter who lives between the worlds of
classical music and contemporary pop. Her
latest album, O Vertigo!, debuted at number
four on the ARIA charts, broke Australian
crowdfunding records and was nominated for
an ARIA Award. Her previous releases include
the top-five albums Nightflight and Curiouser,
which featured the multi-platinum hits Caught in
the Crowd (winner of the Grand Prize in the 2009
International Songwriting Competition) and Last
Day On Earth. Trained as a classical singer at the
Queensland Conservatorium, Miller-Heidke has
appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York
in John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. She has
performed several roles for the English National
Opera and appeared in Jerry Springer: The Opera
at the Sydney Opera House. The Rabbits is her
debut opera as a composer.
Lally Katz
LIBRETTIST
Lally Katz is the most produced Australian
playwright of her generation. Her recent work for
the stage includes Neighbourhood Watch, starring
Robyn Nevin at Belvoir St Theatre and Melbourne
Theatre Company, and starring Miriam Margolyes
at the State Theatre Company of South Australia
(a production which broke their box office record).
The play was nominated for a NSW Premier’s
Literary Award, a Helpmann Award and an
Australian Writers’ Guild Award. It is being adapted
as a feature film with director Gillian Armstrong.
Her one-woman show, Stories I Want to Tell You in
Person, played at Belvoir St Theatre and Malthouse
Theatre in 2013, and toured from Adelaide to New
York, Albury to Mexico City. In 2015, Katz stars in
the ABC’s television adaptation of Stories, which
will also be published as a memoir by Allen &
Unwin. Katz’s previous plays, A Golem Story and
Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, both won the
Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. The Black Swan
of Trespass won the New York International Fringe
Festival Producer’s Choice Award.
John Sheedy
ADAPTOR & DIRECTOR
John Sheedy graduated from the directors’
course at NIDA in 2002 and has since worked
consistently as a freelance theatre director. In
August 2010, he became the Artistic Director of
Barking Gecko Theatre Company. Throughout
his career, Sheedy has directed productions for
Belvoir St Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Riverside
Theatres Parramatta, Black Swan State Theatre
Company, Sydney Opera House, Sydney Theatre
Company and Griffin Theatre Company. His work
has been recognised with several nominations for
Helpmann and Sydney Theatre awards.
In his first season as Artistic Director of Barking
Gecko, Sheedy directed a stage adaptation of
Shaun Tan’s children’s book, The Red Tree, which
premiered in 2011 and was produced again for
the 2012 Perth International Arts Festival. Also
produced for that Festival, in association with
Barking Gecko, was Susie Miller’s Driving Into
Walls, also directed by Sheedy. In 2012, Barking
Gecko was nominated for five Helpmann Awards
for these productions, and Driving Into Walls
transferred to Riverside Theatres Parramatta and
the Sydney Opera House. In 2013, Sheedy adapted
and directed Wolf Erlbruch’s children’s book Duck,
Death and the Tulip for Barking Gecko and Perth
International Arts Festival. In 2014, he directed
ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN, an inclusion in the Perth
International Arts Festival, and won Best Director
for his production of Storm Boy at the Performing
Arts WA Awards. His most recent work for
Barking Gecko, Jasper Jones, which premiered
in August last year, experienced great critical
acclaim and a sell-out season. The Rabbits marks
Sheedy’s fourth sold-out season for Barking
Gecko and his first foray into opera.