Bio. Download CV.
Briony Dunn (she/her) is a Naarm.Melbourne based director, dramaturge, festival director and arts leader. As a director Briony makes emotionally raw theatre in traditional and experimental contexts. Her dramaturgical imperatives include exploring feminist reframing of male-authorship. In her dramaturgy and leadership roles she curates opportunities for artists to tell important stories well and to deepen the practice of theatre making in Australia.
A directing graduate of NIDA, Briony has a Master of Arts in Theatre (UNSW), is Literary Manager at Theatre Works, St Kilda, co-Artistic Director of Iron Lung Theatre (Co. in Residence at Theatre Works 2020), is part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2020-21 Women in Theatre Program (Programming) and is an assessor for Australia Council for the Arts. As dramaturge, associate artist, assessor, curator or director Briony has worked with some of Australia’s finest theatre companies and arts organisations including Company B Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir Downstairs, PACT & Stark Youth Theatres, NIDA, ATYP and Playwriting Australia. Briony is currently on the Australia Council for the Arts peer assessment panel.
Briony works on unceded land and acknowledges the traditional custodians of the countries she works on, paying her respect to elders past, present and future.
Theatre. Director
Briony’s work as a director is dominated by themes that challenge despotic behaviours, her body of work alternating between well-made plays that inspire emotional disruption, and plays that’ve been broken down and rebuilt to emerge as revolts against control.
Credits as director include When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell, Blank by Alice Birch, Electra, Orestes, The Women of Troy by Euripides, Der Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller, Endgame by Beckett, No Exit by Sartre, Life is a Dream by Calderon, La Dispute by Marivaux, Wild Honey by Michael Frayn, The Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht, Ruffian on the Stair by Joe Orton, Translations by Brian Friel, Brilliant Lies by David Williamson, Summer of the Aliens by Louis Nowra, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and ‘night, Mother by Marsha Norman. New works and adaptations include The Spirit Guard a Palestinian folktale, No End after Beckett/Sartre, dreamalittledreamalittle by Toby Schmitz, Dreaming Fire by Matt Edgerton and Are We There Yet by Vanessa O’Neil.
Briony recently directed The Human Voice by Jean Cocteau, new translation by Iris Gaillard, produced by Theatre Works.
Dramaturgy & Development.
Briony has been dramaturge or director/dramaturge on dozens of new plays. Most recent creative developments as director/dramaturge include The Greer Effect by Vanessa O’Neill, I Am Emilia Bassano by John Warszawski, The Cave of Spleen by Laura Collins and in the rehearsal room as dramaturge on Senser by Brittanie Shipway.
In her role as Literary Manager at Theatre Works Briony is co-founder of the She Writes Collective, a two-year program curating and facilitating the development of 19 female-identifying and non-binary emerging and early-career playwrights.
Screen. Community.
Briony utilises film to explore evocations including the experimental documentary shot on Super 8 & digital tape He Used to Call Me Boz, and semi-political short film From Here, filmed in the West Bank, Israel & the US.
Briony was a recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts professional development grant to research, teach and direct in the Palestinian Territories and Israel.
Her cultural community work includes a series of short portrait films created with Afghanistan refugees and migrant populations examining intersections of place and displace for Dandenong Council. For more than five years Briony worked with award-winning arts and social-justice company Big hArt in numerous roles including mentor artist, associate director and director, on projects and festival collaborations such as Melbourne and Sydney International Arts Festivals.