Photo - Kirsty Grant
Tama Matheson
Writer, Director, Actor
Tama is an award-winning writer, director, and actor with over 20 years’ experience in theatre, film, and opera. He has written, directed, and performed in plays all over the world, and has a particular passion for creating new, innovative, and multi-disciplinary dramatic works – many of which have won or been nominated for awards in London and Australia.
He has, over the past few years, created a series of music-plays (“Lyric Dramas”), that fuse theatre and music into a fresh theatrical form. His 2019 play, Bright Stars Shone for Us, was shortlisted for the RPS Storytelling Award in London, while his recent play about Beethoven, I Shall Hear in Heaven, (which he performed with the London Mozart Players), was just nominated for the same award.
Tama has written many plays, which have been performed to great acclaim. These include: I Shall Hear in Heaven; Ben, the life of Benjamin Britten; Bright Stars Shone for Us; Don Juan – the Scandalous Life of Lord Byron; Panufnik – his Quest for Peace; The White Mouse (about war heroine, Nancy Wake); Johann Sebastian; Mahler and his 10th Symphony; plus his own adaptations of A Christmas Carol, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Christmas Fairy Tales.
As a director, Tama has worked in theatre and opera all over the world, including Malta, England, Australia, America, Kuwait, Germany, and Spain. He has worked with numerous theatre and opera companies, including Covent Garden, the Sydney Opera House, South Australian Opera, Perth Opera, The Mariinsky Theatre, Teatro Real, Madrid, Houston Grand Opera, and Baden Baden Opera. Tama is Artistic Director of the Brisbane Shakespeare Festival, and a founding member of Poesis: Words and Music, in London. He has also directed straight theatre all over the word, including theatre companies in in London, Sydney, Brisbane, Kuwait, and Malta.
He has also worked with many orchestras, creating unique collaborations with Melbourne, Tasmanian, and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Brisbane Camerata, and the London Mozart Players. With these orchestras, he has developed a unique form of theatre-with-music (the “Lyric Drama”), which has, in its various incarnations, received universally praiseworthy reviews.
As an actor, Tama has worked with major theatre companies in England and Australia, including the Queensland Theatre Company, The Tasmanian Shakespeare Festival, the Brisbane Shakespeare Festival, The British Shakespeare Company, Middle Ground Theatre, and the D’Oyly Carte Opera. He has also appeared in Eastenders, Heartbeat, and Hoges – the Life of Paul Hogan.
Tama has won several awards for his work, including ‘Outstanding Director’ at the Opera Chaser Awards in Melbourne (for the opera Metamorphosis); ‘Best Production’ at the Brisbane Matilda Awards (for Amadeus); and ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the Matildas (The Pillowman). He also received a nomination for Best Actor at the Matildas, and his production of A Christmas Carol was a finalist for the 2019 CBAA Radio Awards. A documentary, Fading Sands, which he made with film-maker Tane Matheson won a series of awards and nominations around the world in 2016 (FIFO Tahiti and Paris (Winner Okeanos Prix); Asia Pacific International Film Festival, Indonesia; Dauville Green Awards, France; Anuu-ru Aboro Film Festival, New Caledonia; Chandler International Film Festival, USA).