Lecturer, Acting

Dr. Melanie Beddie is a graduate of Sydney University, La Trobe University and the Victorian College of the Arts where she trained as an actor. She has four decades of professional work as an actor, performance trainer, dramaturg and theatre director including artistic direction. In 2004 she was awarded a fellowship by the Australia Council (Dramaturgy). She was a co-founder of the $5 Theatre Co. and artistic director of the independent theatre company The BRANCH.

From 2010-2016 Melanie was Lecturer in Acting at VCA School of Theatre. She has directed and taught across a range of programmes at WAAPA and at Federation University Arts Academy. In 2024 she was appointed Lecturer, Acting at Federation University Arts Academy.

Melanie works professionally as a director and dramaturg and has directed many productions with a focus on new Australian writing. She has created site specific work and devised performances using verbatim text. She has been nominated for and received numerous Greenroom Awards for her work and was the resident dramaturg at the MTC from 1998-2000. In 2002 she co-founded the Dramaturgies Forum with Paul Monaghan and Peter Eckersall which drew together the practice and the theory of dramaturgy resulting in a stronger recognition of this practice.  A Gloria Fellowship from NIDA in 2009 allowed her to conduct research in UK and USA for developing opportunities for culturally diverse theatre practitioners.

Melanie continues her work as an actor most recently in the feature film I Fall to Pieces, Together and the TV series Five Bedrooms.

Areas of Research and Expertise

• contemporary performance training
• contemporary training for screen and digital mediums
• cultural and gender diversity within the Australian theatre
• dramaturgy for new writing and performance .
• Australian Music theatre
• International lineages in Australian Actor Training.
• Practice-led research projects

Supervisions

Higher Degree by Research supervisions follow related themes of theatre and performance practice ,writing for performance, working on screen and in digital forms.

To read Melanie’s research click this link