NSW Equity Graduate Day 2026

Host(s)

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  Mitchell Butel

  Mitchell Butel is a multi-awarded director, performer, writer and producer and Sydney Theatre Company’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO.Mitchell holds four Helpmann Awards, four Sydney Theatre Awards and two Victorian Green Room Awards for his work as a director and actor in Australia. He has also worked in New York, London, Hong Kong and New Zealand. He has worked extensively for State Theatre Company South Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre, Belvoir, Bell Shakespeare, Griffin, Malthouse, Opera Australia, Sydney Chamber Opera, Pinchgut Opera, The Production Company, The Hayes Theatre and for the Sydney, Adelaide and Perth Festivals on over 200 professional productions.Mitchell was Artistic Director and Co-CEO of State Theatre Company South Australia from 2019 to 2024 where his directing credits included The Questions, Hibernation, Ripcord, Candide (co-director, co-produced with State Opera South Australia), Decameron 2.0 (co-director, co-produced with ActNow Theatre) and Girls & Boys (including its Adelaide Festival, Sydney Festival and Theatre Royal, Hobart seasons). He also performed in Dance Nation, Candide, Decameron 2.0 and The Normal Heart while he was Artistic Director of the Company.Other directing credits include Francesco Cavalli’s The Loves of Apollo and Dafne for Pinchgut Opera, the Sydney and Melbourne seasons of the Hayes Theatre/Blue Saint production of Violet (which received three Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Director of a Musical and Best Production of a Musical), Spring Awakening (Australian Theatre for Young People, which won the Sydney Theatre Award’s Best Production for Young People), Porgy and Bess, The Bernstein Songbook and Funny Girl (all for Sydney Symphony Orchestra), Candide (Sydney Opera House/Sydney Philharmonia), An Act of God (Darlinghurst Theatre Company, co-director), Marjorie Prime and Croon Tunes (Ensemble Theatre), Approximate Balance (Griffin Theatre Lysicrates Prize winner), Dead Cat Bounce (Griffin Theatre), Excellent Adventures (Chapel Off Chapel and Noosa Festivals), Killing Time (Adelaide, Brisbane and Summersalt Cabaret Festivals), Caroline, or Change (Hayes Theatre), the opera The Blessing (Coriole Music Festival) and Moments in the Woods: Songs and Stories of Stephen Sondheim for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
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  Lauren Wiley

  Lauren Wiley is one of Australia’s most accomplished Casting Directors, bringing more than two decades of experience.She is currently the Casting Director for the forthcoming Australian premiere of A Beautiful Noise – The Neil Diamond Musical (TEG Dainty/Ken Davenport). Her extensive credits include MJ The Musical (Michael Cassel Group), Gaslight (Newtheatricals/Queensland Theatre), Hamilton (International Tour) and Hamilton (Australia) (Michael Cassel Group), Come From Away (Junkyard Dog/Newtheatricals), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Michael Cassel Group), and Kinky Boots (Michael Cassel Group). Lauren also served as Consulting Casting Director for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical (TEG Dainty/Stage Entertainment) and was Casting Administrator for Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Misérables (Michael Cassel Group).Lauren began her theatrical casting career at Sydney Theatre Company in 2009, appointed Casting Coordinator to Co-Artistic Directors Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton. She later returned to Sydney Theatre Company as in-house Casting Director under Artistic Director Kip Williams, a role she held until 2019.A graduate of Charles Sturt University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications (Theatre/Media), Lauren spent two years based in London, where she worked as Casting Assistant to Jina Jay on major feature films including The Lovely Bones (Dir. Peter Jackson), Body of Lies (Dir. Ridley Scott), Agora (Dir. Alejandro Amenábar), and The Adventures of Tintin (Dir. Steven Spielberg) as well as time working for London’s most established talent agencies.

• Simon Whipp

  Simon graduated from the University of New South Wales with a bachelor of laws and worked as a solicitor specialising in industrial and copyright law with the national law firm Corrs, Chambers Westgarth. From 1994 to 2011 Simon worked for the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance in a variety of roles. Firstly as an in house lawyer then a negotiator for performers working in film and television production. In 1999 Simon was elected Assistant Federal Secretary of the union and became the National Director of the Actors Equity section. In this role he was the primary negotiator and advocate for Australia’s and New Zealand’s performers. From 2008 to 2012 Simon held the position of Vice-President of the International Federation of Actors. Since 2012 Simon has worked as an agent with Shanahan Management.
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  Anousha Zarkesh

  AACTA and Casting Guild award winning, Anousha Zarkesh Casting, specialises in top end Australian TV and film for over 25yrs.. Based in Sydney, our casting agency has gained a reputation for a specialised service championing cultural diversity and inclusive casting. We take pride in casting for a wide range of genres including political satire, drama, comedy, telemovies, documentary series and film. Recent productions include: , Shayda (FF), Thou Shalt Not Steal (TV), Ladies in Black (TV) The New Boy (FF), Territory (TV) Class of 07 (TV, The Stranger (FF), Firebite (AMC) Total Control 1 and 2, Mystery Road Series 1, 2 and 3, (TV) Rake (TV), Redfern now (TV), Cleverman (TV), The Principal (TV), INXS , Never Tear Us Apart (TV), Catching Milat (TV), Black Comedy (TV), Jasper Jones (FF), Hounds of Love (FF), Manny Lewis (FF), Alex and Eve (FF), The Office (Amazon, BBC and Bunya) and shoot to be released The Correspondent (FF) and Kangaroo (StudioCanal). Anousha currently sits as Vice President of the Casting Guild of Australia. Website: https://www.zarkesh.com.au/
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  Julian Kuo

  Julian Kuo is a multi-disciplinary performer from Sydney, Australia. He is also a passionate music educator, working privately, for The Academy of Music and Performing Arts (AMPA), and Brent Street Studios. Kuo holds a Bachelor of Music (B.Mus) majoring in Musical Theatre from The Australian Institute of Music (AIM), graduating in 2010. Julian has produced and starred in several Cabarets including Broadway Bard(Written and dir. Melvyn Morrow) and his own work, Interpretations: The Music of Cole Porter, and He Said. She Said. (co-written by Holly Summers-Clarke) as part of Sydney Fringe Festival. He is the current Vice President of NSW Equity. Independent stage credits include; Spring Awakening (dir. Mitchell Butel) for ATYP, Bernado in West Side Story (dir. Craig Stewart) for Packemin Productions and Craig McDermott in American Psycho (dir. Alexander Berlage) for BB Arts and Two Door Productions. Main Stage credits include; Margaret Mead in HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical (dir. Cameron Menzies) for David M. Hawkins, and the Australian and International Touring Production of the Broadway Blockbuster, HAMILTON: An American Musical (dir. Thomas Kail) for Michael Cassel Group.
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  Jacqui Duncan

  Jacqui Duncan is an Australian actor, comedian and TV presenter from Brisbane, Queensland. Making her on screen debut to Australian audiences as ‘Eco’, on the popular children’s television program, ‘The Shak’, amassing a total of 460 episodes for the Nine Network, Jacqui has had a steady flow of on-screen credits including; ‘Bump’ (Stan), ‘Old School’ (ABC Australia/NBC), ‘Home & Away’ (Seven Network) and ‘Underbelly’ (Nine Network). She recently appeared as ‘Kelly’ in the Binge feature comedy, ‘A Savage Christmas’ (featuring Rachel Griffiths and Helen Thomson).Jacqui has a great passion for live comedy and theatre. Jacqui has performed on stage in Sydney at the Factory Theatre, Sydney Comedy Store, Giant Dwarf, KXT and Improv Theatre Sydney, as well as the UCB and Groundlings mainstages in Los Angeles. In 2022, she was awarded BEST SCRIPT (Jacqui Duncan, David Allsopp) and BEST ACTOR (Jacqui Duncan, David Allsopp) at the Short and Sweet Theatre Festival for her work in the play, ‘Buried Treasure’. Recently, she appeared at the Factory Theatre in the run of feminist sketch comedy show, ‘Tough Titties’, showcasing her impressive comedic range in a multitude of characters (an Italian Mobster Vagina, an Eastern Suburbs mother-of-the-groom and an Essex Love Island contestant to name a few). She began improvising and creating characters when she began her training at UCB (The Upright Citizen’s Brigade) in 2014, gaining selection for Advanced Studies. In 2017 she completed the core program at ITS (Improv Theatre Sydney) and has appeared on stage in the house teams, ‘Flight Mode’ and ‘Tentacle’. Jacqui is also one of a select few Australians to graduate from the infamous Groundlings improv and sketch comedy school , completing Advanced Writing Lab in late 2023. *Other advanced Lab alumni include Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Chloe Fineman and Will Ferrell.With her years of experience in the industry, she also ventured into the world of stand-up and making it to the Semi-finals of the 2018 RAW Comedy Competition at her first appearance. She has since developed her stand-up writing into what has been described as a “hilariously dry dig at society… and herself”. Along with her stage and on camera appearances, Jacqui is a successful voice artist in the commercial space (voicing national campaigns for brands such as Toyota, McDonalds, Pepsi and Sunsilk). She also has several animated credits to her name, including, ‘Bernie Sand Wars’, ‘Other Fish’, ‘The Eggsperts’ and the ABC Kid’s series’, ‘Giggle & Hoot’ and ‘FriendZSpace’ as well as multiple audiobook credits such as, ‘Cut’, by Sue White, ‘The Secret Runners of New York’ by Matthew Reilly and ‘The Wonderful Thing About Phoenix Rose’ Josephine Moon. In 2024 Google USA production, Mr Eggtop animation series, was released online with collective reach of 300k with Jacqui voicing one of the lead characters.On screen, Jacqui can also be seen in the role of Annie, for the Season 5 of TV Series BUMP - release date, Boxing Day 2024.
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  Nicholas Hope

  Nicholas has worked in film, television and theatre in Australia, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Spain. His first feature film role as the lead in Rolf De Heer’s acclaimed Bad Boy Bubby won him the Australian Film Industry Award for Best Actor. He was recently nominated by the Film Critics Circle of Australia for Best Actor in a supporting role for his portrayal of Joseph in Ivan Sen’s Limbo, and has been seen in Storm Ashwood’s debut feature The School, Foxtel’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and in Erin Goode’s Jade of Death, for which he won Best Actor at the Denver Series-Fest 2018. Other credits include Born to Spy, Kurt Martin’s Moon Rock for Monday, Peter Duncan’s ABC series Operation Buffalo, Leah Purcell’s debut feature The Drover’s Wife, Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, and Paramount’s The Secrets She Keeps. He was Old Man Smithers (aka the Luna ghost) in Raja Gosnell’s Scooby-Doo, appeared as the alcoholic and abusive Tommy in Goalpost Picture’s Black Snow, and will soon be seen in Enzo Tedeschi’s It Will Find You and Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus.Nicholas has been a proud Equity member since 1989.
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  Egan Sun-Bin

  Egan is a storyteller and an Equity Organiser for the Media Entertainment Arts Alliance. He is a 2020 QUT Acting Graduate and since then, has worked as an actor, director, writer and teaching artist. Most recently, Egan directed the Award Winning Independent Production 'Scenes From A Yellow Peril' which was part of Queensland Theatre’s Door3 Program and had its mainstage premiere at Queensland Performing Arts Centre.