STAGES with Peter Eyers

Guy Noble is an Australian musical composer, conductor, pianist and broadcaster. He studied piano in the early 1980s at the Sydney Conservatorium. On a scholarship from the Australia Council he travelled to London where he worked for four years, including a stint as presenter on BBC Radio 3.  In 1984, he was pianist in the Sydney Youth Orchestra and from 1984 to 1986 in the Australian Youth Orchestra. Noble was the inaugural recipient of the Brian Stacey Memorial Trust Award for emerging Australian conductors in 1998; the trust, in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, financed the composition and recording of Noble's Flute Concerto, written for Jane Rutter. In 2022 he was appointed as the conductor and host of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Guy Noble regularly conducts the Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, West Australian, Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony orchestras and has worked with the Canberra Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia and the Malaysian Philharmonic orchestras. He has been Musical Director and Musical Supervisor for musicals including Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, Hello Dolly!, South Pacific, Man of La Mancha, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Gypsy and the Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He has recorded 12 CDs and ABC Classics in Australia has released his comedy sketch CD entitled The Guy Noble Radio Show. He has also conducted and presented concerts with performers including Harry Connick Jr , Dianne Reeves, The Beach Boys, Ben Folds, Clive James, David Hobson, Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Randy Newman. He is a former host of the ABC Classic FM radio breakfast program and he writes a regular column in Limelight magazine. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au

It’s the time of year where folk are jetting off on holidays - a key destination for many theatre fans is to head to the West End of London or the bright lights of Broadway - theatre precincts which guarantee excitement and awe. Two gentlemen who make their own annual pilgrimage to the Great White Way or the West End -  are ‘Man in Chair’ Simon Parris, and Publicist Ian Phipps. The two theatre aficionados join the STAGES podcast regularly to offer a round-up of the shows they’d seen on recent trips to the theatre meccas.  They offer abundant tips regarding what to see and how to secure tickets … so, they’re back again - this time to appraise their recent trips to New York and the Broadway season looming - a delicious appraisal of what is on, what has been, and what we can expect to see in coming months. We also look at the abundance of musical offerings locally in 2025. Simon Parris is a theatre reviewer based in Melbourne. His review blog ‘Man in Chair’ regularly reviews musicals, plays, opera and the arts. Access to these reviews can be found at simonparrismaninchair.com Ian Phipps is one of Australia’s leading publicists, promoting theatre and its stars around Australia. If you know that a show is happening, no doubt it’s because Ian has communicated this to you via a myriad of masterful means. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au

Roger Hodgman is a freelance theatre and screen director. He was Artistic Director of the Vancouver Playhouse for four years and Melbourne Theatre Company for twelve.  He has worked in drama schools in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – including five years as an acting teacher and director at the East 15 School in London, two years as Director of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver and four years as Dean of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts. He has directed over 150 stage productions for numerous companies including MTC, STC, STC of S.A, QTC, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Shaw Festival (Canada), TML Enterprises, Australian Opera, New Zealand Opera and Victorian Opera. He has received Green Room Awards for Best Director in the Theatre, Opera and Music Theatre divisions and a Helpmann for best director (Musical) and numerous nominations. Productions he has directed have won Green Room, Sydney Critics and Helpmann Awards for best production for Theatre, Musical and Opera. Many of his stage productions have toured Australia including Skylight (described by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of the stage highlights of the 1990s), Art, Private Lives and successful commercial productions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Fiddler on the Roof.  He counts numerous Shakespeare productions and a number of Stephen Sondheim productions as highlights of his career, along with working in Canada with Tennessee Williams on two new plays. He directed many productions for The Production Company from its second show, She Loves Me to the last, Ragtime. Others include Grey Gardens (Helpman Award) Follies, Showboat, Curtains, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which also had an acclaimed separate commercial production in Sydney).  His productions for Victorian Opera have been very varied – most recently Banquet of Secrets (by Paul Grabowsky and Steve Vizard), Nixon in China, Parsifal and The Who’s Tommy. Since leaving MTC in 2000, he has also worked as a screen director, directing over 80 hours of TV Drama including Stepfather of the Bride (Chicago Film Festival Award for Best Telemovie), many episodes of A Secret Life Of Us (AFI nomination for Best Director), Lockie Leonard (BAFTA nomination and AFI Award for Best Children’s Series, Mustangs,, A Place To Call Home (first episode) and Wentworth. He has served on many committees including the Board of NIDA, Drama Committee of the Australia Council, Cultural Advisory Committee for Melbourne City Council (Chair), Advisory Committee to the Victorian Ministry of The Arts, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (Chair of Drama panel), Vic College of the Arts Board and the Artistic Directorship of HotHouse Theatre. He currently lives in Tasmania with his wife, Pamela Rabe, and has been directing an annual Shakespeare production in Hobart, and frequently travelling interstate to work. He was awarded an AM in 2023 for his services to theatre in Australia.

Melbourne-born, Suzanne Jones embarked on a career in main stage live entertainment after completing degrees in economics and music. She got her start in the entertainment industry as a sound engineer at Arts Centre Melbourne, which soon led to the role of Head of Sound for System Sound, touring large-scale music theatre productions around Australia and Asia. After a hiatus of several years to explore other industries and interests – including a successful stint as a stockbroker – Suzanne’s love of live entertainment ultimately drew her back, joining the team at the Gordon Frost Organisation. During her time with GFO Suzanne produced dozens of Australian tours in various capacities, which provided the blueprint for her own dynamic and rewarding career pathway. A dynamic commercial executive in the world of theatre and live events, Suzanne has drawn on her close connections with some of the world’s foremost creators of live entertainment and a global network of trusted promotional partners to deliver the world’s most loved and most prestigious productions to audiences in Australia and across the globe. Her unerring commitment to bring the most iconic music theatre productions and live events to Australia has helped showcase the exceptional talent pool that exists in this country, across performance, design, technical and commercial roles, while delivering a positive social and economic impact. Forming her own company, JONES, in 2017 was the culmination of this experience. It is under this banner that Suzanne co-produced the Australian tours of the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Wizard of Oz, Chicago The Musical, Pippin, 9 to 5 The Musical, Madagascar, 2:22 A Ghost Story.  Recent productions have included the brand new interactive magic show Metaverse of Magic, the current tour of Chicago The Musical and the Australian premiere of Peter and the Starcatcher.  Inspired by the idea that theatre has the capacity to transport the audience, Suzanne is committed to producing shows which offer audiences an opportunity to transcend everyday life to spend a few hours experiencing exciting new possibilities that shift their thinking.  Suzanne is also motivated to contribute to her community and to act as a mentor for young, disadvantaged LGBTQI+ people by helping them to access opportunities that might otherwise seem out of reach. In 2025 JONES Theatrical Group is looking forward to presenting Hadestown with our wonderful partners at Opera Australia as well as the return of the smash hit musical The Book of Mormon. Suzanne lives in Sydney with her wife, Leone, and their dog, Boots. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au