STAGES Episode 537: ROGER HODGMAN

STAGES with Peter Eyers

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.