NIDA X
A machine that turns spoken dreams into visual spectacularia.
Dream Sequence is a new work by BBT, combining live performance, participatory theatre and digital storytelling. Audiences meet Sandy, a robot who doesn’t dream, who asks participants to look into the Dream Well and share a recent dream they’ve had. Sandy asks a few questions and then turns the participant’s dream into a dazzling dream vignette, visible to the entire audience.
Each vignette combines over the course of a Dream Sequence cycle, and as more and more dreams are told, a collective dreamscape is built by Sandy, who finds connections and similarities among the dreams he’s been told.
Audiences are invited to stay a while and lie down on low seating, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to other people’s dreams and seeing them come to life.
This production contains original music and live video generation, and runs on custom-built software.
BBT developed Dream Sequence through NIDA X in 2025, and showcased the work in February 2026.
Public showcase: NIDA Space Theatre, 10 February 2026. Developed by BBT with support from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) as part of NIDA X 2025.
Creative team: Christopher Baldwin, Thomas Bensley, Sam Boneham, Ang Collins, Thomas De Angelis, Isabella Debbage, Sarah Hadley, Clemence Williams.
Photographs: Julia Firak.
Next: TheatreConnect ↓Liverpool and Campbelltown, since 2024
Theatre made with young people in Liverpool and Campbelltown, in Sydney’s south-west.
TheatreConnect is a drama workshop program for young people aged 11 to 18 in South Western Sydney. It is led by the CREATE Centre at the University of Sydney and funded by Multicultural NSW through the COMPACT Program. The drama workshop is delivered by BBT Teaching Artists, supported by Bachelor of Education students.
Each cycle begins with a community consultation drawing in local schools, families and community groups. Then around 25 young people come together for a drama and theatremaking workshop, where they learn drama skills, make an ensemble agreement and develop a brand new show from their own ideas, generated throughout the week. BBT Teaching Artists teach ensemble-building, theatremaking, acting, movement and devising skills. On the final night, parents, families and community are invited to see the performance made by the ensemble.
TheatreConnect is being studied by University of Sydney researchers. The same approach, evaluated in Regrowth, was shown to build confidence, community and social connection, and to give young people a platform to share their views and experiences.
Photographs and video: Machine Studio.
Next: Track Works ↓Mortuary Station, Sydney, 2023
An opera about five commuters, performed at Sydney’s iconic Mortuary Station.
Track Works is a new site-specific pastiche opera featuring well-known arias and music woven together over an original story. Audiences stepped onto Mortuary Station’s heritage sandstone platform and followed five commuters on a delayed trip home.
The work was co-created by director Clemence Williams and dramaturg Thomas De Angelis. The full season ran from 21 November to 19 December 2023 and sold more than 15,000 tickets.
Director and Co-Creator: Clemence Williams. Co-Creator and Dramaturg: Thomas De Angelis. Cast: Anastasia Gall, Lily Harper, Michael Kaufmann, Sophie Mohler, Eden Shifroni. Music Director: Josephine Gibson. Associate Director: Emma Whitehead. Production Designer: Emma White. Lighting Designer: Morgan Moroney. Sound Designer: Daniel Herten. Stage Manager: Pip Haupt. Assistant Stage Manager: Alicia Badger. Accompanist: Stacey Yang. Producers: Samuel Boneham, Isabella Debbage.
Photographs: Phil Erbacher.
Next: Spewy ↓Earp Distilling Co., Carrington, Newcastle, 2023
A Novocastrian rom-com, staged in a Newcastle distillery.
Al loves Newcastle. Nic hates it, but after Sydney chewed her up Nic has had to move back up the coast. Nearly ten years after high school Nic and Al meet again by chance at the pub, and the old question returns: “God’s Country” or “Spewcastle”?
Written by Newcastle playwright Ang Collins, Spewy played a sold-out season at Earp Distilling Co. in Carrington as part of New Annual, the City of Newcastle’s festival, from 27 to 30 September 2023.
Writer: Ang Collins. Dramaturg: Thomas De Angelis. Cast: Barnaby Donaghy, Madelaine Osborn. Music: Sarah Sykes. Stage Manager: Roni Wilkinson.
Photographs: Picture Cabinet.
Next: ReGenerate ↓Marsfield and Lindfield, Sydney, 2023 to 2024
Free theatre-making workshops for young people on Sydney's North Shore.
ReGenerate was a free drama workshop program for young people aged 12 to 17 in the Ryde and Ku-ring-gai local government areas. Over a week, participants learned storytelling, improvisation, character work, writing, voice and movement, formed an ensemble and made a new show of their own.
ReGenerate was made possible by funding from Sydney North Health Network through the NSW Ministry of Health, under its Connected Community Grants.
Next: Regrowth ↓Bodalla, Tathra, Broulee, Narooma and Pambula, NSW South Coast, 2022 to 2023
Theatre made with young people in five South Coast towns after the Black Summer bushfires.
Regrowth was a series of week-long drama workshops for young people in bushfire-affected towns on the NSW South Coast.
Young people aged 11 to 17 learned drama skills, shared stories about growing up, and made a site-specific performance that they staged for their families and local community at the end of the workshop.
Designed and delivered by BBT, with The Family Place. Evaluated by the CREATE Centre, University of Sydney. Funded through the NSW Government’s Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund.
Next: The Italians ↓Belvoir 25A, Sydney, 2022
The Italians grew out of a 2020 workshop that brought together young Italian-Australian theatre artists, from an original concept by Danny Ball and Thomas De Angelis. It was staged in Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre as part of the 25A program, with a cast of eight playing more than eighteen characters.
The play follows Joe, who has a successful business, a handsome boyfriend and wealthy future in-laws. His plans for full-blown assimilation take a turn when his estranged cousin drops by and exposes an enormous family secret, and Joe sets out for south-western Sydney, the Italian-Australian heartland where his family’s story began.
Writer and Producer: Danny Ball. Original Concept: Danny Ball, Thomas De Angelis. Director: Riley Spadaro. Cast: Danny Ball, Philip D’Ambrosio, Deborah Galanos, Amy Hack, Jonathan Lagudi, Emma O’Sullivan, Tony Poli, Brandon Scane. Set Designer: Grace Deacon. Lighting Designer: Phoebe Pilcher. Composer: Luke Di Somma. Movement Director and Choreographer: Amy Hack. Dramaturg and Producer: Thomas De Angelis. Producer: Philip D’Ambrosio. Stage Manager: Elizabeth Guy. Assistant Stage Manager: Cameron Hill-Harrison.
Produced by Mallocchio Productions and BBT for Belvoir 25A.
Photographs: Katherine Griffiths.
Next: Disparate Scenes for Millennial Dreams ↓Meat Market Stables, Melbourne, 2019
Three new short plays about millennial anxiety, commissioned for Meat Market's Stables.
A triple bill of new short plays by Ang Collins, Lewis Treston and Fiona Spitzkowsky, commissioned for Meat Market’s Stables in North Melbourne. This semi-immersive event moved audiences through different spaces into three original plays about the anxieties, frustrations and insecurities of the millennial generation.
Directed by Benjamin Sheen, with Thomas De Angelis as producer and dramaturg, the season ran from 31 May to 6 June 2019.
Writers: Ang Collins, Fiona Spitzkowsky, Lewis Treston. Director: Benjamin Sheen. Cast: Toby Blome, Clarisse Bonello, Adam Garner, Conor Leach, Dana McMillan, Heather Riley. Producer and Dramaturg: Thomas De Angelis. Production Manager: Sian Halloran. Set and Costume: Elia Bosshard. Sound: Jess Keeffe. Lighting: Marty Shlansky. Additional Music: CryClub.
Next: The House at Boundary Road ↓Old 505 Theatre, Sydney, 2019
Four playwrights write about the same house in Liverpool over five decades.
The House at Boundary Road, Liverpool put the Australian immigrant experience centre stage, with a cast and creative team of more than thirty theatremakers. Written collaboratively by Thomas De Angelis, Jordan Shea, Violette Ayad and Chika Ikogwe, it follows the goings-on at the same house in Liverpool, Western Sydney, from the 1950s to the present: an Italian couple building it in 1953, a Filipino father and his sons in the 1970s, two Lebanese-Palestinian women returning to their childhood home around 2000, and a Nigerian-Australian teenager in 2018.
Thomas De Angelis conceived the play from his grandparents' experience after they arrived from Italy in 1952, and from watching the street change over sixty years. It was developed over 2018 and 2019, directed by Jessica Arthur, and played at the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown from 5 to 16 November 2019.
Writers: Violette Ayad, Thomas De Angelis, Chika Ikogwe, Jordan Shea. Director: Jessica Arthur. Assistant Director: Tasnim Hossain. Cast: Henrietta Ameavor, Violette Ayad, Monique Calarco, Jemwel Danao, Felino Delloso, Nancy Denis, Adam Di Martino, Jessica Phoebe Hanna, Mark Paguio, David Soncin, Angela Sullen, Mike Ugo. Production Design: Keerthi Subramanyam. Lighting: Kate Baldwin. Sound: Clemence Williams. Stage Manager: Saint Clair. Assistant Stage Manager: Beatrix Brady.
Next: Homesick ↓Old 505 Theatre, Sydney, 2019
Three generations of women under one roof.
The play followed Sam, home in Wallerawang after two hard years at a music college in New York, as her mother Rachel tried to keep her head above water and her grandmother Eadie slowly lost her marbles. Old family home videos, shown through live projection, ran through the story.
Directed by Claudia Osborne, Homesick played at the Old 505 Theatre from 8 to 12 October 2019 as part of the theatre’s FreshWorks Femme season of new work by women.
Writer: Sally Alrich-Smythe. Director: Claudia Osborne. Cast: Annie Byron, Deborah Galanos, Eliza Scott, Alex Stylianou. Production Design: Emma White. Sound: Angus Mills. Video: Lucca Barone Peters. Stage Manager: Saint Clair.
Next: Chorus ↓Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney, 2019
Agamemnon is a pop star, and her world tour is over.
The story was about Agamemnon, a pop musician with a cult following and a deep secret. As she ended her sell-out world tour and headed back to the house that used to be her home, memories she had tried to keep buried began to breathe again.
Ang Collins’s new version of Aeschylus’ play moved the myth to contemporary Sydney, with part of the story told by a chorus of fans and with live video on stage. Directed by Clemence Williams, who also composed the music and soundscape, it was presented by BBT with Red Line Productions and ran at the Old Fitz from 28 August to 21 September 2019.
Writer: Ang Collins. Director: Clemence Williams. Dramaturg: Thomas De Angelis. Cast: Jack Crumlin, Madelaine Osborn, Nicole Pingon, Ella Prince, Eliza Scott, Chemon Theys. Production Design: Emma White. Lighting: Veronique Bennett. Sound: Clemence Williams. AV Director: Sarah Hadley. Stage Manager: Saint Clair.
Next: Chamber Pot Opera ↓Sydney, Adelaide, Edinburgh, Saint Petersburg, 2016 to 2019
A site-specific opera performed in a public bathroom, in which three women meet for the first time.
The story was about three women meeting for the first time in a public bathroom. One was in an abusive relationship, one feared she had come on too strong on a date, and one had just been promoted to her dream job. Together they sang of their histories and hopes through music from the operas of Puccini, Mozart and Bizet, using the whole room, from the sinks and mirrors to the hand dryers and stalls.
Chamber Pot Opera began in the Level 2 Ladies’ Powder Room at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney in 2016. It went on to the Adelaide Fringe and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2017, Saint Petersburg in 2018, and played its final season in the Playhouse Ladies’ Bathroom at the Sydney Opera House in 2019.
More than 10,000 people across the world have seen it.
Co-Creators: Keiren Brandt-Sawdy, Thomas De Angelis, Clemence Williams. Director: Clemence Williams. Cast: Sally Alrich-Smythe, Britt Lewis, Jessica Westcott. Music Director: Keiren Brandt-Sawdy. Accompanist: Darci Gayford.
Photographs: John Marmaras.
Next: Unfinished Works ↓Seymour Centre, Sydney, 2016
An incisive portrait of contemporary Sydney and its culture, Unfinished Works explored the sacrifices we make in the pursuit of our life’s work.
The story followed Frank Ralcoh, a famous painter who had never separated her life from her art. Blocked and unable to paint, she began to fear her whole body of work had been meaningless, and then some of it was stolen. She met Isabel, a young student who wanted to be an artist herself, and together they hatched a plan to test the power of their art.
Written by Thomas De Angelis and directed by Clemence Williams, Unfinished Works played at the Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, from 23 March to 2 April 2016.
Writer: Thomas De Angelis. Director: Clemence Williams. Cast: Deborah Galanos, Lucy Goleby, Kyle Kazmarzik, Contessa Treffone, Rhett Walton. Production Design: Charlie Davis. Stage Manager: Jen Parsonage.
Next: With communities ↓
