Mitchell Butel

Butel was part of the original cast of the Australian production of Avenue Q in 2009, playing the roles of two puppet characters, Princeton and Rod.[5] He has since then worked for many theatre companies.[6][7][8]

In 2012 he played Friar Laurance in Kip Williams' production of Romeo and Juliet with the Sydney Theatre Company.[9]

He has also worked in a number of musical theatre productions, and as of 2018 was the voice of the Play School theme song.[10][11][12]

In 2017, Butel played two characters, Mr Burns and Gibson, in Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, a co-production between Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre and the State Theatre Company South Australia.[13] His performance was met with good reviews,[14][15] and won a Helpmann Award.[10] The play was performed at Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre in April–May 2017[16] and at the Belvoir in May–June 2017.[17]

Butel's writing credits include Excellent Adventure and Killing Time and he wrote additional material for Meow Meow's Little Match Girl, Belvoir St Theatre's production of The Government Inspector and Opera Australia's production of The Mikado.[10]

His directing credits include Violet at the Hayes Theatre which was awarded Best Production of an Independent Musical at the 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards and for which he was awarded Best Director of a Musical.[18] Violet had its Melbourne season at Chapel Off Chapel.[19]

He directed the winning play of the 2016 Lysiscrates Prize for New Australian Playwriting, Mary Rachel Brown's Approximate Balance.[20] In 2016, Butel directed Spring Awakening for Australian Theatre for Young People which won Best Production for Young People at the Sydney Theatre Awards and Porgy and Bess at the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.[19]

In 2018 Butel co-directed An Act of God for the Darlinghurst Theatre Company and directed the Australian premiere of Jordan Harrison's play, Marjorie Prime as part of the Ensemble Theatre's 60th Anniversary Season.[21] Also in 2018, he also directed Funny Girl and The Bernstein Songbook for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Candide for the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs at the Sydney Opera House.

In 2019, he directed Mary Rachel Brown's Dead Cat Bounce for Griffin Theatre and Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, Or Change for the Hayes Theatre.

In 2021, he directed Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne for Pinchgut Opera.

He became artistic director of State Theatre Company South Australia (STCSA) in March 2019,[22] taking over from Geordie Brookman.[10]

He oversaw a project called Decameron 2.0, a collaboration between STCSA and ActNow Theatre consisting of a series of 10 stories written, directed and acted by a diverse group of local talent. They were released as videos online from June 2020, when theatres were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.[23] It was one of largest pieces of online theatre in the world.[24]

In February–March 2022, he directed Dennis Kelly's one-woman play, Girls & Boys, staged by STCSA at the Odeon Theatre, Norwood in Adelaide as part of the Adelaide Festival, and stars Justine Clarke.[25][26]

In September–October 2022, Butel acted in The Normal Heart, a play set in the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s in New York City,[27] in an STCSA production directed by Dean Bryant.[28][29]