Danielle Louise Maas (she/her) has a surname that, when pronounced correctly, rhymes with ‘farce’. On that serious note, she is an award-winning writer and director, working primarily in opera and theatre. Born and raised on Dharug land in Western Sydney, Danielle currently lives and works on the unceded lands of the Gadigal, Wangal and Bidjigal peoples, and pays her respect to their Elders, past and present.
Her passions are collaborative creation, and the search for meaning and authenticity in live performance. Danielle’s work is varied in form and style, but if you look closely, her productions tend to exist in the spaces between provocation and playfulness.
With a passion for scenography, Danielle has presented works in theatres – including the world’s most recognisable performance venue – as well as a concert hall, an art gallery, a warehouse, a former locomotive workshop, a current paint workshop, a renovated tomato sauce factory, a less-renovated chocolate factory, a converted office, a dance studio, a new classroom, a historic boarding school, a ballroom, a bar, a library, a basement, a pier, a reservoir garden, a heritage-listed boatshed, a former prison, an abandoned supermarket, and a bedroom blanket fort in locations across the globe.
Opera
Danielle has been engaged in directorial capacities on acclaimed productions for Opera Australia, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Sydney Festival, Circa, Sydney Chamber Opera, Carriageworks, Biennale of Sydney, Ensemble Offspring and Hampstead Garden Opera, London.
As an Artistic Associate of Sydney Chamber Opera, she directed two new operas by Josephine Macken (The Tent) and Georgia Scott (Her Dark Marauder) for Breaking Glass, a co-production between Sydney Chamber Opera & Carriageworks that premiered online in April 2020. Both of these operas earnt Josephine, Georgia, Danielle and their team nominations for the Dramatic Work of the Year at the APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards.
Her creative repertoire also includes Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s Aida & La Traviata, Puccini’s La Boheme and Il Trittico, Handel’s Xerxes, Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, and contemporary scores by Peter Maxwell-Davies, George Benjamin, Gyorgy Kurtag, Pascal Dusapin, Fausto Romitelli, Mary Finsterer, Damien Ricketson, Jack Symonds and Huw Belling.
Theatre
Six months after graduating from drama school, her debut play, Country Matters, won a Sydney Fringe Award for Excellence (Devised Work). Two years later, the Sydney Morning Herald described her next play, Say Hello First, as “a quantum leap in the right direction” for the Old Fitz Theatre. Her writing is published by Australian Plays Transform.
Danielle has worked on developments and productions for Sydney Opera House, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Ensemble Theatre Company, Hayes Theatre Company, City of Sydney, Q Theatre, Old Fitz Theatre, KXT, Old 505 Theatre, PACT, New Theatre, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Sydney Fringe Festival, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney Architecture Festival, and Camden People’s Theatre, London.
As a collaborator, Danielle was the Associate Director for the Australian premiere of American Psycho: The Musical, which won all nine awards it was nominated for at the Sydney Theatre Awards. She has also assisted Kip Williams, the acclaimed director and former Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company, on four different productions – including his Helpmann-nominated production of Cloud Nine, featuring Heather Mitchell in the leading role.
Danielle is a past recipient of the Ensemble Theatre’s Sandra Bates Directing Award, which enabled her to assist director Iain Sinclair on his Sydney Theatre Award-nominated production of The Caretaker, and to assist Damien Ryan on Hilary Bell’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, featuring theatre legend John Bell as Scrooge. A proud feminist, Danielle has also assisted a number of respected Australian directors, including Jo Bonney, Adena Jacobs, Sarah Giles, Imara Savage, Janice Muller, Margaret Davis and Kim Hardwick.
Education
Danielle graduated with a Masters of Advanced Theatre Practice (Distinction) from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, with the support of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and the UK Live Art Development Agency. She also holds a Bachelor of Performance from the Australian Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating as part of the degree’s first cohort. Danielle is a member of the Directors’ Lab (Melbourne Festival) and took part in the inaugural Dramaturgy Program at Australian Plays Transform.
Danielle has been a teaching artist for Opera Australia, and a lecturer for NIDA, the Australian Institute of Music, and Sydney Theatre School. She is a versatile educator, with experience in teaching and writing curriculum for training in acting, movement, devising & interdisciplinary collaboration, global theatre history and theory, world cinema, playwriting, dramaturgy, creativity, industry practices, and academic research.
In addition to classes, Danielle has directed more than ten productions in educational contexts, including classic and contemporary plays, new works, concerts, live cinema, and immersive performance.
Danielle Louise Maas 