Associate Artistic Directors

Isaac Drandic

Associate Artistic Director (First Nations)

Isaac Drandic is a Noongar man from the southwest of Western Australia. He is an award-winning director, dramaturg, actor and playwright. As director/dramaturg, Isaac specialises in new First Nations work, guiding emerging playwrights to the main stages including Meyne Wyatt (City of Gold), Nathan Maynard (The Season, At What Cost) and Jacob Boehme (Blood on the Dance Floor). His work has been featured at Australia's leading theatre companies and major arts festivals, including Queensland Theatre, La Boite, JUTE, Belvoir, ILBIJERRI, Melbourne Theatre Company and Victorian Opera. His productions have toured nationally and internationally and received several awards. Isaac has won a Green Room Award for direction of a mainstage production for The Season, which also won best new Australian writing and best production. His highly acclaimed production City of Gold received two Sydney Theatre Awards, including a nomination for best new Australian work. As playwright, Isaac’s work has toured extensively throughout Far North Queensland including communities of Yarrabah, Kowanyama, Pormpuraaw, Innisfail, Cairns, Aurukun, Bamaga to name a few. His first play Back on Track won the Queensland Planning Institute Award in the Community Wellbeing & Diversity category followed by the National Planning Institute Award. Back on Track continues to play to communities across Queensland. Other work includes Get Your Geek On and I Gut This Feeling, produced by JUTE Theatre. Holding key roles at ILBIJERRI Theatre and Queensland Theatre, he is a member of Australian Plays Transform National Advisory Panel and currently the Associate Artistic Director (First Nations) at Queensland Theatre

Daniel Evans

Associate Artistic Director (Programming)

Daniel Evans is an award-winning writer, director and producer who has worked internationally in theatre, festivals, print and television. In 2023 he won a Matilda Award for Best Director for his work on The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver (Queensland Theatre) and in 2020 for Cinderella by Matthew Whittet (QPAC & Myths Made Here). As a director, his work includes Vietgone (Queensland Theatre), Drizzle Boy (Queensland Theatre), Away (La Boite Theatre Company) and The Tragedy of King Richard The Third (La Boite Theatre Company). As a writer, he has written numerous works for the stage including Joan Must Die* (*I Never Liked Her Anyway) (QUT), Algorithm (QUT), 600 Ways To Filter A Sunset (Queensland Theatre’s The Scene Project) and was the winner of the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award for his play Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Queensland Theatre/ATYP). Together with Amy Ingram, he founded critically acclaimed performance collective, The Good Room, whose works include Let’s Be Friends Furever (Brisbane Festival), I Want To Know What Love Is (Queensland Theatre and Brisbane Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse, Critical Stages National Tour), I Just Came To Say Goodbye (Brisbane Festival), I've Been Meaning To Ask You (Brisbane Festival & Riverside Theatres, Sydney/Sydney Theatre Award 2021 Winner, Best Production for Young People),That’s What She Said (Metro Arts) and I Should Have Drunk More Champagne (Metro Arts). He has previously worked as a senior writer for Frankie magazine, SMITH Journal and SPACES and as a producer for Endemol Shine Australia, iTV, Network Nine, Network Ten and SBS.

Fiona MacDonald

Associate Artistic Director (Education and Youth)

Fiona MacDonald is a Brisbane-based arts worker who specialises in festivals, collaborative theatre-making and contemporary arts experiences for, by and with babies, children, young people and their communities. Fiona is one of the co-founders of Imaginary Theatre, Brisbane's premiere dedicated Children's Theatre Company where she has produced and toured works for children to over 30 Australian theatres, and festivals in South Korea and India. For Imaginary Theatre, Fiona has also collaborated on multiple schools residencies and co-developed and delivered Powerkids: Little Artists at Play at Brisbane Powerhouse, making play spaces with artists and over 100,000 babies and children. Through Imaginary Theatre, Fiona managed an international collaboration with Punchdrunk Enrichment for the 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2020 Brisbane Festival. Fiona was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts International Residency in 2018, spending four months working at 'The Arts Space for Kids' in Shanghai, managing international touring productions and developing artist-lead residencies in international kindergartens. Fiona has most recently worked as Creative Producer for Brisbane Festival, programming and producing for the 2019-2023 festivals, where she was instrumental in building the education connection program, and the development of the first Disability Inclusion Action Plan. Fiona has also worked for the State Library of QLD, Brisbane City Council, QLD Music Festival, QUT, LATT Theatre (South Korea), Out of the Box Festival (QPAC) and Contact Inc, amongst many others. Fi was a Global & Australian Fellow of the International Society for the Performing Arts from 2015-2019. She is also the Queensland representative of the ASSITEJ Australia advisory committee.