Lachlan Houen • Director
Lachlan is a director, lighting designer, and actor living and working on Ngunnawal land. Currently in his final year of a BA (English) at the ANU alongside working in marketing and engagement at The Q, Lachlan has developed a deep passion for the performing arts. His directing credits include The Laramie Project (2022), An Ideal Husband (2022), Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play (2023), Lord of the Flies (2024) and Mojo (2025); his assistant directing credits include Five Women Wearing the Same Dress (2024, dir. Steph Roberts) and The Inheritance (2024, dir. Jarrad West). He is thrilled to be directing Every Lovely Terrible Thing at ACT Hub in August, and The Almighty Sometimes at The Q in November, which will mark the debut production of his newly-established theatre company, Off the Ledge Theatre. Lachlan’s lighting design credits include Mojo (2025), If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You (2025, dir. Joel Horwood) and The Inheritance (2024, dir. Jarrad West), for which he was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design at the 2025 Ovations Awards. His acting credits include Lord of the Flies (2020), Love and Information (2021), When the Rain Stops Falling (2022) and You Can’t Tell Anyone (2023), which won Outstanding Production (Community) at the 2024 Ovations awards.
Lachlan is thrilled to be returning to Rep for his second production with them!
Andrew Kay • Set Co-Designer
Andrew has designed over forty sets for REP and worked on the construction crew and as scenic painter for countless more. In 2023 he designed the sets for REP’s productions of Love Letters, Mr Bennet’s Bride and Home, I’m Darling, and in 2024 the sets for The Actress and Away. His most recent set was for this year’s premiere production of Baby Jane. Andrew has won CAT Awards for his sets for Flat Spin (2010), A Doll’s House, The Art Of Coarse Acting, and Waiting in the Wings (2019), and in 2023 the Canberra Ovations Award for his outstanding set for Home, I’m Darling.
He is pleased to have the opportunity to exchange ideas with Michael Sparks on this occasion.
Michael Sparks OAM • Set Co-Designer
Michael is an actor, writer, director and set designer. Blithe Spirit is his fourteenth stage design for REP and audiences may remember his designs here including Room to Move, Cosi, Steel Magnolias, The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth, Wait Until Dark, The Crucible, The 39 Steps, Woman in the Window, Hotel Sorrento, Our Country’s Good, Crimes of the Heart, and Lord of the Flies. Michael is the recipient of CAT, Ovations, and Canberra Critics Circle awards for his stage designs. This work has been a collaborative effort with the immensely talented Andrew Kay to whom Michael is grateful for his friendship, as well as his keen eye for design and detail.
Leeann Galloway • Lighting Design
Leeann has always enjoyed live theatre and is interested in the many elements that support stage productions, particularly lighting. Leeann joined REP productions in 2021, working on the lighting crew for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, followed by Arsenic and Old Lace, Home, I’m Darling, Amadeus, Love Letters, Away, Bloody Murder, Baby Jane, sound crew for The Actress and Mr Bennet’s Bride, and stage crew for Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Leeann co-designed lighting for Sense & Sensibility in 2022. Blithe Spirit marks Leeann’s first experience as a solo lighting designe,r and she is excited, as a Noël Coward fan, to be lighting his farcical world, particularly the ethereal elements of ectoplasm! It has been a pleasure working with a great cast and production team, headed by Director, Lachlan Houen.
Marlēné Claudine Radice • Sound Design and Composition
Marlēné is an Australian composer who specialises in notated electroacoustic composition by exploring how art and sound complement one another. Taking recorded sounds away from their original sources, they process and manipulate these into new musical structures. Raw industrial noises, looped voices and hypnotic soundscapes are layered to create a nuanced and original sound. They have been commissioned as sound designer and composer for Rebus Theatre, Itazura Co, Performance Space, Canberra Youth Theatre, The American Modern Ensemble, Belconnen Arts Centre, the National Museum of Australia, Ian Potter Cultural Centre and Questacon. They have presented their research on Iannis Xenakis at the 2017 Xenakis Symposium in Leeds and their visual artworks have been exhibited at Sydney’s National Art School, Projects 107, and Sawtooth ARI (TAS). Marlene has had the honour of performing live as a musician alongside performance artists Sophie Dumaresque (Canberra Biennale, 2024), Beau Palmer and Tom Buckland (M16, 2018) and Hermann Nitsch (Dark Mofo, 2017).
Marlēné is a trained physical theatre performer and a passionate advocate for queer youth arts education and inclusive theatre practices. Marlēné is a lead facilitator for Rebus Theatre’s iDrama classes for adults with intellectual disabilities and has been a facilitator for their annual Acting Out: On Screen Queer youth holiday course since 2023. Outside of their work as a composer and teacher Marlēné has also worked as a field recorder primarily specialising in archiving Indigenous Australian songlines recording archival audio for the repatriation of the Dieri Community in their landmark settlement against the British Museum and The Songlines of The Western Desert Exhibition.
Marlene has worked as both director, composer, and producer for the site specific works Retrograde (2021), ROAR! (2022), and CRAVE (2023). They are currently co-producer and music director for Shwa Shwa Theatre; a contemporary theatre company they co-founded in 2023 alongside Director, Sammy Moynihan. Marlené completed a double degree in Music (Composition) and Arts (Italian) at the Australian National University where they studied under Larry Sitsky and Jim Cotter. In 2016 they completed their Honours in Composition at Monash University with Prof Mary Finsterer.
Suzan Cooper • Costume Design
Suzan is delighted to be working on another show with REP. Suzan was the costume designer for REP’s Love Letters, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Bloody Murder. Suzan has also been costume designer and part of the costume team for quite a few musical productions over the past 20 + years. During her involvement with Supa Productions she was the costume designer for Titanic the Musical, The Full Monty, Avenue Q, The Boyfriend, Eurobeat, La Cage au Folles, Pink Floyds The Wall and War of the Worlds, just to name a few.
Suzan has also worked with other companies on costumes. Dramatic Production for The Producers and Free Rain theatre company’s Legally Blonde, Shrek, Les Miserable, Little Mermaid, Phantom of the Opera and others. She is enjoying the chance to work on this production of Blithe Spirit with such a great cast and team.
Gail Cantle • Properties
This marks Gail’s fifth adventure with REP. Having enjoyed the first with Romeo and Juliet (2022), Gail has also managed properties for REP’s production of Love Letters (2023), Lord of the Flies (2024) and was part of the properties team for Home I’m Darling (2023). Gail has had the role of Properties Manager for many years with Supa Productions which included creating, sourcing and maintaining props as well as small set pieces. Past show include: Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (2006); Pink Floyd’s The Wall (2008); Titanic the Musical (2012); Eurobeat! Almost Eurovision (2013); La Cage aux Folles (2014); Avenue Q (2017); and The Fully Monty (2019).