Wesley Enoch and David McAllister

Wesley Enoch AM (b. 1969) is a theatre director and playwright and was the director of the Sydney Festival from 2017 to 2021. A Noonuccal Nuugi man from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Enoch grew up in Brisbane and majored in drama at the Queensland University of Technology. In 1993 he was appointed inaugural director of Brisbane's Kooemba Jdarra Performing Arts, where his productions included The 7 Stages of Grieving, co-written with Deborah Mailman. Following this he was resident director at the Sydney Theatre Company; artistic director at the Ilbijerri Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative; and associate artistic director at Belvoir Street Theatre. In 2010 he was appointed artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company, where he created productions such as The Sunshine Club, for which he won the 2000 Matilda Award and the 2001 Deadly Award for Best Director. His play The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table won the 2005 Patrick White Playwrights' Award. In 2004 he directed the original stage production of The Sapphires for the Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir Street Theatre, which won the 2005 Helpmann Award for Best Play and toured to Korea and London. His production of Riverland premiered at the 2004 Adelaide Festival and won the Helpmann Award for Best Presentation for Children in 2005. Among many other productions, Enoch directed Black Diggers, presented at Sydney Festival in 2014 and Black Cockatoo, which premiered at the 2020 Sydney Festival.

Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM and Neil Archibald 2021
© Peter Brew-Bevan