Stephanie McKellar-Smith
After
receiving a ‘Best New Director’ award from the NZ Theatre Federation in 1983,
Stephanie attended, on scholarship, a theatre summer school in the Hawkes Bay.
This led to her being offered a position as director-in-training with Theatre
Corporate in Auckland.
During her time with Theatre Corporate Stephanie directed and acted for the
studio and main theatres and became assistant director and artistic director of
the community theatre company.
In 1987 Stephanie took up the position of Artistic Director of the Auckland
Youth Theatre and Drama School. During her four years there she was awarded an
AGC Young Achievers Award which funded her attendance on a Directors Course at
Regents College in London with the British Theatre Association. Stephanie was a
founding member of The Other Company, a professional theatre company which
performed for both the general public and toured extensively throughout New
Zealand schools for ten years.
Throughout her career Stephanie has directed and produced a wide range of shows
including Cinderella for AYT and TVNZ, Auckland Town Hall, Objection Overruled,
Customhouse Theatre, Auckland, Comedy of Errors,
Pumphouse Theatre, The Sneeze, Central
Theatre, Me & My Vice, ASB
Laugh Festival and for a season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and The
Great Piratical Rumbustification, the world premiere of The Raft by Carl Nixon for the Court Theatre
and Christchurch Arts Festival, Blackbird
for The Forge and Homeland by
Gary Henderson for The Court Theatre.
In 2006 and 2007 Stephanie appeared in the world premiere of Gary Henderson's new play Peninsula at The Court Theatre and in the later tours of this production to the Brisbane and Nelson Arts Festivals. Most recently, Stephanie appeared in The Court Theatre’s production of The Gods of Warm Beer.
Stephanie
has also appeared in numerous roles in television productions, short films and
TVCs, most notably playing Judy Billingham in Shortland Street and Reebie in the NZ Feature Film Fifty
Ways of Saying Fabulous.
Stephanie is the co-ordinator of the acting programme with NASDA and has
directed a wide range of plays and musicals for the school.