Dr Christopher Hurrell

Dr Christopher Hurrell is Manager of the Flinders University Drama Centre, South Australia's centre for professional training of actors and directors. Christophe is a stage director and dramaturg who has worked nationally and internationally over a twenty-year career in the areas of new writing, Shakespeare and musical theatre.

Christopher has collaborated with leading Australian playwrights as director, dramaturg and in his former role as Literary Manager of Sydney’s Griffin Theatre company, on the creation of numerous award-winning new works of Australian theatre. His collaborators include writers such as Debra Oswald (creator of Offspring), Stephen Sewell, Justin Fleming, Glace Chase and Caleb Lewis.

At Griffin his productions of Stephen Sewell’s Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi German and Contemporary America, starring Nicholas Eadie and Debra Oswald’s Mr Bailey’s Minder starring Kate Mulvany played to standing-room only houses, and broke the company’s box office records.

He has recently returned from the United Kingdom, where his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London investigated archival records of the acting of Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe, and his original practice-based research developed new techniques for actors working on late Shakespeare.

While in London, Christopher continued to champion Australian theatre on the world stage. With Wayne Harrison AM, he brought Alan Seymour’s classic Australian play The One Day of the Year back to the London stage for the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign in 2015, in a production starring iconic Australian actor Mark Little and in 2020 transformed the production into a live-streaming event for the Australian High Commission’s ANZAC Day commemorations co-starring Kerry Fox and Daniel Monks. In 2017, he directed the West End premiere presentation of Adelaide singer-songwriter Amity Dry’s The (M)other Life at the historic Wyndham’s Theatre.