Sally McKenzie (born 8 February 1955) also credited as Sally MacKenzie, is an Australian actress, director, playwright and screenwriter. She graduated from Australia's

National Institute of Dramatic Art The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is an Australian educational institution for the performing arts based in Sydney, New South Wales. Founded in 1958, it offers bachelor's, master's and vocational degrees in subjects including acting ...

in 1977. She was awarded a Master of Fine Arts from the Queensland University of Technology in 1996.

Early life and education

Sally May McKenzie was born on 8 February 1955 in Lindfield a suburb of

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. McKenzie grew up in South Australia. From the age of 11 she took drama classes run by Morna Jones who established the

Patch Theatre Patch Theatre Company, formerly New Patch Theatre, is an Australian theatre company specialising in children's theatre, based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1972 by Morna Jones, the company is now funded by the federal government thro ...

. During her teenage years McKenzie performed with the Pioneer Players, the

Arts Theatre The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It opened on April 20, 1927. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre cen ...

, Theatre 62 and the Bunyip Children's Theatre. She began an arts degree at

Flinders University Flinders University, established as The Flinders University of South Australia is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across a number of locations in South Australia and ...

but only completed 2 years before moving to Sydney to study acting at the

(NIDA).

Career

McKenzie graduated from NIDA in 1977. In 1978 McKenzie performed under the direction of Peter Schumann with the Bread & Puppet Theater at the

Adelaide Festival The Adelaide Festival of Arts, also known as the Adelaide Festival, an arts festival, takes place in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in March each year. Started in 1960, it is a major celebration of the arts and a significant cultural ...

and understudied all the female roles for the Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) touring production of ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'' in which

Warren Mitchell Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was an English actor best known for playing bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in television, film and stage productions from the 1960s to the 1990s. He was a BAFTA TV A ...

played Lear and

Geoffrey Rush Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor. Known for often playing eccentric roles on both stage and screen, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Geoffrey Rush, numerous accolades, including an Academy Aw ...

played the Fool. In 1979 she was part of the Early Childhood Drama Project the professional arm at

La Boite Theatre Company La Boite Theatre, founded as the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society, is an Australian theatre company based in Brisbane, Queensland. La Boite was established in 1925 and is Australia’s longest continuously running theatre company. La Boite ...

where she performed in numerous productions including ''The Hills Family Show''. In 1980 McKenzie was a member of the TN! Theatre Company inaugural ensemble performing Jenny Diver in ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François V ...

'' under the baton of

Georg Tintner Georg Tintner, (22 May 19172 October 1999) was an Austrian conductor whose career was principally in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Although best known as a conductor, he was also a composer (he considered himself a composer who conducted ...

. In 1981 she played Lavinia Mannon in ''

Mourning Becomes Electra ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932, starring Lee Ba ...

'' for QTC a role she reprised for the

Melbourne Theatre Company The Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1953 as the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, it is the oldest professional theatre com ...

(MTC) directed by

Michael Blakemore Michael Howell Blakemore AO OBE (18 June 1928 – 10 December 2023) was an Australian actor, writer and theatre director who also made some films. A former Associate Director of the National Theatre, in 2000 he became the only individual to ...

. Several productions with MTC followed including the title role in ''

The Good Person of Szechwan ''The Good Person of Szechwan'' (, first translated less literally as ''The Good Man of Setzuan'') is a play written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. The play was begun in 1938 but no ...

'' by

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

and the role of Beatrice-Joanna in ''The Changeling'' under the direction of John Sumner. She performed in the Australian premiere of ''

Top Girls ''Top Girls'' is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It centres on Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business. The play examines the roles available to women in old society, and what it means or takes for a ...

'' by

Caryl Churchill Caryl Lesley Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non- naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.

with the Nimrod Theatre Company in Sydney. During this time under the direction of

Bud Tingwell Charles William Tingwell AM (3 January 1923 – 15 May 2009), known professionally as Bud Tingwell or Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, was an Australian actor. One of the veterans of Australian film, he acted in his first motion picture in 1946 and we ...

, McKenzie played Lynn in a 2-hour 500th special episode of

Cop Shop ''Cop Shop'' is a long-running Australian police drama television series produced by Crawford Productions that ran for seven seasons between 28 November 1977 and 23 July 1984. It comprised 582 one-hour episodes. Synopsis The show revolved arou ...

for which she won a 1983 Penguin Award for Best Single Performance by an Actress in a Serial. In 1985 McKenzie played the role of

Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes quee ...

for the QTC. She appeared in 20 productions for this company including several premiere productions of plays by

David Williamson David Keith Williamson (born 1942) is an Australian playwright, who has also written screenplays and teleplays. He became known in the early 1970s with his political comic drama '' Don's Party'', and other well-known plays include '' The Clu ...

under the direction of Aubrey Mellor. McKenzie returned to study in 1995 and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in 1996. As a playwright McKenzie's plays include ''Scattered Lives'', ''Martha's War on War'', '' i dot luv dot u☺'' and ''WAY''. A review of WAY in ''Stage Whispers'' said: "Sally McKenzie grips the audience's attention for a complex seventy-five minutes with an astonishing sustained theatre performance. If you love theatre, see this". As a screenwriter and director works include documentary Actingclassof1977.com which looks at actor training in Australia in the late 1970s. The film features Steve Bisley,

Mel Gibson Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. The recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Mel Gibson, multiple accolades, he is known for directing historical films as well for his act ...

and Debra Lawrance and first aired on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

in June 2008. McKenzie won an Australian Writers' Guild

AWGIE Award The AWGIE Awards are annual awards given by the Australian Writers' Guild (AWG), for excellence in screen, television, stage, and radio writing. History The AWGIE awards were conceived in 1967, with the first event being held in 1968. Bettina ...

for Best Documentary Public Broadcast in 2014. In 2018 McKenzie was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts Fellowship Medal for her research and subsequent paper 'Developing Australian Playwrights and their Plays'. For this paper she interviewed writers for both screen and stage living in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. The interviewees included

Tony Kushner Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Among his stage work, he is most known for ''Angels in America'', which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, as well as its subsequent acclaime ...

Christopher Hampton Sir Christopher James Hampton (born 26 January 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter, translator and film director. He is best known for his play Les Liaisons Dangereuses (play), ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' based on the Les Liaisons da ...

David Henry Hwang David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays '' FOB'', '' Golden Child'', and '' Yellow ...

Mike Leigh Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English screenwriter, producer, director and former actor with a film, theatre, and television career spanning more than 60 years. His accolades include prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin In ...

Robert Lepage Robert Lepage (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director. Early life Lepage was raised in Quebec City. At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair lo ...

David Lindsay-Abaire David Lindsay-Abaire (né Abaire; born November 30, 1969) is an American playwright, lyricist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play '' Rabbit Hole'', which also earned several Tony Award nominations. Lin ...

Hannah Moscovitch Hannah Moscovitch (born June 5, 1978) is a Canadian playwright who rose to national prominence in the 2000s. She is best known for her plays ''East of Berlin'', ''This Is War'', "Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story", and ''Sexual Misconduct of the Mid ...

Judith Thompson Judith Clare Thompson, OC (born September 20, 1954) is a Canadian playwright. She has twice been awarded the Governor General's Award for drama, and is the recipient of many other awards including the Order of Canada, the Walter Carsen Performi ...

and

Enda Walsh Enda Walsh (born 1967) is an Irish playwright. Biography Enda Walsh was born in Kilbarrack, North Dublin on 7 February 1967. His father ran a furniture shop and his mother had been an actress. He is the second youngest of six children. Walsh ...

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKenzie, Sally Living people National Institute of Dramatic Art alumni 20th-century Australian actresses 21st-century Australian actresses 21st-century Australian dramatists and playwrights Australian television actresses Australian stage actresses Australian women dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Australian women writers 1955 births