ANGUS THORBURN

2025 marks Angus’ seventh year with QSE, beginning as an Apprentice in 2019 and working in the Core Ensemble since 2020. His acting performances with QSE include Henry IV Part 1 and The Tragedy of Socrates (2019), Macbeth in the Dark (2020), A Sleep of Prisoners and Romeo & Juliet (2021), The Rover and Macbeth (2022), The Penelopiad (2023), and Tartuffe and Julius Caesar (2024). He has also been part of the Shakespeare’s Shorts since 2022, performing in Half-Hour Hamlet and Express Macbeth.

This year, Angus is very excited to step up to direct his first QSE Mainstage production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at PIP Theatre.

Angus’ formal acting training began in 2016 at TAFE Queensland (in partnership with the University of Canberra) under the teachings of theatre practitioners such as Lisa O’Neill, Anatoly Frusin, and Rosalind Williams. There, he spent three rigorous years practising theatre methods, studying plays and harnessing his physical, vocal and mental skills for the stage. He graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Acting & Performance.

After TAFE, Angus began to practise directing alongside acting. In 2019, he directed his debut production of Have I None by Edward Bond for the Anywhere Festival at Boggo Road Gaol; this was one of the first theatre performances to be held in that venue. In 2021, he directed his first Shakespeare production of As You Like It for Anywhere Festival, staged in the backyard of his parents’ house, with the support of QSE. In 2023, he was selected as a Director for the La Boite Assembly program, helping create the performance And Then I Grew Up. In 2024, he was assistant director for both QSE Mainstage productions of Tartuffe and Julius Caesar.

His other theatre credits include: Alan Strang in Equus (Ad Astra); The Two Noble Kinsmen (Skimble Skamble Fools); Tower of Babel (Baran Theatre and Metro Arts); 13 (TAFE); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (TAFE); O Solo Mio #6 (TAFE); Leaves of Grass (TAFE), and Grimm Fairy Tales (La Boite Young Actors Company at the Festival of Australian Student Theatre).