ROB PENSALFINI

Rob was one of QSE’s founders and has been Artistic Director since 2001. His directing credits for QSE include Julius Caesar (2024), Romeo & Juliet (2021), the premiere of Michael Futcher’s The Blood Votes (2018), Hamlet (2018), Twelfth Night (2008, 2016), the award-winning A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2012), The Comedy of Errors (2005), and As You Like It (2002), as well as directing eight inmate productions for QSE’s Shakespeare Prison Project.

He has appeared in numerous Shakespeare roles including Macbeth (2020, 2022), Friar Laurence (2021), Falstaff (2019), Leontes (2017), Titus Andronicus (2015), Prospero (2014), Launce (2012, alongside his dog Gumnut), Shylock (2011), Richard III (2010), Touchstone (2009), Sir Toby Belch (2008), Benedick (2007), and Coriolanus (2003). Rob also composes and/or plays music for many of QSE’s productions.

Rob is the author of Prison Shakespeare: for these deep shames and great indignities. Rob is also Associate Professor in Linguistics and Drama at the University of Queensland, and has written several books and about twenty articles on First Nations languages in Australia, and half a dozen articles on theatre and actor training. He is one of only nine people in Australia certified by Kristin Linklater to teach the world-renowned Linklater voice method and now trains other teachers. He has performed and/or taught professionally in Australia, the USA, and the UK. Rob was inducted as an Arts Queensland Culture Champion in 2013.

Rob is a member of MEAA (Equity).