| Sally McKenzie | |
| Birth Place: | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Alma Mater: | National Institute of Dramatic Art, Queensland University of Technology, Flinders University |
| Years Active: | 1977–present |
| Children: | 2 |
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 in 1977.[1] She later earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Queensland University of Technology.[2]
Sally May McKenzie was born on 8 February 1955 in Lindfield a suburb of Sydney. McKenzie grew up in South Australia. From the age of 11 she took drama classes run by Morna Jones[3] who went on to establish the Patch Theatre. During her teenage years McKenzie performed with the Pioneer Players, the Arts Theatre, Theatre 62 and the Bunyip Children’s Theatre. She began an arts degree at Flinders University but only completed 2 years of it[4] before moving to Sydney to study acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) graduating in 1977[5] with a Diploma of Acting, which she later converted to a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts - Acting.
McKenzie graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1977.[6] In 1978 McKenzie performed under the direction of Peter Schumann with the Bread & Puppet Theater at the Adelaide Festival. That year in Sydney she understudied all the female roles for the Queensland Theatre Company touring production of King Lear in which Warren Mitchell played Lear and Geoffrey Rush played the Fool. In 1979 she was part of the Early Childhood Drama Project[7] then professional arm of the La Boite Theatre Company. During this year she also performed for La Boite in their productions of Visions, playing Madame Lynch, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? playing Gloria Beatty and Alexandra Hills in The Hills Family Show.[8]
In 1980 McKenzie was a member of the TN! Theatre Company inaugural ensemble. That year she performed in The Importance of Being Earnest, Alex, Summit Conference and The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Jenny Diver under the baton of Georg Tintner. The following year she played Lavinia Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra for the Queensland Theatre Company then returned to Sydney to play Sister Lilian Holliday in Happy End at the Q Theatre Penrith. McKenzie auditioned for the role of Lavinia Mannon and was to play this role again, this time for the Melbourne Theatre Company directed by Michael Blakemore.
Several productions with the Melbourne Theatre Company followed, including performing the title role in The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht and Beatrice-Joanna in The Changeling under the direction of John Sumner. A role came up with the Sydney Theatre Company and McKenzie moved to back to Sydney where she performed in a range of productions including the Australian premiere of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill with the Nimrod Theatre Company. During this time under the direction of Bud Tingwell McKenzie played the central role of Lynn in a 2-hour 500th special episode of Cop Shop for which she won a 1983 Penguin Award for Best Single Performance by an Actress in a Serial.[9]
McKenzie successfully auditioned for the role of Lady Macbeth for the Queensland Theatre Company. For this company she appeared in 20 productions, including performing Ruth Carson in Night and Day, Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. For the Queensland Theatre Company she also played many characters in plays by playwright David Williamson including Jane Fredericks in Top Silk, Barbara Milson in A Conversation and Vicki Calabresi in the premiere production of Money and Friends directed by Aubrey Mellor, which toured nationally in 1992. McKenzie turned down several theatre roles to pursue a Master Degree in Fine Arts, which she completed in 1996.
As a theatre actor McKenzie has appeared in leading and ensemble roles for theatre companies across Australia. These include Belvoir St Theatre, Griffin Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Nimrod Theatre Company, Playbox Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, The Stables, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Q Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and the TN! Theatre Company.
For TV, McKenzie played recurring role Mystic Marg in the TV Series Mortified. Other TV appearances include Roo Morgan in Prisoner, Esme in Carson’s Law, Ms Cunningham in The Wayne Manifesto, Patsy Goldfisch in The Flying Doctors, Grace in A Country Practice, Mary Schippan in The Schippan Mystery and Del in Fires. Feature film performances include Gail in With Love From The Person Next To Me, Carrie in We of the Never Never, Carol in Storage, Roz in Jucy and Warden Zelda in Redheads with Claudia Karvan and Catherine McClements.
As a playwright McKenzie’s plays include Scattered Lives, Martha’s War on War, i dot luv dot u☺ and WAY, which was praised in Stage Whispers for its theatricality: "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”.[10]
As a screenwriter and director works include documentary Acting Class of 1977 AKA actingclassof1977.com, which looks at actor training in Australia in the late 1970s.[11] The film features Steve Bisley, Mel Gibson and Debra Lawrance and first viewed on the ABC in June 2008. McKenzie won the highest writing accolade awarded in Australia for performance writing, an Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE Award for Best Documentary Public Broadcast in 2014.[12]
In 2019 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 who write for both screen and stage living in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. Writers and theatre-makers McKenzie interviewed included Bekah Brunstetter, Liz Flahive, Tony Kushner, Christopher Hampton, David Henry Hwang, Terry Johnson, Mike Leigh, Robert Lepage, David Lindsay-Abaire, Kenneth Lonergan, Hannah Moscovitch, Adam Rapp, Theresa Rebeck, Judith Thompson and Enda Walsh.[13]
For her Churchill Report, McKenzie also interviewed a range of representatives from educational institutions that teach performance writing as well as representatives from companies that develop plays. These included interviews with representatives from Atlantic Theater Company, Columbia University, Donmar Warehouse, Factory Theatre, The Juilliard School, National Theatre School of Canada, New Dramatists, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, New York Theatre Workshop, Paines Plough, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, Royal Court Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, and Stratford Festival.
| Title | Year | Role | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cathy's Child | 1979 | Young Nun | Feature film | |
| We of the Never Never | 1982 | Carrie | Feature film | |
| Undercover | 1983 | Shop Assistant | Feature film | |
| The Schippan Mystery | 1984 | Mary Schippan | TV film | |
| Tripe | 1985 | Aunt Esme | Short film | |
| Sharkey’s Party | 1986 | Penny | Short film | |
| With Love to the Person Next to Me | 1987 | Gail | Feature film | |
| The Lonely Ones | 1988 | Mother | Short film | |
| Redheads | 1994 | Warden Zelda | Feature film | |
| Mermaids | 2003 | Georgia | TV film | |
| Sniffer | 2003 | Aunt Magda | Short film | |
| The Diamond Cutter | 2003 | Zelma (voice) | TV film | |
| actingclassof1977.com | 2008 | Herself | TV film | |
| Storage | 2009 | Carol | Feature film | |
| Jucy | 2010 | Ros | Feature film | |
| The Day After Today | 2014 | Angela | Short film |
| Title | Year | Role | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cop Shop | 1983 | Lynn | TV series, 2 hour special | |
| Carson's Law | 1983-84 | Emily Forrest | TV series | |
| Special Squad | 1984 | Rosetta | TV series | |
| Mother and Son | 1985 | Sergeant Watts | TV series | |
| Prisoner | 1986 | Roo Morgan | TV series | |
| Rafferty's Rules | 1987 | Constable Prior | TV series | |
| A Country Practice | 1988 | Phyllis Greenway | TV series | |
| The Leaving of Liverpool | 1993 | Official Woman | TV series | |
| The Flying Doctors | 1995 | Patsy Goldfisch | TV series | |
| Fire | 1995 | Fai Alicis | TV series | |
| The Wayne Manifesto | 1996-97 | Ms. Cunningham | TV series | |
| Fat Cow Motel | 2003 | Eleanor Rigby | TV miniseries | |
| Mortified | 2006-07 | Mystic Marj | TV series | |
| Reef Doctors | 2013 | Gracie | TV series | |
| Harrow | 2019 | Beverly McIntyre | TV series | |
| Fires | 2021 | Dell | TV series |
| Year | Play | style=max-width:10em | Writer(s) ! | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Mother and Son | Mrs. Lind | |||
| 1977 | The Hostage | Kate/Meg | Performed at NIDA Shared role with Judy Davis | ||
| 1977 | Once in a Lifetime | Various | Performed at NIDA Director Richard Wherrett | ||
| 1978 | Bread & Puppet Theater | Group Devised | Ensemble | Adelaide Festival Director Peter Schumann | |
| 1978 | Razzle, Dazzle | Group Devised | Various | The Actors’ Company. Director Steve Agnew | |
| 1979 | Visions | La Boite Theatre Company Director John Milson | |||
| 1979 | The Hills Family Show | Alexandra Hills | La Boite Theatre Company Director Richard Fotheringham | ||
| 1979 | They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? | Gloria Beatty | La Boite Theatre Company Director David Bell | ||
| 1980 | The Threepenny Opera | Jenny Diver | TN! Theatre Company Director John Milson | ||
| 1980 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Gwendolen Fairfax | TN! Theatre Company Director John Milson | ||
| 1980 | Summit Conference | Eva Braun | TN! Theatre Company Director John Milson | ||
| 1980 | Mourning Becomes Electra | Lavinia Mannon | Queensland Theatre Company Director Robin Lovejoy | ||
| 1980 | Happy End | Lillian Holiday | Q Theatre. Director Doreen Warburton | ||
| 1981 | Mourning Becomes Electra Part One | Lavinia Mannon | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Michael Blakemore | ||
| 1981 | Mourning Becomes Electra Part Two | Lavinia Mannon | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Michael Blakemore | ||
| 1981 | The Good Person of Szechwan | Shen Te | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Bruce Myles | ||
| 1981 | The London Cuckolds | Edward Ravenscroft | Peggy | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Simon Chilvers | |
| 1981 | Amadeus | Constanze Weber | Melbourne Theatre Company Director John Sumner | ||
| 1981 | A Cuckoo in the Nest | Ben Travers | Marguerite Hickett | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Simon Chilvers | |
| 1982 | The Changeling | Beatrice-Joanna | Melbourne Theatre Company Director John Sumner | ||
| 1982 | Vocations | Vicki | Melbourne Theatre Company Director Graeme Blundell | ||
| 1983 | The Fields of Heaven | Lucia Silvieri | Sydney Theatre Company Director Rodney Fisher | ||
| 1983 | Top Girls | Dulle Gret/Angie | Nimrod Theatre Company Director Chris Johnson | ||
| 1984 | A Toast to Melba | Ensemble | Nimrod Theatre Company Director John Milson | ||
| 1985 | Macbeth | Queensland Theatre Company Director Gregory Gesch | |||
| 1987 | Glory | Glory | Griffin Theatre Company Director Ray Goodlass | ||
| 1988 | The Sentimental Bloke | Rose | Queensland Theatre Company Director Gregory Gesch | ||
| 1988 | Les Liaisons Dangereuses | Émilie | Queensland Theatre Company Director Alan Edwards | ||
| 1988 | Night and Day | Ruth Carson | Queensland Theatre Company Director Gregory Gesch | ||
| 1988 | Beach Blanket Tempest | Denis Watkins, Chris Harriott | Regine | TN! Theatre Company Director Sean Mee | |
| 1989 | The Man from Mukinupin | Clemmy Hummer | Queensland Theatre Company Director Aubrey Mellor | ||
| 1990 | SherWoodstock | Various | Mother Hood | Satirical music theatre. Director Sean Mee | |
| 1990 | Top Silk | Jane Fredericks | Queensland Theatre Company Director Aubrey Mellor | ||
| 1990 | The Ring Cycle | Richard Wagner, David Bell | Frika | Queensland Performing Arts Centre Director David Bell | |
| 1991 | Phantoad of the Opera | Various | Ginger | Satirical music theatre. Director Sean Mee | |
| 1991 | Seven Little Australians | Martha/Miss Jolly | Queensland Theatre Company Director Alan Edwards | ||
| 1991 | Burn This | Anna | La Boite Theatre Company Director Jennifer Flowers | ||
| 1991 | Money and Friends | Vicki Calabresi | Queensland Theatre Company Director Aubrey Mellor | ||
| 1992 | Money and Friends | Vicki Calabresi | |||
| 1992 | Money and Friends | Vicki Calabresi | |||
| 1992 | Money and Friends | Vicki Calabresi | |||
| 1992 | Fuenteovejuna | Ensemble | Melbourne International Arts Festival Director Aubrey Mellor | ||
| 1993 | Romeo and Juliet | Lady Capulet | Queensland Theatre Company Director Aubrey Mellor | ||
| 1993 | Diving for Pearls | Marg | Queensland Theatre Company Director David Berthold | ||
| 1994 | Dancing at Lughnasa | Maggie | Queensland Theatre Company Director Jennifer Flowers | ||
| 1994 | The Servant of Two Masters | Ensemble | Queensland Performing Arts Centre Director Steven Gration | ||
| 1994 | Happy Birthday Tim | Sally McKenzie | Mum | Queensland Performing Arts Centre Director Sean Mee | |
| 1997 | After the Ball | Maureen | Queensland Theatre Company Director Robyn Nevin | ||
| 1997 | After the Ball | Maureen | Theatre Royal, Hobart, Arts Centre Melbourne | ||
| 2000 | Top Dogs | Penelope McDonald | Queensland Theatre Company Director Jennifer Flowers | ||
| 2002 | Salt | Peta Murray | Meg | La Boite Theatre Company Director Michael Futcher | |
| 2003 | A Conversation | Barbara Milson | Queensland Theatre Company Director Jean-Marc Russ | ||
| 2004 | The Cherry Orchard | Lyubov Ranevskaya | Queensland Theatre Company Director Michael Gow | ||
| 2004 | Amigos | Hilary | La Boite Theatre Company Director Sean Mee | ||
| 2005 | The Memory of Water | Vi | Queensland Theatre Company Director Leticia Cáceres | ||
| 2007 | Red Cap | Ensemble | La Boite Theatre Company Director Sean Mee | ||
| 2007 | The Wishing Well | Helen Howard, Michael Futcher | Ensemble | La Boite Theatre Company Director Michael Futcher | |
| 2009 | The School of Arts | Gwen Frawley | Queensland Theatre Company Playhouse Theatre, Brisbane. Director Michael Gow | ||
| 2009 | The School of Arts | Gwen Frawley | Pilbeam Theatre, Rockhampton; Warwick Town Hall, Warwick | ||
| 2012 | A Hoax | Rick Viede | Ronnie | La Boite Theatre Company, Griffin Theatre Company Director Lee Lewis | |
| 2022 | Betty | Jules Allen | Rose | Theatre Works Director Iain Sinclair | |
| 2023 | Way | Sally McKenzie | Lily, Lynne, Maysie, Zahra | La Mama Theatre (Melbourne) Director Sean Mee |