S. Shakthidharan
Writer | Director | Producer
Shakthi is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Kurinji. He’s a Western Sydney storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. He’s a writer, director and producer of film and theatre, as well as a composer and performer of original music.
Shakthi’s debut play Counting and Cracking, written with Associate Writer Eamon Flack, was co-produced by Belvoir and Co-Curious. Counting and Cracking is a 3- hour epic with 16 actors and 3 musicians hailing from 6 different countries. It had a sell-out season at Sydney Festival in 2019, followed by the Adelaide Festival, with rave reviews and a profound impact on the Sri Lankan community. Shakthi was also a Producer and Associate Director on the production. The script won the Victorian Premier’s overall Literature Prize and the NSW Premier’s Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting. The production went on to win 7 Helpmann Awards including Best New Australian Work and Best Direction of a Play. It also won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Australian Work and was nominated for Best Direction of a Mainstage Production. The play toured the UK in August 2022 including a run at the Edinburgh International Festival. This internationally acclaimed epic is returning to Australia this year with runs at both Rising Festival (Melbourne) and Sydney’s Carriageworks Bay 17. Shakthi is in active development adapting Counting and Cracking as a television series with a major Australian production company.
Shakthi’s most recent play The Jungle and the Sea with Belvoir (co-written and directed with Eamon Flack), was again met with rave reviews. It recently won the 2024 Victorian Premier's Drama Prize and 4 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Mainstage Production and Best New Australian Work.
Shakthi’s play adaptation of The Bone Sparrow based on the novel by Zana Fraillon completed a 2022 UK tour in a co-production with Pilot Theatre. His play Stay which he wrote and directed premiered at the 2022 Sydney Festival. Shakthi is developing a feature film for him to direct with feature producer John Maynard and is writing on a new TV series with production company Easy Tiger. Shakthi is also working on his first novel.
Other works include film, installation and VR project Laka (2018, Casula Powerhouse), feature film Riz (Sydney Film Festival 2015, Carriageworks 2013), site-specific audiovisual experience The Other Journey (Parramasala 2011, Ten Days on the Island 2013), dance/documentary work Zameen (Floating Land Festival, Parramasala and Attakalari Bienniale, 2013) and hybrid theatre/dance work The Migrant Project (Performance Space 2005, Street Theatre and Seymour Centre 2006, Hyde Park Barracks Museum 2007).
From 2018-2021, Shakthi was Co-Founder and Lead Artistic Consultant at Co-Curious. During that time he helped develop a number of screen and stage projects, a highlight of which was Here Out West, which opened Sydney Film Festival 2021 and can be streamed on ABC iView. Co-Curious is the sister company to CuriousWorks, where Shakthi was the Founder and Artistic Director from 2003-2018. During this time he led the CuriousWorks team to develop an award-winning model for the innovative use of creative digital media in underprivileged communities. This work has led to several long-term, multi-platform arts initiatives as well as significant grassroots social change in communities in Western Sydney, remote Western Australia and Northern Melbourne. Shakthi grew CuriousWorks from a start up in his bedroom to one of the leading community arts companies in the country.
Shakthi was Associate Artist at Belvoir from 2019-2021 and an Associate Artist at Carriageworks from 2013-2015. In 2015, he was awarded the Phillip Parson’s Playwright Award from Belvoir Theatre and in 2011 the Kirk Robson Award by Australia Council for the Arts, given to an artist for their work in relation to social justice and community cultural leadership.
For enquiries regarding S. Shakthidharan please contact Anthony Blair at a.blair@cameronsmanagement.com.au or on (02) 9319 7199.