Conference
Welcome
& Opening Address
We invite you to join us for the opening of the Music Theatre Futures conference, featuring an address by convenor and lead organiser, Jayde Kirchert.
Jayde will present an overview of the two-day program, explore the conference theme of ‘Connect,’ and introduce key ideas and questions to ensure you gain the most out of Music Theatre Futures.
JAYDE KIRCHERT
Jayde is a writer, director, dramaturge, lecturer and Artistic Director of Melbourne based theatre company, Citizen Theatre. She has directed & written multiple critically-acclaimed productions through Citizen Theatre including Green Room Award nominated Mara KORPER (2021), Ascent (2018), Nude (2015), and directed Rory Godbold’s Green Room Award nominated play, When The Light Leaves (2019 & 2020). She has also been the dramaturge on numerous musicals, original cabarets and plays.
She was the 2020 recipient of Monash University’s Jeanne Pratt Artist In Residence commission to create a new musical with Peter Rutherford. She was also the Artist in Residence at Gasworks Arts Park in 2022 to create a new work, Ego Machine.
She is a lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne where she regularly directs student works, which have included the graduating 3rd year production Sweet Charity (2021) and Morning Melodies concerts at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall (2019, 2022, 2024).
From the University of Melbourne she holds a Bachelor of Music Theatre, Post Graduate Diploma of Arts (Anthropology) and is currently undertaking a PhD researching feminist dramaturgies in music theatre contexts.