Meet the Management Team

Executive Team

Lucien Simon

CEO and General Manager

Lucien is an Award Winning Filmmaker and community artist. In 2024 he was Creative Director of Cairns Festival and Cairns Childrens Festival. The play ‘A mouthful of ‘C’ words’, which he was the commissioning producer for, won the Tasmanian Theatre Award for best Original Writing (2024). The webseries THREAD (Director, Producer, Co-Writer, colourist) was a finalist at the Student World Impact Award (2024) and he produced the creative development of prominent Palawa writer Nathan Maynard’s play ‘The Line’ (2024). He is currently producing Wakemab for Naygayiw Gigi dancers from Saibai Island in the Torres Strait. In 2023 Lucien worked at Dark Mofo as Performing Arts producer, including the Festival headliner ‘A Divine Comedy’. He was the Performing Arts Program Manager at Salamanca Arts Centre (2021-23) where he produced an Experimental and Emerging Performing Arts Program, the critically acclaimed ‘A Mouthful of ‘C’ Words’ for MONA FOMA, wrote the play SOUL CAGE, facilitated an international digital residency with Checkpoint Theatre (Singapore) and was Artistic Director of Winter Light Festival (2021, 2022).

He has a lived experience of disability surviving a near death experience in Sumatra in 1999. The accident was also the experience that drove him to theatre. By the end of the year he was training religiously, learning about writing from Andrew Bovell and Patricia Cornelius, training in various acting techniques including bouffon, butoh, Meyerhold technique from Genadi Bogdanov, Stanislavsky and learning directing, on the job, as Julian Meyrick’s Assistant Director on Fever (Melbourne Workers Theatre). From the accident he lost my peripheral vision, and his eyes both had different focal points, making it impossible to read. I also had an ABI. Theatre helped him heal, the acting workshops taught him how to reorient himself in space, and the desire to create and direct theatre gave him the motivation to learn how to read again.

In 2002 he was offered a job as Artistic Director of Riverland Youth Theatre (RYT). His preference was to accept the offer to study Directing at VCA, to take the well trodden path to contemporary theatre, but, he now had a family, so, he took the job.

Working with regional youth, creating theatre with young parents, creating dance performances with Ngarrindjeri youth showed Lucien that he wasn’t the only person who had an important story. At RYT, he learned that helping people on the margins share their stories and be truly heard not only transformed how they saw themselves, but also fostered empathy and understanding within the wider community.This was a revelation to Lucien, and has become a passion that has defined his career and artistic practice.

Administration Team

Ben Drysdale

Communications and Fundraising Manager (former CEO and Creative Producer)

Ben Drysdale is an actor, director, drama tutor, musician, events coordinator, with 15 years experience in community arts. Ben completed a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and English at ANU in 2005 including a 2-year Acting, Voice and Movement program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Since returning to Australia he has worked in a range of artistic roles both independently, and in conjunction with community organisations.

Ben was the Founding Director of arts promotion company Cardboard Charlie for 8 years putting on music showcases, theatre shows and art exhibitions in collaboration with various venues and festivals and curated the Belconnen Community Gallery for 10 years. During this he directed three seasons of short plays by Melbourne playwright Daniel Keene entitled Seasons of Keene.

Ben’s professional theatre credits include The Give and Take (Street Theatre 2007), Out of Our Minds (Belconnen Theatre 2010), Heart of a Dog (Street Theatre 2014), and Under Sedation (Street Theatre 2016). He also played the lead role in an amateur production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Courtyard Studio 2014).

Ben has worked as an actor and producer on a range of community-based arts projects including acting in Imperfectly Sane (2007), Imperfectly Sane Too (2008), funded by the Mental Health Foundation, co-producing the The Hunting Season (2008) funded by the Foundation for Young Australians, and producing The Mindscapes Mish Mash Variety Night (2013-2016) in partnership with Belconnen Community Service and the Mental Health Community Coalition.

Since Rebus began in 2013, Ben has performed as a professional actor in the creative development Fractured (2016), and on numerous occasions delivering Rebus’ forum theatre-based workplace training. He has taught numerous drama workshops and classes including the Acting and Performance stream of the Australian Defence Force’s Arts for Recovery Resilience Teamwork and Skills program, and worked as producer and director on All In (2016), Open Doors Open Minds (2018), Moving Climates (2018) Access All Areas: Justice (2019) and Utopiate (2022).

Amy Frost

Finance and Administration Officer

Amy took on the role of Finance and Administration Officer in January 2020. She instantly proved herself a valuable addition to the organisation with her problem-solving skills, can-do attitude, cheeky wit, and propensity to bring fancy chocolates into the office.

Amy has worked in administration roles in the past but is new to the financial management side and is enjoying the opportunity to develop her skills in this area. While Amy is new to working in the theatre industry she has grown up enjoying ballet, theatre, comedy and music, as well as various crafty hobbies. Her involvement in the ‘Messengers’ program was pivotal in keeping her attending high school. The ACT school band program was instrumental in Amy learning the oboe which she played in various concert bands. She would love to pick it up again. Amy enjoys the variety that working with Ben and Robin brings, whether it’s doing a quick bit of research to summarise a new topic or having a perfectly normal planning meeting turn into Robin and her discussing a completely unrelated hypothetical topic and Ben reining them in.

Amy identifies as a person with disability and is delighted to have found a job that allows her to do something she is familiar with (admin) whilst helping to promote a cause she cares deeply about. She is grateful to be working for an organisation full of understanding and supportive people. She lives at home with her four cheeky parrots who attended many zoom meetings while Rebus was in lockdown.

Ceilidh Dalton

Finance Manager

Ceilidh is a visual artist who loves numbers and delights in bank reconciliations and acquittals that balance out. They have a background in Science, Accounting and Visual Art and a passion for inclusive design as a curator, teacher and toolmaker and believes that art should and can be accessible to everyone in some form. Ceilidh identifies as a person with disabilities and they designed their first solo art exhibition, Interlinked, to be accessible for everyone and was a finalist for the Chief Ministers Inclusion Awards for Innovative Design. They feel that working at Rebus is a privilege, to support an organisation that is at the forefront of making inclusion and accessibility the norm for Arts in Canberra.

Project Team

Melissa Gryglewski

LGBTQIA+ Officer/iDrama Project Manager/Actor/Tutor

Melissa’s perspectives on the transformative and community-building potential of the performing arts were forged as a young student of Hidden Corners Theatre and Canberra Youth Theatre. She studied Anthropology, Political Science, and Human Geography at ANU, and completed a Diploma of Counselling Melissa’s other achievements include teaching at Canberra Youth Theatre and Canberra Dance Theatre; working as a presenter in museums; as a social worker with Capital Region Community Services; and having undertaken facilitator training with Danceability International, and performing physical theatre locally and interstate on stages, streets, and in museums, with a combination of epic costumes, gadgets and large props.
Melissa works for Rebus as an iDrama facilitator, social worker, and performer with Rebus’ Playback Theatre Ensemble.

Sammy Moynihan

Artistic Director - Stage of Empathy

Sammy Moynihan is a theatre-maker, producer and arts worker with a particular interest in working with diverse communities. He is passionate about using drama techniques to foster social change, and has facilitated theatre workshops in schools, detention centres, remote Indigenous communities, and other contexts. In 2018, he toured France with Palestinian organisation, The Freedom Theatre before interning at their headquarters in Jenin Refugee Camp in Palestine.

He completed his Master of Fine Arts (Cultural Leadership) at NIDA and was the recipient of NIDA’s Lynne Williams Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cultural Leadership. He trained as a facilitator at The Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil and delivered performance workshops with homeless communities in Rio De Janeiro. Sammy also worked as a Live Programs Officer at Belco Arts (formerly Belconnen Arts Centre) before joining Rebus as a Project Manager for Re-Emergence. He also directs and produces his own work.

Sammy has worked with Rebus both as an actor in workplace training programs, and as a tutor/director a number of our programs including Bridges or Barricades, Speaking Role, Acting Out: On Screen, Flair, Re-Emergence and Expressive Pathways before taking on the role of Artistic Director for Stage of Empathy in July 2024.

Chips Jin

Project Manager Rebus Playback Ensemble/Actor/Insta Story Guru

For as long as they can remember, Chips has been passionate about telling stories. Since early 2013, they’ve explored the practice of storytelling through theatre. As someone who lives with ADHD, there’s a special place in their heart for the spontaneous. They love how theatre can impact, affect, and move people’s hearts and minds. It’s a powerful tool that can be used to support growth and stimulate change.

Like many others in the creative industries, they’ve found themselves wearing many different hats. With a preference for acting, they’ve also directed, written, produced, stage managed and supported various productions. Most recently, you may have seen them perform with A-Z theatre at MoAD’s “After Dark” (2023), in the Mill Theatre production of the Torrents (2022), they worked on the premiere season of DEMENTED by Ruth Pieloor (2022), and toured nationally with the Rebus Theatre Playback ensemble (2022).

As a trans, queer, BIPOC, differently abled human, Chips is no stranger to discrimination - especially in theatre spaces. At Rebus, Chips has finally found themselves in a space that is as passionate about creating and driving change as they are: A space to be who they are, however they come.

Chips works for Rebus as Project Manager for the Playback Ensemble, an iDrama facilitator, and if you watch carefully, you may just get to see them on an insta takeover!

Yenn Purkis

Accessibility Manager - Stages of Empathy

Yenn Purkis is an autistic and ADHD, Asexual and non-binary author and advocate. They also have a psychosocial disability. Yenn has been giving presentations since 2002, including two for TEDx Canberra. Yenn has written and cowritten 18 books all on elements of inclusion around neurodiversity. Yenn is a passionate advocate for neurodivergent and Queer folks and loves their work in this area.

Yenn has been writing a blog for over 10 years, and they had a weekly radio show on Canberra Radio 2CC called ‘Talking Disability’ in 2017 -2018. They were part of a documentary called Alone in a Crowded Room which aired on ABC TV in 2010. They have a bunch of awards including the ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Award and the ACT Volunteer of the Year. And Yenn has no intention of slowing down any time soon!

Yenn brings their passion for accessibility and inclusion to their role at Rebus. They are a firm believer in the transformative power of the arts and how theatre, art, dance, music and writing can change the world – in a good way! Yenn also brings their love for empowerment and inclusion for Disabled folks and LGBTQA+ folks to their work with the team at Rebus.

Yenn lives in Gungahlin with their therapy kitty and feline overlord, Sunflower the naughty tortie. Yenn is a visual artist and their home is filled with hundreds of artworks as well as cat-related things, fidgets, shiny things and rainbow stuff. Yenn has been in this world for over 50 years – and they plan to age as disgracefully as they possibly can.

Harry Bhangu

Project Manager Stages of Empathy

Harry joined the team in 2024 as the Project Manager for Stages of Empathy. Harry comes from a background in event and venue management in the performing arts, community services and hospitality sectors, and also has tertiary qualifications in Business Management.

Growing up in the Himalayas and being involved in dance, theatre and cultural performances from an early age, Harry brings a unique perspective to Rebus. One of his earliest memories is writing poetry in the sugarcane fields and singing centuries-old Persian songs while he helped on the family farm. Since moving to Australia, Harry has also performed in local community theatre productions and is an avid visual artist.

Harry has also been a carer for his brother, who lives with multiple disabilities, and is passionate about inclusivity and accessibility in the arts and diverse representation on stage. Harry led the implementation of ‘relaxed performance’ protocols in his previous role at Cairns Performing Arts Centre to increase the accessibility of theatre and music for those in the community with sensory needs and he has been an active crusader in environmental, political and First Nations spaces all around New South Wales.

Past Management Team

Robin Davidson

Former CEO and Artistic Director

Robin Davidson is an actor, clown, director, teacher and writer. He is a graduate of Charles Sturt University in Theatre/Media, with First Class Honours. He devises theatre with communities, including five years as founding artistic director of Hidden Corners Theatre, a company for young carers (young people who have a family member with a disability), seven years as director of Imperfectly Sane Productions, the Mental Health Foundation ACT’s theatre company, and fifteen years as a founding member of Canberra Playback Theatre. He has taught in East Timor, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. He was co-awarded the 2005 Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance ACT Green Room Award for services to community theatre. He also performs, directs and teaches clown and Commedia dell’Arte, including having performed in Nara, Japan and at the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games.

He has extensive experience in project management, having led dozens of arts projects from concept, through consultation, finding funding, enactment, documentation and evaluation. He has worked with a wide variety of communities including young carers, people who experience mental illness, people with disability, young adult migrants, children, at risk young people, environmentalists, climate scientists, and teachers.

Robin is the founding director of Rebus Theatre. He co-leads the company with Ben Drysdale. As well as teaching and directing projects, his primary responsibilities are strategic planning and grant writing.

Cara Matthews

Founding Producer/Life Member

While Cara has moved on from Rebus, she remains a life member of our family.

Cara Matthews is an award-winning actor, director and educator who expertly uses her own lived experience and that of others to develop and deliver innovative and engaging performances around mental health and disability. She is a compassionate and dynamic teacher with a proven ability to work with people of all circumstances and abilities, and has an extensive background in improvisation.

Cara has a Certificate IV in acting for stage and screen from Canberra Academy of Dramatic Arts. She was the recipient of the 2015 Chief Minister’s Inclusion Award for Emerging Young Leader, as well as a 2019 Finalist for ACT Woman of the Year.

Cara appeared in the 2012 award-winning play Smart Jimmy Slow Bob, is the voice of the National Library e-learning platform, and appeared in 2014 feature film Somebody Else‘s Country. In 2016 she was Artistic Director of All In Variety Show, as well as teaching several classes and workshops to people from various backgrounds. In 2017 she performed in This is my Brave and in 2018, she co-developed and performed in Moving Climates and Open Doors Open Minds, as well as acting as a mentor for the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) Arts for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills (ARRTS) program. In 2019, she was Artistic Director of Access All Areas: Health and Access All Areas: Justice.

Ali Clinch

Co-CEO/Creative Programs Director

Ali is an award-winning actor and director specialising in the effectiveness of theatre as a tool for education, engagement and social change. Ali’s theatre experience includes working as an actor, director, musician, scriptwriter, choreographer, lighting designer & stage manager. Ali is the Artistic Director of Acting With Ali, a drama, dance and music school operating out of Queanbeyan.

Ali specialises in personalised tuition that aims to unlock the artist within. She has worked on various Rebus Theatre projects including: Fractured, the Australian Defence Force‘s Arts for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills program, L’arche Inclusive Drama Classes, Bridges or Barricades - addressing conflict in schools using Forum Theatre, and Moving Climates.

Ariana Odermatt

Administration Officer

Ariana Odermatt joined Rebus Theatre as their Administration Officer in early 2022. Ariana has worked in arts administration roles for 15 years, from national arts funding bodies to community music organisations and venues. Ariana is a keyboard teacher and enjoys performing with local ensembles. She is looking forward to growing skills to support Rebus Theatre and its family.

Helen Ferguson

Project Manager - Project Alchemy

Helen Ferguson grew up in Queanbeyan and after 4 years of travelling and living in Europe she moved to Sydney and finally returned to her hometown with a young family in 2008. She trained as a graphic designer at the University of Canberra and has had a long and successful career with a wide-ranging portfolio of design experience from publishing to advertising to fashion and government work.

Her passion has been working in the area of public gallery, museum exhibitions and on educational programs. In September 2014 Helen purchased a run-down heritage cottage with a dream to create something special in Queanbeyan for the locals to enjoy, use and appreciate. This ambitious project has been evolving and is called The Queanbeyan Hive.

Helen is also the founder of the local not-for-profit group called Create Collaborate Collective Inc whose mission is to support and nurture the community arts scene through events that include music, art and markets.

Jen Seyderhelm

Project Manager - Project Alchemy

Jen Seyderhelm worked in radio for more than 20 years ago as an announcer, producer, journalist, news reader and sports commentator. Alongside her Rebus role she teaches Podcasting, Radio, Voiceover and Writing for an Audio Audience.

With a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University, Certificate IV in Music Industry Skills, Counselling Diploma and Training and Assessment Certificate IV, Jen created in 2021 an Australian first Certificate II in Podcasting Foundations taught nationally through the Academy of Interactive Entertainment.

Jen loves storytelling and gathering, supporting the arts, people, dogs, cricket and music trivia.

Amanda Plowright

Finance Manager

Amanda recently joined the team at Rebus as Finance Manager. She has always been interested in theatre since her school days, when she joined drama clubs and performed in school plays whenever she could.

Amanda has been working in the community sector in the ACT for over 20 years, mainly with organisations that support people who have a disability or chronic health condition.

She has held many senior roles in the administration and management of community organisations in the not-for-profit sector in Canberra.

Amanda’s main areas of expertise in the workplace are financial systems and information technology.

She is keen to contribute her experience to Rebus. Her main tasks are to develop and monitor project budgets and oversee the financial accountability that are the backbone of making small enterprises successful and sustainable.

Amanda ’s interests outside of work include travel, photography, architecture and spending time at home near the beautiful regional city of Cooma.

Yolanthe Daly

General Manager

Yolanthe joined Rebus Theatre in January 2021 because of her passion for social change. She is deeply committed to supporting the work of Rebus in their creative endeavour.

She is drawn to collaborative organisations that achieve great things through teamwork and creativity.

Yolanthe has worked as an archivist, and outreach officer in Canberra heritage organisations, large and small, including the ArchivesACT , and the newly formed Canberra and Region Heritage Network of researchers.

She is experienced in managing projects and events, as well as facilitation, policy formulation and efficient governance and administration.

Yolanthe feels she works best in behind the scenes operations,

Yolanthe is a strong advocate for the social model of disability. She has first hand experience in supporting family members with disabilities to live fulfilling lives.

Yolanthe dabbles in artistic expression through felt making, painting and drawing but is always most at home crafting words.

Bek Silberman

Communications and Administration Officer/Tutor

Bek has performed in school productions at both Telopea Park School and Canberra College, where she played the role of Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. As well as being Communications and Administration Officer for Rebus, she is assistant tutor for our Inclusive Drama Classes.

For five years she volunteered as a leader at FISH, a weekly after school children’s program at St Matthew‘s Anglican Church Wanniassa. She currently volunteers at the St Matthew’s Youth Group, leading activities for local high schoolers.

Bek is currently working towards a Bachelor of Marketing Communication at the University of Canberra. In her spare time she sings, plays piano and teaches herself guitar and ukulele.

Rebus acknowledges the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people as the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work, and pays our respect to elders past, present and emerging.

We practice radical empathy through theatre and other arts to stimulate healing and provoke social and environmental change. Together with our donors and friends, Rebus is embarking on a bold new path to reach more of our marginalised than ever before. Play your own part by making a tax deductible donation to support our mission here!

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The Rebus Staff Wellbeing Program is supported by Hands Across Canberra in partnership with the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund and the Canberra Foundations Collective.