Created by
BROAD ENCOUNTERS
Broad Encounters creates and presents unique multi-sensory, immersive live theatre productions that ignite the imagination, engage the senses and immerse audiences in brave new worlds. Introducing bold new visions, Broad Encounters curates remarkable experiences that blend forms, shatter conventions and transform spaces.
Production credits include the award-winning and record-breaking A MIDNIGHT VISIT, inspired by the work of the Grandaddy of gothic literature, Edgar Allan Poe; the epic 40 room subterranean theatrical adventure, LOVE LUST LOST; the bespoke A JOURNEY MOST UNUSUAL and the endlessly entertaining MAHO MAGIC BAR. Broad Encounters' latest creation is the dark, decadent and delicious soiree, WHEN NIGHT COMES.
Find out more at Broad Encounters.
Creatives
Kirsten Siddle - Creator, Co-Writer, Co-Director
Kirsten is a creator, creative director, producer, and curator. Her experience and expertise covers both strategic leadership roles and consultancy for the arts sector and government, as well as independent producing. Kirsten’s creative practice places the audience at the heart of every experience and she delights in creating opportunities for audiences to truly immersive themselves, play and be part of the action.
Recent productions include Love Lust Lost, as well as the boutique theatrical-gin experience A Journey Most Unusual in partnership with Hendrick’s Gin. Kirsten created, directed and produced Maho Magic Bar, the innovative Japanese show, bar and pop-up venue and co-created, creative-directed and produced the record-breaking and award-winning immersive theatre experience A Midnight Visit, which went on to break records in 2021-22 as Brisbane’s longest running staged theatre production. Other credits include co-creator and co-director of the Helpmann nominated A State of Grace: The Music of Tim and Jeff Buckley and creative producer on Way to Blue: The Music of Nick Drake.
Kirsten has produced across far ranging genres, including as Executive Producer for The Royal Ballet’s (UK) Australian tour and Ballet Preljocaj’s Snow White. She has held executive curatorial roles at Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, including 9 years shaping the Centre’s Artistic Direction as Head of Programming, and the Barbican (London) and was founder and Director of Melbourne’s SummerSalt Outdoor Arts Festival. Her background is as a musician and she completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from The University of Queensland. Kirsten is the proud recipient of Australian Business Arts Fountation’s Magaret Lawrence Bequest Scholarship in arts leadership and the inaugural Chief Executive Women Leadership Program Scholarship.
Scott Maidment - Co-Director
Scott is a powerhouse creator and stage director having created and directed a multitude of theatre productions, landmark events and festival precincts for major organisations across the globe. Scott’s creative practice draws from both traditional and contemporary forms and is typically defined by a heady mix of music, cabaret, circus, stunt and thrilling spectacle. His productions have been presented by Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin and Brisbane Festivals, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Kermezzo(o) Brussels, and Adelaide Festival Fringe.
Creation and directing credits include the international smash hit shows: Blanc de Blanc and Blanc de Blanc Encore, both explosions of cabaret, circus, dance and comedy that set sales records in their Sydney premieres and have played to sold out houses across Australia, London, Las Vegas and many locations around the world since. Additional creations by Scott include Limbo and Limbo Unhinged, Life - The Show, The Purple Rabbit, Fun House, Love Riot and Madonna’s Rebel Heart tour.
Scott is the Creative Director of the award-winning producing company Strut & Fret and is Founder and Creative Director of Adelaide’s The Garden of Unearthly Delights, a curated festival precinct that delights 100,000s of people each year. Scott is also the Creative Director of New Zealand’s famed Bread & Circus - World Buskers Festival and previously collaborated with Broad Encounters as Stage Director for the acclaimed production Love Lust Lost (Brisbane 2022 and Melbourne 2023).
Mike Finch - Co-Director
Graduate of the Theatre/Media course in Bathurst, co-founder of Circus Monoxide, and Artistic Director & co-CEO of Australia’s Circus Oz from 1997 until 2015, Mike Finch is a creative itinerant and enthusiast.
Notable projects include 18 years of directing Circus Oz in sell-out national, and international tours, with highlights including four seven-week seasons on 42nd Street New York, seasons on all the continents (except Antarctica). Shows included ‘Barely Contained’, ‘Laughing at Gravity’, ‘Steampowered’ and ‘But Wait There’s More!’.
Since Circus Oz, among other things, Mike has directed 12 hours of non-stop circus performance for White Night Melbourne, two commissioned works for the Sydney Opera House, ‘Skate’; a major skateboarding collaboration between Barangaroo and BIGhART, and two shows for the Australian National Institute of Circus Arts. He also has a solo visual art practise in ink drawing.
Mike’s first engagement with Broad Encounters’ was as Head of Build for the Melbourne season of Love Lust Lost (2023), where he shaped and realised the visual design over more than 2000 square metres.
Mike is an atheist who believes humans are, on the whole, and if given the chance, inherently good.
Helen Cassidy - Co-writer
Helen is a theatre maker and performer with nearly 25 years experience nationally and internationally across a range of genres. Helen frequently collaborates with independent and commercial companies around Australia. Under her company Pretend Productions she created critically acclaimed productions including: Erotic Intelligence for Dummies, Statuesque, Glitter and Dust and most recently the short film Goldfish.
In 2018 she moved to Las Vegas to be part of the creative ensemble for Spiegelworld’s new comedy Opium at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. She is also a member of the Matilda award-winning ensemble and creative team of Dirty Fame Flash Candles Club.
As a stage actor career highlights include: Family Values, As You Like It, Boston Marriage, Orphans, The Glass Menagerie, Long Days Journey into Night, Scapin, Mrs Warren’s Profession, A Christmas Carol and Absurd Person Singular for Queensland Theatre. Alongside work with Shake and Stir, Strut n Fret, La Boîte, Bell Shakespeare and MTC. Helen played London and the UK with Unlimited Theatre in The Moon The Moon and he solo comedy work has featured on the variety stages of London, New York and Sydney. Her Film and Television appearances include Thirteen Lives, Sisters of War, Wanted, Australia Day, The Contents and Through My Eyes. Helen is a proud recipient of the Lord Mayors Performing Arts Fellowship and four Matilda Awards.
Sydney Cast
Gabby Carbon
Gabby Carbon is a Maltese-Australian artist with a diverse range of talents. She is an award-winning actor, writer, musician, and makeup artist with a strong passion for interactive and immersive works, specialising in clown, burlesque, improvisation, and special effects makeup. She works across theatre, film, cabaret, and cruise ship worlds, being described as “Chaplain-esque” with her command of facial expressions. Her eclectic projects have been recognised internationally, with performances in the UK, Australia, South-East Asia, and across the South Pacific. She has also featured in fine art publications across North America, Canada, and Europe. She has worked with notable companies such as Strut & Fret, Broad Encounters, Slingsby Theatre, and Marvel Studios. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama (Distinction) from the Queensland University of Technology and has further studied with La Boite, NIDA, ImproQueensland, Queensland Theatre, Melbourne Actors LAB, Drama Centre London (UK), Locomotive (NZ), and Laugh Masters Academy (Chicago).
After performing in the season extension Melbourne premiere, Gabby will return to the world of When Night Comes in the role of Nerfertum.
Hannah Raven
Hannah Raven is an actor and burlesque artist based in Sydney. Hannah has worked extensively with Broad Encounters, notably as Ligeia/The Nurse in A Midnight Visit, including the premiere season of the work in Sydney and the record-breaking seven month season in Brisbane.
She is a graduate of the Actors Centre Australia. After graduating she was cast in the title role of the Australian feature film, Zoe Misplaced, and then went on to work on Channel 7's City Homicide. She then worked with Red Line Productions at The Old Fitz Theatre, where she played the role of Phoebe in The Judas Kiss, directed by Iain Sinclair, and Pomona in Metamorphoses directed by Dino Dimitriadis, which was nominated for Best Independent Production at the 2019 Sydney Theatre Awards.
More recently she played the role of Touchstone in As You Like It with Queensland Theatre Company, directed by Damien Ryan. Her other credits include Ligeia in A Midnight Visit with Broad Encounters, Rosencrantz in Ophelia Thinks Harder with KXT Theatre, Dio in Not Now Not Ever with Belvoir 25A, Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby with Viral Ventures Theatre Company and Touchstone in As You Like It with Sport For Jove Theatre Company. Hannah is also the creative director of Raven Productions Australia. In 2022 their production of The Grotesque and Arabesque won the Edgar Allan Poe Saturday Visitor Award. She was then invited to Baltimore as a special guest performer at the 2024 International Edgar Allan Poe Festival. Hannah is also a resident performer at The Talk and Tease Burlesque Show in Potts Point. In 2017 she won the national title of Miss Burlesque Idol Australia.
Hannah will take on the shape-shifting and alluring role of Thea.
Meg Hickey
Meg Hickey is a songstress, musician and dancer who values a whole-hearted expression of authenticity in her performance art, from soft sensual storytelling to grotesque comedic charm. Landing naively on the cabaret stage touring the satirical #firstworldwhitegirls: Botox Party! “a dynamic duo that never missed a beat” Meg continued exploring the cabaret scene bringing her polished musical theatre training to the dynamic art of cabaret and burlesque. She regularly performs as a resident artist at Speakeasy Theatre Melbourne, debuted magic aboard cruise ship Pacific Explorer in The Purple Rabbit (Strut’n’Fret) and delighted in multiple immersive theatre productions by Broad Encounters, being described as “hypnotic to watch”. She looks forward to what When Night Comes will bring to audiences and to her own creative expansion.
Meg delighted audiences in the 2024 Melbourne season of When Night Comes, and will reprise her role of 'Euterpe' in the Sydney season.
Andrew Waldin
Andrew Waldin is a Sydney Theatre Award‑nominated actor (Best Newcomer, 2022), musical theatre performer, and vocal/movement coach with a rich background spanning stage, screen, and community arts.
His performance credits include MARVELous the Show (Action Reaction Entertainment), Shrek Rave AUS/NZ Tour (Like It Love It Productions). The Front Page (New Theatre), Shrek (Stella Maris), Loot (New Theatre), Nice Work If You Can Get It (Michelle Guthrie Presents), Gloom (Bloom Productions), Arcadia (Adam Cook), Hamlet (Anthony Skuse), and Woolworths Carols in the Domain (Seven Network). MARVELous toured Australia in 2025 and is set to tour the U.S. in 2026. Andrew also works in the commercial Music industry under the stage name MUDDY. and is set to release his debut album in late 2025.
Andrew trained at NIDA (Diploma of Musical Theatre) and ACA (Bachelor of Performing Arts), and began his performance journey as a chorister at St Andrew’s Cathedral School. His directing and musical direction work includes productions across Sydney schools such as Redlands and Arden Anglican School.
Andrew will be performing as the charming, yet mercurial, Master of Ceremonies, Bromius.
Cyrus Henry
Cyrus Henry is a multidisciplinary Māori–Filipino performer working across screen, stage, and movement. Based in Sydney and deeply rooted in his heritage (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tukairangi), he brings emotional depth and powerful physicality to every role.
Recent credits include Māori Battalion – Rutene Renata Live Action Role (Auckland Museum), Minecraft (motion capture, dir. Jared Hess), Chief of War (Apple TV+, stunt performer, dir. Justin Chon), and Ka Whawhai Tonu (Tūhoe warrior, dir. Mike Jonathan). His most recent live performance work includes immersive dance-theatre productions aboard Virgin Voyages (Another Rose, UDSPT), followed by Carmen with Opera Australia on Sydney Harbour (choreographed by Kelley Abbey), and an international tour with the acclaimed Black Grace Dance Company.
Cyrus trained at The Actors’ Program (NZ, 2024) and Brent Street Studios (AU, 2014), with a background in acting, contemporary dance, Latin styles, and physical theatre. Drawn to work that fuses movement, culture, and narrative, Cyrus brings a grounded yet expansive energy to every performance.
Cyrus will be taking on the role of the primal and playful, Pan.
Praise for Broad Encounters
...This second work by Broad Encounters truly cements the company’s reputation as the leading creator of exciting and thoroughly immersive theatre in Australia right now” ARTSHUB on Love Lust Lost
“It [Love Lust Lost] cements Broad Encounters as a company at the forefront of immersive theatre in Australia and one of the companies in the field to watch internationally." NOTHING EVER HAPPENS IN BRISBANE on Love Lust Lost
“The entire performance is a masterfully crafted experience and one that will leave you grinning from ear to ear.” ABSOLUTE THEATRE on Maho Magic Bar
"Re-defining the immersive experience by creating a truly all-encompassing world" – AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW on A Midnight Visit
“A sure hit… As an homage to Poe, you couldn’t ask for more” THE AGE on A Midnight Visit
“Love Lust Lost is not just a performance; it is an experiential marvel, a multi-tonal and multi-sensory odyssey that has to be experienced to be believed.” DANCELIFE on Love Lust Lost
"A remarkable achievement” – TIME OUT SYDNEY on A Midnight Visit
"A delight to all the senses" THEATRE PEOPLE on A Midnight Visit
"combines humour, music and physical theatre into a manic, eclectic and visually intriguing universe, reminiscent of Tim Burton" ARTSHUB on A Midnight Visit