About

THEATRE PRODUCER

Maryann has a number of musicals in development: 

Echolocation is a two-hander musical in the dark with a blind protagonist. The show is being developed for both accessible audio and live stage formats, and is currently in R&D at Theatre Royal Plymouth thanks to Arts Council England funding. Winner of the 2025 Stiles + Drewe Mentorship Award.

Jack is a five-hander spoken word musical by Lauryn Redding based on the life and loves of Anne Lister, aka Gentleman Jack – England’s OG lesbian lothario – told through the eyes and hearts of the five pivotal women in her life and their unrelenting love for the gender queer Yorkshire diarist. First draft being completed for an Autumn table read, seeking early stage development support.

Second Coming (formerly known as Dreamsong) is a new Australian musical about an evangelical megachurch who stage the second coming of Christ, with two writer workshops funded by Kindred Partners (2024) and an industry sharing in June 2025 funded by Georgie Black at House of Oz. 

Maryann and Sam Hooper co-commissioned a new play We Interrupt Your Regular Scheduled Programming by Liam Maguire, an absurdist comedy about a wannabe TV presenter and her encounters with the extraterrestrial, for premiere in the UK in 2026.

Paper Stars is a whimsical new musical about P.L. Travers’ adventures in London while she wrote children’s classic, Mary Poppins, currently being pitched for UK development. 

The Hatpin (revival) is as an all-female, all-Australian chamber musical about the criminal case of baby farming that inspired Australia’s first foster laws, co-developed with Grace Taylor. Development history: first workshop at the Royal Academy of Music (2023), second workshop at Australian High Commission UK (2024) supported by Arts Council England funding.

Maryann is the development producer of the musical adaptation of hit fantasy novel, Good Omens, for a premiere in Australia, but the project is currently on hiatus following Neil Gaiman allegations.

Maryann consults as a development producer (nurturing ideas to pitch stage, drafting pitch decks, crafting development strategies, making introductions to venues) and dramaturg (with a special focus on structural story development) on a freelance basis. 

She is a recipient of the 2024 Autumn Stage One Producers Bursary, 2023 and 2025 Beam Showcase Bursary, and has completed various Stage One Workshops. She is a member of the League of Independent Producers, and is a proud trustee of the UK charity FANZA, which promotes and supports Australian and NZ artists in the UK.

Maryann is in beta stages assembling an Australia New Musical Development Fund that will nurture and workshop new Australian musicals, and offer them pathways to development in Australia and internationally.

Previous productions include:

Co-producer of Ushers: The Front of House Musical with James Steel Productions at The Other Palace in 2024.

Australians in the West End concert premiering new Australian musical work at Australia House, for the Australian High Commission in the UK in 2024. This concert, produced alongside Grace Taylor, offered an important diplomatic opportunity to platform Australian cultural excellence in the UK.

Co-producer of Death Suits You at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which won the Spirit of The Fringe award. 

Cabaret series Aussies Up Over – Australian Musical Theatre Stars in Concert at the Phoenix Arts Club in 2022 to support Australian artists in the UK after the pandemic.

Maryann also produced COVID fundraiser, Until The Curtains Rise, with Estée Stimler in association with Acting For Others in the UK, working with celebrities including Helen Mirren, Miranda Hart, Michael Ball and Hannah Waddingham to raise money for vulnerable theatre artists during the pandemic.

Maryann is the producer and host of Palais Theatre Geelong’s Spotify podcast series ‘Behind The Musical Curtain’  to spotlight backstage creative careers in the musical theatre industry for Australians, alongside co-host Robert Tripolino.

In Australia, Maryann produced multiple plays with the independent theatre company she co-founded, Edgeware Forum, to platform young, diverse, Australian voices. Productions included the sell-out and critically-acclaimed Patricia Cornelius’ SLUT, which ran in the Old Fitz 2017 Season and was nominated for Best Ensemble at the Sydney Theatre Awards; Ella Hickson’s EIGHT at the Sydney Fringe Festival in 2015; and script development and workshop for new Australian play Contrite Spirit at Site and Sound Festival in 2016.

One of her proudest achievements to date, Maryann co-founded Australian gender equality collective for women in the arts, Women in Theatre and Screen (WITS) in 2015. She produced Think Tank events at Belvoir, Carriageworks and the Seymour Centre focusing on empowering female theatre and film creatives through panel discussions and workshops. In October 2016, she co-produced a weekend women’s theatre festival, Festival Fatale and programmed over 10 new Australian works written by women to sell-out crowds at Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Maryann was a finalist in the 2017 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in the Not-For-Profit category as a result of her work with WITS.

Maryann has also enjoyed careers outside of producing theatre. 

LGBTQ+ LEADERSHIP

In January 2021, Maryann launched the community-interest-company Sappho Events to produce safe, sober and social events for LGBTQ+ women, trans and non-binary people in the UK. She was nominated for Diva Award’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 for her leadership in the LGBTQ+ sector in the UK, and has been profiled by international titles including Vogue, Huffington Post, Metro. Additionally, Maryann is an LGBTQIA+ commentator for The Daily Express, where she writes opinion pieces on issues affecting the LGBTQIA+ community.

Other advocacy work in the UK has seen her craft Diva Magazine’s #thisisme creative marketing campaign as part of their inaugural Lesbian Visibility Week in 2020. She is an Ambassador for Inclusive Minds where she consults on LGBTQ+ representation for leading children’s publishers including Penguin, Macmillan, and independents.

PUBLICIST

Maryann has a background in journalism (BA Media Communications from the University of Sydney, full Arts merit scholar and graduated with distinction, receiving a 2012 Academic Prize) and worked as an arts reporter for news.com.au before carving out out a niche in Arts publicity. She has consulted for Amanda Buckworth (AB Publicity) and Bruce Pollack (Pollack Consulting) for over ten years, managing publicity for some of Australia’s biggest musicals and concerts, under her own boutique PR agency, The Wright Publicity. In London, Maryann managed the PR for some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names alongside issue-led communications for leading UK charities at BLJ London, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group, Sir Howard Panter and Dame Rosemary Squire at Trafalgar Entertainment, The Prince’s Teaching Institute (with patronage from HRH His Majesty the King), ACAMAR Films (Bing TV series creator Mikael Shields), Halcyon Art Gallery (including Bob Dylan and Lorenzo Quinn international exhibitions during Miami Art Basel and Venice Biennale), Modern Art Museum Shanghai (launch), and Centrepoint youth homelessness charity (for CEO Seyi Obakin, with patronage from HRH Prince William). She now freelances for a number of entertainment clients, including Mobius, MMGY Global, and consults as a theatre publicist for off-West End theatre productions and UK tours.

EX-PERFORMER

In the realm of performance, Maryann graduated with a Master of Arts (Performance, Musical Theatre) from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2018, and was awarded the Equity Atlantic Scholarship to study at the Atlantic Acting School in New York in 2016. She was on THE VOICE AUSTRALIA where she made the Top 8 of Team Delta. She also starred in the TV pilot SUBJECT TO CHANGE, the first Australian teen drama with LGBT characters in lead roles. Other performance credits include Patricia Cornelius’ SLUT at the Eternity Playhouse, nominated for a 2016 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Ensemble, MALICE IN WONDERLAND her one-woman cabaret about the life of Hedda Hopper at Merrigong Theatre Company, CONVICT ESCAPADES for Sydney Living Museums, a workshop production of new musical GOOD OMENS at the Hayes Theatre, an all-female production of THE LITTLE MERMAID at ATYP for Midnight Theatre, THE AUROBINDO PROJECT for Merrigong Theatre Company, the world premiere of Australian musical HEART OF A DOG at Canberra’s Street Theatre, Squabbalogic’s critically acclaimed Australian Premiere of CARRIE, and events across Australia singing the Australian National Anthem. Maryann was a semi-finalist in the 2013 Rob Guest Endowment Award and a grand finalist in the 2012 Australian Cabaret Showcase. She previously completed NIDA’s Advanced Actors Studio, was part of the Young Actor’s Ensemble at the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), and studied voice with Jeremy Powell for many years. To learn more about Maryann’s work as an actor/singer and watch her perform, click here.

WRITER

Maryann loves writing in her spare time, and her first children’s book was published by Oxford University Press in March 2024, followed by a second book in January 2025. She still enjoys using her background as a journalist to write travel features as a freelance travel writer for The Independent UK and other travel publications. To read more of Maryann’s work as a journalist, click here.