Upcoming Workshops

Julian Curtis is a NIDA graduate best-known for playing the lead villain in the US limited series Are You Afraid of the Dark: Ghost Island which scored an Emmy nomination. He can currently be seen in a limited cinema release in All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane, and will next appear in Hershey, directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls). In 2026, he toured with Afterglow for New York theatre company Midnight Theatricals, filmed the mini-series White Collar, and is poised to return to the stage for Playlab in Wild Abandon. He is a Matilda Award winner for his performance as Austin in True West, directed by Marcel Dorney.

Julian is highly detail-focused and will push you to go further and deeper in your work. His coaching is rigorous, intended to make you a more present, exciting and precise storyteller. He has worked with MEAA, QUT, NIDA and AAFTA, and has private clients across both Australia and the USA. He was awarded as a scholarship recipient by the Australian American Association in 2025.

Ben Young is an award-winning writer and director who began his career in front of the camera at the age of 12. After completing a BA at Curtin University in 2003 and an MA at the WA Screen Academy in 2005, he went on to direct music videos, commercials, fashion films, and television drama.

His feature debut, Hounds of Love (2016), won numerous awards worldwide, including at the Venice Film Festival. His second feature, Extinction (2018), starring Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan, premiered on Netflix. He later directed two episodes of Netflix’s Clickbait (2020) and the season finale of Amazon’s The Wilds (2021). That same year, he helmed the feature Devil’s Peak, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Robin Wright, Jackie Earle Haley, and Hopper Penn, which reached number three on Hulu’s most popular films list in the US.

In 2023, Young directed four episodes of Population 11 for Stan and three episodes of The Twelve for Foxtel. In 2024, he directed the full season of Scrublands: Silver for Stan. Most recently, in 2025, he directed the first two episodes of season two of The Artful Dodger for Disney+ and four episodes of Run for Binge, where he also serves as executive producer. In 2026 he co-wrote the feature script Mister Yummy based off Stephen Kings short story, which is also attached to direct.

Kriv Stenders is one of Australia’s most renowned, respected and prolific film directors, with numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning shorts, documentaries, music videos, television commercials, television series and feature films to his credit.

His fifth feature, RED DOG, released by Roadshow in August 2011, earned over $22 million at the box office, making it the eighth-highest-grossing Australian film of all time. It has also become the highest-selling Australian DVD of all time. RED DOG won both Best Director and Best Film at the 2011 IF Awards and Best Film at the inaugural 2012 AACTA Awards. In 2015, he directed RED DOG: TRUE BLUE, the sequel to RED DOG, which was released by Roadshow on Boxing Day 2016 and went on to earn more than $7 million at the local box office.

In 2018, Kriv shot the Vietnam War epic DANGER CLOSE: THE BATTLE OF LONG TAN, starring Travis Fimmel, which was released theatrically across Australia through Transmission Films in 2019. In 2020, he completed production on two feature documentaries, BROCK: OVER THE TOP and SLIM & I, which were released theatrically through Universal Pictures. Both received AACTA Best Feature Documentary nominations. In 2022, Kriv directed four episodes of BUMP Season 3 and the final three episodes of the Disney+ series LAST DAYS OF THE SPACE AGE. In 2023, Kriv completed production on the comedy series MOTHER & SON and the three-part documentary series THE BLACK HAND, with Anthony LaPaglia, for ABC TV. His most recent television production, NCIS: SYDNEY for Paramount+, launched in both Australia and the U.S. in 2024 and became one of the highest-rating television shows in the U.S. that year.

In 2024, he completed his tenth feature film, THE CORRESPONDENT, starring Richard Roxburgh. The film opened the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival and was released nationally through Maslow Entertainment to widespread critical acclaim in 2025. His latest Kennedy Award-winning feature documentary, JOH: LAST KING OF QUEENSLAND, premiered at the 2025 Sydney Film Festival and is now streaming on Stan.

She started at seventeen, answering the phones at A Country Practice. By twenty-five she had opened her own casting department, the youngest casting director in the country. By twenty-nine she had cast Cate Blanchett in Heartland, Simon Baker in E Street, and Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill in Frontier. The pattern was set early. Find the person before the rest of the room does, and trust the room to follow.

She founded Toni Higginbotham Casting in Woollahra a little over twenty-five years ago. The practice now operates from Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, and the same instinct still shapes every brief that crosses her desk.

Apple. Pepsi. Samsung. Mastercard. Qantas. CommBank. AAMI. AVIS. Nissan. OPSM. G.H. Mumm. Catch. Great Northern. MilkLab. BlueBet. Sydney Water. Australian Tourism. The brand list is long, and Toni has cast for most of them more than once

Among these, two campaigns stand out. Apple’s First Dance, a marriage equality film of real couples shot entirely on iPhone, made the week the country voted yes. AndThe Regulars for Victoria Bitter. Toni worked with Droga5 Sydney on the first campaign in Australian history to win a Gold Pencil for Casting.

The film and television work runs alongside it. Netflix’s Sweet River. Cruel Hands, out this year. As well as a feature in pre-production between Sydney and Los Angeles.

Recognition has come from Cannes, AWARD, Clio and Caxton.

Actors attending this workshops understand that the presence of a Casting Director is not a guarantee or promise of employment. All actors should further understand that the intent of this class is solely educational and not a form of job interview or audition.