Headshot for Cate Clelland

Cate Clelland

Dr Cate Clelland has been a Canberra-based theatre practitioner for many years, working with several theatre companies mainly as director and/or designer. Cate likes to be involved in theatre that has what she likes to call ‘substance’. She loves both directing and designing. The thing she most loves (and finds most scary) about set designing is the process which takes one from an idea to a sketch, and then to a full-sized 3-dimensional structure – a kind of magic really. She is interested in working on both plays and musicals. 

Her most recent theatre involvement in plays has been directing/designing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Sense and Sensibility for REP, and directing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Speaking in Tongues (2023 Ovation Award for Outstanding Production) and August: Osage County (2024) for Free-Rain.

Cate’s involvement in musicals goes back to the 1990s when she directed Hot Mikado for Canberra Philharmonic (CAT Award for Best Director of a Musical) and designed costumes for REP’s 1999 Old Time Music Hall (Cat Award for Best Costume Designer for a Musical). 

For Free-Rain she has directed/designed Cats! (at the ANU Arts Centre) and Les Misérables (at The Q). She designed Guys and Dolls (at The Q), The Phantom of the Opera and The Little Mermaid (both at Canberra Theatre), and Kinky Boots, My Fair Lady and Billy Elliot (2024) (all at The Q).

Productions