About us
Art that won't stay quiet.
We believe art
that tells the truth
can change how
people hold their
own suffering.
This belief has driven every decision our founder and artistic director, Michelle St Anne has made across 25 years of original work. It is what we return to when we are unsure what to do next.
For 25 years, The Living Room Theatre existed without a fixed address. Founded in Michelle’s living room in 2000 — born from disaffection with the prevailing scene— it remained deliberately, defiantly nomadic. Twenty-eight original works emerged through residencies, borrowed spaces, and sheer force of will.
That era did not end because it failed. It ended because it was complete.
The acquisition of 21 Shepherd marks the next form of The Living Room Theatre. Not a reinvention — a maturation. The work, the values, the refusal to look away remain unchanged. What changes is this: for the first time, the body of the organisation matches the body of the work. Permanent. Present. Rooted.
21 Shepherd is not a venue. It is a place. It is proof that this kind of art deserves a home, and that the community it has gathered for 25 years finally has somewhere to return to.
Michelle St Anne
Founder, Artistic Director & CEO
“Our work is tough. Artistic honesty — I think that is the core of what we offer.”
As the Founder and Artistic Director of The Living Room Theatre since 2000, St Anne has produced, directed, and performed in 28 original works.
A deeply respected and rare theatrical artist, she is renowned for her immersive and intimate performances that offer profound audience experiences through symbolic and sensory-driven storytelling. Her work engages with site-specific architecture, audience movement, and embodied participation, using elements such as lighting, scent, sound, and temperature to shift perceptions of violence and the female body, leaving a lasting impact long after the performance ends.
A world where women return home safe.
Where harm is no longer lived as inheritance in the body.
Where artists are valued as deeply as any profession that shapes society — because they do shape it.
We hold a vision where the rigour of thinking and the power of feeling meet —
and together, create a culture in which women are heard, protected, and free from violence
and the weight of lived trauma.
Our Mission
We provide artists with a home for collaboration, vulnerability, and growth.
Through artistic and scholarly research, we examine how violence and trauma persist in relation to the female body. From this, we develop and present work that is embodied, rigorous, and unafraid — work that moves audiences and emboldens change.
Our Purpose
To reveal and confront how violence and trauma are embedded within systems of inequality and injustice.
To make space for empathy, dignity, and transformation —
so that what has been silenced can be seen, felt, and ultimately shifted.
Our Platform
Our work explores how the affective body is shaped — physically, socially, and psychologically — in relation to site, objects, and the emotional weight they carry.
Through nonlinear, multi-sensory experiences, we access feelings of joy, love, beauty, and rage—both in artists and audiences—to transcend shame.
We DEFY genre, disciplinary boundaries and audience expectations by being AUDACIOUS and COURAGEOUS. Expanding the theatre cannon to offer space to create new and diverse work.
COLLABORATION as a process to challenge how we learn.
To act with INTEGRITY by creating with emotional honesty and always being accountable to artists, audiences and the community.
We build intimate CONNECTIONS by shattering the space between audience/performer and the narrative itself.
We value the impact and logic of the non-linear and multi-sensory.
THE COMMITTEE
The Living Room Theatre is led by a Board of Directors who contribute a diverse range of skills, experience, and interests for ensuring the efficient, effective and accountable governance of The Living Room Theatre.
Vanessa Dumbrell
CHAIR
Anita Baccam
DEPUTY CHAIR
David Turner
SECRETARY (+ Interim Treasurer)
Billy Cotsis
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The Living Room Theatre is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) and endorsed as a deductible gift recipient (DGR 1).
Donations to The Living Room Theatre are tax-deductible.
21 Shepherd St, Marrickville NSW 2203
The Living Room Theatre (LRT) was born back in 2000 with the frustration of the prevailing arts scene. Dissatisfied with the sector’s expectation of the stories that imbued St Anne’s body, LRT soon became a home for her unique voice and methodology that she has pioneered for over twenty years.
Through LRT, St Anne’s early works explored personal trauma which developed into the investigation of violence within homes, landscapes, and systems where she pioneered the artistic pedagogy ‘composing self’. Composing self is an embodied approach to collaboration that prioritises constructing safe and self-determined spaces where artists can take risks, extend their practice and reckon with their own methodologies with care and comfort. Justice or rather injustice underpins LRT’s work as St Anne and her diverse collaborators forge new ways, give voice to the vulnerable and speak truth to power by shedding light on systemic patriarchal structures.
LRT draws on the principles of ‘Composed Theatre’ (methodology coined by David Roesner and Matthias Rebstock) where theatrical stage and its elements are approached as ‘musical’ material. Extensive development stages, focus on sensorial, and putting the emphasis on collaboration across disciplines are the usual staples of the LRT productions.
“My work is not about the straight narrative, nor the theatrical arc but rather what is heart driven, illogical with the narrative meted out through image, light, sound and language.” – Michelle St Anne.
Over the last decade LRT has forged partners with international scholars who are fascinated in our approach and aesthetic that has filtered into their publications.
With sell-out shows and high audience engagement, LRT produces ambitious and powerful site-responsive performance. The organisation has a strong sense of integrity, artistic excellence, and innovation, and creates unexpected, poetic experiences that captivate audiences, unleash emotions, and give voice to the most vulnerable. LRT’s work strives to change systemic attitudes towards violence, trauma, and the female body by shifting audience perception, so these insights create small changes within themselves, community, and society.
As the journey continues, LRT remains committed to creating inclusive and experiential contemporary performance works that transcend time, explore space and frame images in hurt and abandoned spaces. We tell stories about women by women to support and develop female voices within the arts, cultural and academic sectors.
Chris Abrahms, Max Alduca, Laura Altman, Katherine Anderson, Brett Archer, Tom Avengenicos, Simon Barker, Marie-Louise Bethune, Caitlin Beresford-Ord, Monica Brian, Fausto Brusamolino, Eileen Camilleri, Romy Caen, Nick Calligeros, Hayley Chan, Chris Cody, Kathy Cogill, Renata Commisso, Holly Connor, Imogen Cranna, Rebecca Davis, Linda Dement, Jim Denley, Carl Dewhurst, Carolyn Divjak, Hilary Geddes, Sam Gill, Kate Gorman, Jo Elliott, Dave Ellis, Jacques Emery, Lawrence English, Nick Farnell, Peter Farrar, Kate Fenner, Ira Ferris, Cloe Fournier, Anca Frankenhaueser, Ryuichi Fujimura, Hinano Fujisaki, Will Hansen, Susannah Hardy, Nick Henderson, Julie Hudspeth, Niki Johnson, Alex Inman-Hisop, Liz Jiglin, Peter Keogh, Chloe Kim, Ellen Kirkwood, Natalia Ladyko, Emma Langridge, Lian Loke, Novak Manojlovic, Justin Martin, Susan Miller, Dan Mercer, Phillippa Murphy-Haste, Aarne Neeme, Alice Parkinson, Oscar Peterson, Laurence Pike, John Pollitt, Gabrielle Quinn, Mary Rapp, Jimi Rawlings, Daniel Raymond, Julie Samerski, Keir Saltmarsh, Pauline Sgambellone, Josh Spolc, Alexandra Spence, Alister Spence, Kim Sullivan, Lloyd Swanton, Clayton Thomas, Miles Thomas, Lauren Tsamouras, Alex Tucker, Sue-Jo Wright, Rochelle Whyte, Julie Vulcan