Glenn Elston OAM is the Artistic Director of the Australian Shakespeare Company. He pioneered outdoor theatre in Australia, a whole-family experience, which is now a thirty-year-long summer tradition.
Under Glenn’s direction the company has grown from a group of 12 in 1987 to the largest independent theatre company in Australia.
Glenn’s productions include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, Henry IV Pt 1, Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth and As You Like It. He has written and directed for the stage, The Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book – The Next Chapter, Toad’s Birthday Party, Caribbean Pirates at the Polly Woodside, Alice in Never Neverland, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and a Picnic with Cole Porter.
For the past 16 years, he has also co-presented Walking with Spirits, a celebration of the ancient Aboriginal tradition of Corroboree at Malkgulumbu (Beswick Falls) and produced two major tours through Northern Australia.
Glenn has produced and co-produced a variety of local, national and international shows including, The Sir George Martin in Concert, David Strassman, Hair – The Musical, Two Up with Wendy Stapleton and Glenn Shorrock, Julian Clary, Piaf, Torch Song Trilogy, and Barbara Cook.
Recently his production for children, Jungle Book The Concert Show, toured regional Australia as well as being performed at The Athenaeum Theatre in the 2010 and 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2010 Jungle Book The Concert Show also toured to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was during this time that Glenn also presented indigenous performer Noel Tovey’s Little Black Bastard at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival. The show received six five-star reviews.
In 2014 the Melbourne City Council presented Glenn with a Melbourne Award for Contribution to Melbourne’s Profile by an Individual
Since 2016, Glenn has been producing and directing in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Productions include The Wind in the Willows, Tinkerbell and The Dream Fairies, Godspell – The Musical and Alice in Wonderland.