Silo 2026

It’s been a long time since I have done much theatre work – in fact it’s 15 years since my long stint with Sydney’s Griffin Theatre. But when Sophie Henderson reached out and asked me to help design this year’s Silo Theatre season I was immediately taken by the opportunity.

I’ve always felt that the problem with selling theatre is that photos of actors on stage are probably the worst possible communication of the theatrical experience imaginable. While functionally, yes, theatre is about watching actors on stage, in a more fundamental way it’s about being in a room with people who are all sharing an emotional experience, feeling a communal pull to empathy and insight. And that’s not really what most theatre promotion focuses on. I guess because it’s really hard. But we’ve got to at least try, right?

So my plan was to try to communicate the emotional connection and ignore the structural one (ie – people acting under harsh lights in dark auditoria). Fortunately the Silo team agreed and suggested an amazing photographer, Greta van der Star, who totally ran with the idea and made us all look good.

Previous designs for Silo had emphasised design for culture, occasionally to the detriment of individual plays, and I wanted to embrace the idea that each production needed an appropriate celebration of its own, trusting that the overall quality of the works and the existing Silo brand would do the cultural lifting. Early days but the initial response to the season launch was extremely encouraging.

2026 Brand ID

Playfight

A View from the Bridge

Constellations