Director – Lis Shelley

StageFlight Director & Tutor – Lis Shelley
BArts, Grad Dip (InfoSys), Cert IV Training & Assessment

Lis is a director, producer, filmmaker, editor, designer, actor and tutor.

She founded Stageflight in 2012 as an events management, film making and drama/film school business.

In 2009 she co-founded Footprint Theatre, a touring theatre company in South East NSW.

Lis has written, directed and performed in plays for the Canberra and Illawarra Short+Sweet Short Play Festivals, StageFlight, Footprint Theatre and Spectrum Theatre. She was Festival Coordinator for the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Merimbula 2013.

As a theatre actor Lis has appeared with the Dietikon English Players, Footprint Theatre, Theatre Onset and Short+Sweet as well as street theatre for the Cobargo Folk Festival, Moruya River of Art Festival, Candelo Village Festival, Eden Whale Festival and Bega Valley Festival, fundraising events (Mumbulla Foundation, Relay for Life) and South East Arts events.

She is Co-Founder of Far South Film Inc, an association of screen creatives in the South East Region, and has been Director of the Far South Film Festival since 2020.

Lis has taught theatre and film workshops for children, adults with a disability and Workability. She taught drama, digital animation, puppetry and musical theatre for Pambula Public School Creative Arts Days, improvised theatre at Bermagui Public School  and improvised theatre and puppet making at Cobargo Folk Festival. She coordinated and tutored at all of Footprint Theatre’s school holiday Film and Drama Schools. She has taught theatre games in German to secondary students studying German as a second language, and film making to young film makers in the Bega Valley and Snowy-Monaro. She also tutors individual students in audition techniques and public speaking.

She directed and produced StageFlight’s performances of Arlecchino and the City of Love, Treasure Island and Wonderland.

As a performer, has Lis appeared in theatre productions for Footprint Theatre touring shows including Creche & Burn, Ruby Moon and The Dog Logs, the National Year of Reading celebrations, made regular appearances as ‘Sgt Mike Angelo’ with Footprint’s street theatre troupe The Art Police from 2009 to 2013 and perfomed in Footprint’s One Night Stand Impro Shows over several years. She performed with Theatre Onset in Steel Magnolias, Bombshells and Shakespeare’s Star Wars.

Lis works with other arts and community groups and has collaborated and performed in street theatre performances for the Cobargo Folk Festival, Moruya River of Art Festival, Candelo Village Festival, Eden Whale Festival and Bega Valley Festival as well as fundraising events (Mumbulla Foundation, Relay for Life) and South East Arts events. Lis has run theatre workshops for adults with a disability and Workability. Lis mentored Borderliners in Delegate for their community theatre projectin 2016  and was the Event Manager for the Eden Marine High Outdoor Movie Nights.

Lis designed the lighting for Patrick Dickson’s Victor Ego or The Brainstorm for O’Punsky’s Theatre which premiered at The Murrah in 2018 and for Footprint Theatre’s Ruby Moon and Back To the Old Selection. She also designed the sound for most of Footprint Theatre’s productions.

Following a mentorship with the South East Arts Expand Program, Lis worked on a concept for a site-specific theatre experience on the Far South Coast.

In 2015 Lis made the short film Perfect Cuppa and her documentary Connecting with the Earth about dancer Veronica Valderrama was broadcast on ABC TV and Radio, winning Best Film – Documentary at the 2016 Tanja Trop Fest. She also made a documentary called Dairy Queen with Hiromi Matsuoka, which screened in 2019. Lis also worked as a Script Supervisor on Lost by Warren Foster Sr and Jane Gordon.

Lis is also the Founding Director of web design, consulting & IT training company Nullarbor Consulting Pty Ltd.

Lis holds current First Aid and Working With Children certificates.