Margaret Thanos
Margaret Thanos is a Cypriot-Australian director and the Andrew Cameron Fellow (Artist in Residence) at Belvoir Street Theatre. A prolific force in Australian theatre, her 2026 season includes directing The River (STC) and A Mirror (Belvoir). Her portfolio features acclaimed, sell-out seasons of I Hate People; Or Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove), Posh (The Old Fitz), Furious Mattress (25A), and the Australian premiere of A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre).
A recipient of the Sandra Bates Director’s Award, Margaret has assisted on landmark productions including August: Osage County, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Well Behaved Women (Belvoir), as well as Benefactors and Mr Bailey’s Minder (Ensemble). She is the founder of arts-activism company Queen Hades Productions and a prominent advocate for gender equality and climate awareness with Plan International. Her debut short film, Life Beyond Christine, won Best Short at the Change the Script Film Festival.

There is something very concerning happening in our world right now.

Well, actually a lot of things.

But there’s one thing that keeps me lying awake at night, worrying for where we are going and what the point of anything is.

It’s what happens to young women and their bodies in times of conflict.

I don’t really know how to handle some of the atrocities that I see being committed when I turn on the news (or really, go on instagram) and see India, the US, Gaza, Ukraine and even here in Australia.

This isn’t to say that the conflicts in each of these places are entirely or solely gender-based. But in times of war women and children are disproportionately affected. We’re not the ones causing conflict (mostly) but we are the ones suffering from it.

How can we allow this? And yet, how can we do anything about it?

I only really want to do political work these days. And whilst yes…every act of making theatre is an inherently political act – there has been somethng about making a work exploring protest with a group of young people on the precipice on their journey that is truly special. Here we are, collectively the next generation of theatremakers, designers, and actors in Australia and we get to talk about the things that make our blood boil.

We do not want to take the reins on a world that is violent, cruel and full of injustice. But standing in the muck might be the only way out. And I believe that this group of young people in this show understand my feelings on that, and believe in it too.

Elinor wrote this play before Black Lives Matter, before MeToo, before the climate crisis began to truly rear its head and before COVID addicted us all to our phones. She was entirely on the money. How do we activate from a distance? Are we actually brave enough?

When I was a full-time activist, I used to spend my life trying to increase awareness around certain issues. I miss it sometimes, but it can be a dangerous and terrifying practice. This show tries to grapple with that – would you really die for anything? And do our protests actually make any difference?

I think they do. I really really think they do.

If you leave thinking about anything, any issue – just go and spend five minutes learning about something going on in this world. The worst thing you can do in a world of misinformation and disinformation is to be ignorant. Get educated, it does make a difference.

Thank you to the army of people that made some of my wackiest ideas come true for this one.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jnr

– Margaret Thanos

To be advised.

Subject to change during the development of a production.

Please note: as part of this production, audience members may be filmed on live camera during the performance, with footage mixed in real time into the show’s projected visuals. This is a live process only — no recording of the audience is retained, except where the performance itself is being recorded for archival purposes.