Penny is the CEO of Western Edge, where she was previously the company Co-Artistic Director and Associate Director.
She has an extensive body of work as a freelance director, actor, and youth arts facilitator, and also co-founded and is co-Artistic Director of the independent theatre company, She Said Theatre. She Said Theatre is committed to the inclusion and promotion of women and other underrepresented artists and since 2012 they have created and produced forty seasons across Australia and New Zealand of seven new works.
She has won a Green Room award (The Stream/The Boat/The Shore/ The Bridge); received a Barbara Manning Scholarship for Excellence and the Global Atelier Scholarship for Overseas Travel from the VCA; an Ian Potter Travel Grant; was selected to partake in Playwriting Australia’s inagural Director’s Studio, Melbourne Festival’s Director’s Lab and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Women in Theatre program; is a current recipient of the Betty Amsden Foundation Scholarship and directed the highly acclaimed production of HART through She Said Theatre which was nominated for a Green Room award and won multiple Melbourne Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, New Zealand Fringe and Blue Room (WA) awards.
Her passion for new writing, experimental performance and community development has taken her throughout Australia, Berlin, Seoul, the UK and New Zealand with companies and venues such as Footscray Community Arts, The Bowery Theatre, Wyndham Cultural Centre, the Substation, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Hothouse Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Red Stitch Actors Ensemble, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, the Seymour Centre, BATS (Wellington), Mullae Arts Space (Seoul), Platoon Kunsthalle (Berlin) and regional theatres and remote make-shift venues.
She hold a Bachelor of Arts (University of Queensland) and Graduate Diplomas in Arts Management (University of Melbourne) and Directing for Performance (Victoria College of the Arts).
