About

Elsie Edgerton-Till is a theatre and opera director.

Her extensive theatre experience includes professional directing engagements for Sydney Conservatorium of Music, New Zealand Playhouse, Sydney Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre Company, National Institute of Dramatic Arts, The Court Theatre, World Busker’s Festival, The Forge and the New Theatre. As assistant director, she has worked for Sydney Theatre Company, Opera Australia, Melbourne Theatre Company, Auckland Theatre Company and Sydney Chamber Opera.

In 2019 she was awarded a Glorias Fellowship to travel to Washington, DC and observe with internationally renowned director Francesca Zambello. In 2018, she was selected as​ ​a finalist for the Dutch National Touring Opera Challenge​ for Eugene Onegin, designed by Isabella Andronos.​ ​

This year she will direct The Nutcracker for the Australian Chamber Orchestra as well as Molière’s The Hypochondriac for Loreto Kirribilli.

Recent credits include the premier production of Kit Brookman's The Plant  [The Ensemble Theatre] for which she received a 2017 Broadway World Australia nomination for Best Director, the Australian premier of Kate Tempest's Wasted [The King's Collective], the premiere production of Wonderbabe for NORPA and The Byron Bay Writer's Festival, Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera, La Calisto and The Fairy Queen [Sydney Conservatorium of Music], The Last Five Years  [The Ensemble Theatre], a rehearsed reading of David Williamson's The Removalists [Sydney Theatre Company], a national tour of Phone A Friend [New Zealand Playhouse], Moira MacKenzie’s Wheel of Fortune [The World Busker’s Festival], The Removalists, Boys, Rausch, The Red Shoes  [National Institute of Dramatic Arts], Book of Days [The New Theatre], Puff the Magic Dragon, The Great Piratical Rumbustification, Antarctic Adventure, Goldilocks, The Elves and the Shoemaker, [The Court Theatre], A Midsummer Night’s Dream [The Canterbury Young Shakespeare Company], Punk Rock [International Screen Academy]. She has worked in Australia and Aotearoa as a script assessor and a dramaturge on new work. In 2014 she was an affiliate director with Griffin Theatre.

In her time spent working in professional theatre as an actor, Elsie has appeared widely in productions of new New Zealand works, contemporary comedy, musicals, and classics. Career highlights include The Seagull, Under Milk Wood, Cabaret, The Female of the Species, The Country Wife [The Court Theatre], POE  [The Forge], A Midsummer Night’s Dream [The Christchurch Arts Festival]. For many years she was a member of The Court Theatre’s ‘Court Jesters’, the longest-running professional improvisational theatre troupe in Australasia. 

Elsie is a graduate of the post-graduate programme in directing at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts [NIDA] and holds a BA in English Literature and History from The University of Canterbury. 

She lectures on NIDA's Masters and BFA programmes and works as a communication specialist for NIDA Corporate.