Tony Briggs

Bio

Tony is a Yorta Yorta/ Wurundjeri creative who has who has worked across the entire industry as an Actor, Writer, Director and Producer.

Stage credits include: Macbeth, Black is the New White, Storm Boy, Which Way Home, Corranderk: We Will Show the Country, The Memory of Water, The Female of the Species, Jandamarra, Walkabout, Yanaga!! Yanaga!!, Fever, Enuff, K, Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, Scenes of the Beginning from the End, Crowfire, The Trail, The Torch, Harry’s War, Stolen, Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Corrugation Road, Up the Ladder, Burning Time, Not Just Bricks and Mortar and No Trouble.  Tony’s most recent theatre roles include Macbeth for Malthouse Theatre, and Black is the New White by Nakkiah Lui, which originated at The Sydney Theatre Company and then toured nationally across Australia.

Television roles are numerous and include Population 11, The Newsreader, The Twelve, Preppers, Fires, Rosehaven, Rake, Seven Types of Ambiguity, The Warriors, Cleverman, Ready for This, Nowhere Boys, Redfern Now, The Slap and Wentworth.  Other television roles include Hard Rock Medical, The Broken Shore, Howzat, Kerry Packer’s War, The Circuit, Stingers, All Aussie Adventures, Wicked Science, Eugenie Sandler PI, Comedy Company, The Genie from Down Under, Ocean Girl (37 episodes),Pacific Drive, Snowy River: the McGregor Saga, Blue Heelers, Ratbag Hero and a recurring role in Neighbours (18 episodes) in the late 1980s.

Film credits include most recently Force of Nature directed by Robert Connolly, as well as Healing, The Sapphires, Bran Nue Dae, Australian Rules, On the Nose, Gargantua, Joey and short films Ties that Bind us, The Oysterman, The Djarn Djarns, The Order, Everybody’s Business and The Life of Harry Dare.

Tony’s hit creation, The Sapphires, enjoyed sell-out seasons in 2004 & 2005 at the MTC and Belvoir, winning two Helpmann Awards for Best Play and Best New Australian Work. Other awards included a Deadly Lifetime Achievement Award and 2 AWGIE Awards for Most Outstanding Script. The screen version of The Sapphires premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and in 2013 took out Best Film and Best Feature Adaptation at the 2013 AACTA Awards, as well as 9 other AACTA Awards that year.  In 2019 The Sapphires underwent a national tour of Australia, with Tony directing his award- winning story for the first time.

As well as The Sapphires, in 2017, Tony created, executive produced and wrote the 8 part television series The Warriors for Arena Films and ABC in which he also played a supporting role. Tony produced Treaty Now? for Film Camp, directed by Nayuka Gorrie, as well as directing the short film Elders which was released at Sydney Film Festival 2019.  Tony is the Artistic Director of the Birraranga Film Festival. Held on the Kulin Nation in Naarm the successful festival was launched in 2019 and is dedicated to First Nations filmmakers from around the world.