Charley Allanah

Charley is a versatile arts leader and contemporary performance maker whose work spans creation, direction, writing, and performance. She serves as co-chair of the MEAA union's entertainment diversity committee and, with creator-choreographer Eliza Sanders, leads performance creation company House of Sand. Her work is guided by care-based creativity, advancing beyond DEAI to empower artists with true agency in storytelling.

Directorial credits include the trans-national multi-artform work That Was Friday, premiere productions of plays by Sarah Hamilton and Stephen Sewell, and Joanna Murray-Smith's Julia, which she helped guide through over 200 performances. As a performer, she recently understudied the lead in Sydney Theatre Company's Triple X and appeared in Five Women Wearing The Same Dress at ACT Hub.

Her playwright credits include Stable, long-listed for the 2024 Griffin Award, and the musical Must Go On (with composer Nick Delatovic), currently in development with Canberra Theatre Centre. Through her advocacy work with MEAA and independently, she works to ensure equitable treatment for all artists and arts workers, and to ensure queer and trans voices are heard and understood across the industry.