Musical Director, Guitar, Keyboard 2

After completing a music degree at the Sydney Conservatorium, John became one of the busiest and most successful Musical Directors in his native Australia. He was MD of RENT, The Rocky Horror Show (8 productions, so far…), Return To The Forbidden Planet, Oh! What A Night, The Complete Millennium Musical, Chair In the Landscape, Lipstick Dreams, Songs From Side Show Alley, Pizza Live On Stage, Who Let The Wogs Out?, Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls, Virtual Unreality, Ricordi, and many others.

Since moving to London in 2002, John has been MD of Dancing In The Streets (West End, European Tour and UK tour), Hedwig And The Angry Inch, The Next Big Thing, Departure Lounge, Grease, RENT (again!), Rocky Horror (again!!), Jesus Christ Superstar (Scandinavia), What A Swell Party (Cyprus) and on the cult hit Dude, Where’s My Teddy? (Wimbledon and Edinburgh). John was one of the regular conductors of the Queen musical We Will Rock You in London for several years. Other work in the UK and Europe includes Godspell, Fame and Evita (Lebanon), as well as numerous concerts. He has played keyboards and guitar with The Guild Of Thieves (13 piece soul band) and was the guitarist for some time with legendary band The Drifters. In 2008, John was the MD of the Dream On concert at the London Palladium, and has just finished as MD of the world premiere season of Can’t Smile Without You.

John also composes music for stage and film. He worked for many years with Australia’s national Shakespeare Company, Bell Shakespeare. A particular highlight was his score for Steven Berkoff’s acclaimed production of Coriolanus. Other scores for Bell included Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. John also appeared as a live musician in Bell’s productions of Twelfth Night and Pericles. Other music for theatre includes Death And Taxes (by Andrew Upton), Ashes To Ashes (with Toni Collette), Paradise, Animalia, Telling Tales, Then The Mountain Comes, Faust’s House, Eat Cake, Jingle Belrose, and the ballet scores Of Dust And Men and Thermoplyae Revisited.

John arranged and conducted the strings for the animated feature film Snow White: The Sequel (narrated by Stephen Fry). He has composed music for many short films, including Jacko, The Bill, Putting Kids First, The Other Half, Trattoria Paradiso, ’98, and Love, Mickey.

John also works as a director. His credits in Australia include Miracle City, Angry Penguins, Up The Shops, Meet You At The Mona Lisa and Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls. In the UK and Europe he has directed Jesus Christ Superstar, Departure Lounge (twice), Hedwig And The Angry Inch (twice), and Unzipped – The Ultimate Package Musical. He recently directed a wonderful new musical with the eye-popping title Everything’s F**ked.

John has been the Musical Supervisor and Musical Director of Thriller Live throughout all of its UK and European tours, and he is delighted to be here for its inaugural West End season.