John Harvey

John is a producer, director and writer working in theatre and film and has over two decades of working in the arts and community cultural development sector.

John is the former General Manager and Co-CEO of Ilbijerri Theatre working alongside Rachael Maza. John has sat as a Peer Assessor for the Theatre Board and was a member of the Community Cultural Development Board of the Australia Council.

Previously, John has worked at Brisbane’s Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts, Access Arts (Brisbane) working with Indigenous inmates and people experiencing mental illness, and spent a number of years working on a petrol sniffing project with the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council in Central Australia.

Through his company Brown Cabs, John continues to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and creatives to bring their stories to the stage and screen. These include Stephen Page’s film Sand for the omnibus feature film The Turning, and Stephen’s first feature film Spear. His recent work as a playwright includes Black Ties, a collaboration between Te Rēhia Theatre (Aotearoa) and  Ilbijerri Theatre, which premiered at the 2020 Sydney Festival.