Who is Lyall Brooks?
I’m a director, playwright, performer and theatre-maker, usually circling new work that interrogates questions of masculinity, ethics, and people and systems under pressure. Which all sounds very serious, but I promise there are jokes. I’m also a washed-up music theatre performer who woke up one day to realise I could no longer hold a tune in a bucket, so here we are.
What would you do differently to what you do now?
I feel like I’m constantly on my way to something different, but it’s always within “The Yarts”. Currently I find myself drifting towards cultural leadership and broad-view policy conversations, and rooms where people are trying to make complicated decisions – which is basically theatre but with worse lighting.
Who inspires you and why?
People who are tenacious, precise, and audacious in how they make work or move through the world. My partner Adam is a constant reminder of that – which is both inspiring and occasionally very inconvenient.
What would you do to make a difference in the world?
Keep making or facilitating work that resists easy answers and asks audiences to sit inside complexity without rushing to resolve it. But also make sure there are some fart jokes in there because we still need a laugh, right?
Favourite holiday destination and why?
Somewhere quiet, coastal, and removed from urgency. If there’s a long horizon line and no emails, I’m very happy.
When friends come to town, what attraction would you take them to, and why?
A theatre show, then dinner afterwards to debrief it properly. The show is only half the experience – the argument is the rest.
What are you currently reading?
Unashamed confession: after finishing Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down back in 2022, I was so emotionally obliterated I took a few years off books and have only just come back to reading this year. Now it’s everything at once: scripts, academic texts for uni, and research into bioethics and crisis decision-making for my own work.
The bedside pile is an eclectic mix of re-reads including Playwriting by Stephen Jeffreys (aka The Bible), Run It Like A Business by Aubrey Bergauer (my arts admin idol), and Spiel by David Sornig (because dammit I’m sure there’s a new play in there).
What are you currently listening to?
Definitely lots of podcasts for research (and to kill time on the looong drive into work). In terms of music: for focus, the work of Arnór Dan; for energy, I’ll drop Sweat by Mel C and let Apple Music try to make a station from that (inevitably disappointing, because my kween sets a high bar with that banger).
Happiness is?
That moment in a rehearsal room when everyone’s locked in, sharing a rhythm and focus, and you can feel the entire world shifting. Or, you know, my staghound Hamish doing something deeply stupid with absolute commitment.
What does the future hold for you?
More directing across both new writing and larger-scale work, while continuing to develop my own plays. I’m also currently studying an MFA in Cultural Leadership at NIDA, so hopefully fewer bad decisions made purely on instinct.
Lyall is the Director of Tom Holloway’s Red Sky Morning – which will be presented at Theatre Works, St Kilda, from 6 – 16 May 2026. For more information, visit: www.theatreworks.org.au for details.
Image: Lyall Brooks (supplied)