Kip Williams

Kip Williams is a multi-award winning director of theatre, opera and film. He is the former Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Sydney Theatre Company (STC), positions he held from 2016-2024. His appointment at age 30 years old made him the youngest Artistic Director in the company’s history.

Williams’ most recent work is his groundbreaking adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, starring Sarah Snook who reprised her Olivier Award-winning performance. Snook won the 2025 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Play, and the production was nominated for six Tony Awards in total, including Williams who was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, along with nominations for Outstanding Direction of a Play at the Drama League Awards, Outstanding Director of a Play at the Drama Desk Awards and winning the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

Prior to Broadway, the production began performances in February 2024 on the West End and opened to five star reviews and standing ovations. It was hailed “a triumph” by The New York Times, “unmissable” by the Guardian, and “the future of theatre” by The Economist. In this production Williams pioneered new techniques combining live video, pre recorded video, mobile phone technology and live performance, known as cinetheatre. Williams adaptation of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, a companion cinetheatre production to Dorian Gray, played the Adelaide Festival and Perth Festival in 2023 to similar acclaim. The success of these productions led to Williams headlining The Australian’s list of Australia’s Top Cultural Innovators.

In 2026, Williams’ will direct his adaptation of Dracula at the Noël Coward Theatre in the West End, starring screen and stage virtuoso Cynthia Erivo playing all 23 roles.

Williams has been lauded for his radical approach to classic work and his visually stunning and inventive stagings. He has directed over 20 productions for STC, including his multi-award winning production of Suddenly Last Summer, his groundbreaking reinterpretations of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet, the celebrated 7 hour epic The Harp in the South by Kate Mulvany, his gender inclusive production of Lord of the Flies starring Mia Wasikowska, and his ongoing collaborations with actor Hugo Weaving in Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

Williams is a graduate of Sydney University and National Institute of Dramatic Art, where he holds an MFA in Directing. Williams was a Board Director of NIDA from 2016 to 2023.