About Sally McLean

An award-winning, multi-hyphenate creative, Sally McLean’s best known work with Shakespeare is her role as Creator/Director and lead ensemble member of the multi award-winning Shakespeare language digital series Shakespeare Republic. The series has been officially selected and screened at over 110 international film festivals, nominated for over 100 awards and won over 60 awards to date including Best Director, Best Web Series, Best Actress (for Sally personally) and Best Ensemble Cast in numerous festivals and industry awards.

A highlight was being the recipient of the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award for Best Digital Series in the USA in 2017, which saw Sally join the ranks of fellow CINE alumni such as Steven Spielberg (the then CINE President) Oprah Winfrey, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jim Henson, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, among others. Fellow award winners that year were Christian Slater’s Mr Robot, Variety’s Actors on Actors and National Geographic’s MARS series.

Another highlight was winning the Best Film Award at the prestigious 2020 Falstaff Awards in the USA for Shakespeare Republic Season Three, decided by a jury of academics from around the world. Honorary Mentions for the award that year included the UK’s Shakespeare’s Globe broadcast program, Canada’s Stratford Festival broadcast series and the UK’s National Theatre Live at Home program. Previous winners of this award include the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, Kenneth Branagh’s film Hamlet, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender & Marion Cotillard.

THE GUARDIAN (AUSTRALIA)

“… a polished, beautifully made series from director/producer Sally McLean … A fine use of the platform and, more importantly, a very fine adaptation of the Bard … Shakespeare Republic is put together with grace and wit. An assortment of actors do terrific work making the (non-dumbed down) dialogue accessible, prying it open with great care and skill.”

Shakespeare Republic would go on to be named the Most Awarded Anthology Series in the world & ranked as the #6 Web Series globally in the 2021 Web Series World Cup, as decided by the amount of awards the season received from the top web series festivals worldwide.

The series was acquired for the official collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in 2018 and named as an “Acquisition Highlight” in the NFSA’s 2018/19 Annual Report. The third season of the series was acquired and added to the official collection at the NFSA in 2020.

Her Shakespeare short film, Speaking Daggers, a spin off from the series, was selected for 22 international film festivals, including the Academy Award® accredited St Kilda Film Festival – and won 3 awards, as well as a “Highly Commended” Finalist nod from the jury of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Shakespeare Shorts Film Festival, chaired by Jury President Sir Kenneth Branagh in the UK in 2017.

As well as directing and adapting the works, she appears on screen in both projects alongside Nadine Garner, Michala Banas, Alan Fletcher, Scott Major, Christopher Kirby and Dean Haglund, among others.

Her work with Shakespeare Republic has been the subject of several academic presentations and plenary panels at Early Modern Literature and Shakespeare seminars and conferences in Australia, the UK and USA from 2016 to now. Her first published work on Shakespeare, an essay exploring her methodology behind Shakespeare Republic and Shakespeare performance in general, was published in the USA by Routledge Press in 2020 as part of the academic essay collection, Playfulness In Shakespearean Adaptations.

Sally (centre) with members of the Shakespeare Republic ensemble, including Nadine Garner, Michala Banas, Alan Fletcher, Christopher Kirby, Billy Smedley, Stephen Costan, Shane Savage, Wahibe Moussa, Falon Ryan & Phoebe Taylor

STARRYMAG (USA)

“Shakespeare Republic is an anthology series that turns the playwright’s classics on their head … embracing diversity and bringing the traditional text into a more contemporary world … There was a lot to love and even more to admire. I couldn’t believe how glued to my screen I was with each episode … it’s some of the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen put on and in a creative and timely way.“

The official poster for Speaking Daggers featuring cast members Jaron Natoli, Christopher Kirby, Nadine Garner, Sally McLean, Scott Major, Faran Martin, Billy Smedley & Michala Banas

The third season of Shakespeare Republic has been taught at Syracuse University, USA, discussed in papers presented at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference (USA) and BritGrad Conference (UK) and is also further explored in the Arden Shakespeare collection, Lockdown Shakespeare: New Evolutions in Performance and Adaptation, published by Bloomsbury Press in the UK in July 2022.

In 2021, Sally was commissioned by Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia to create, write and direct a student Shakespeare web series, Walking Shadows. The series ran for three seasons, winning several international awards, with the final season being released in September 2024.

A second spin-off from Shakespeare Republic, the limited short form series, Dark Arcadia, is currently on the international film festival circuit. Also created, adapted, directed and starring Sally in the role of “Hecate MacFindlay”, funded by Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Partnerships Australia and the British Shakespeare Association, the series has garnered numerous awards around the world so far including Best Drama, as well as Best Screenplay and several Best Director gongs for Sally personally.

Sally’s experience as a Shakespearean actor and director and thoughts on Shakespeare performance in the 21st Century in general were also featured in the book Shakespeare & The Actor through interviews with Professor Emerita, British Shakespeare Association Honorary Fellow and author Lois Potter, alongside actors such as Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Sir Antony Sher, among others. The book was published by Oxford University Press in September 2022.

Her work adapting Shakespeare for the screen has been further discussed in the upcoming book, Authenticity and Adaptation, published by Palgrave Macmillan (UK/USA), due for release in March, 2025. Sally’s work is analysed in depth alongside filmmakers such as Guillermo Del Toro, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Zac Snyder, Taika Waititi and James Gunn, among others.

She has additionally taught Shakespeare as an industry guest teacher at various institutions including the Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia, the esteemed Arts Venue, Montsalvat and the Equity Foundation, among others.

FICIMAD (SPAIN)

“As the writer, director, and one of the lead performers of the series, Sally McLean demonstrates remarkable creative vision, crafting a screenplay that reimagines Shakespeare’s characters and language through contemporary stories and themes … the Australian director’s series is filled with a fairytale fantasy atmosphere of endless possibilities, as if Lady Macbeth were a diligent student at Hogwarts. An intelligent narrative with an immense and rich world-building, where global folklore intertwines, where popular culture and Western literary mythology make a grand crossover in a single story, in a series that grabs you from the first episode with its brilliant plot twists and never lets go. Dark Arcadia is a bold and imaginative work that bridges classical literature and modern storytelling, creating a unique and compelling narrative world.“

Other work in film & TV

Sally created her own boutique production business, Incognita Enterprises, under the Honorary Patronage of Oscar® nominated actor, Sir Nigel Hawthorne KB, CBE in 1997 – an association that continued until his passing in 2001. Under the umbrella of Incognita, she has written and directed several digital series pilots, short films, documentaries and short feature films.

Prior to this, she worked in production with the BBC in both their Music & Arts and Commercial Channels Depts. (now UKTV), on series such as One Foot In The Past, Bookmark, The History of British Art, Sister Wendy, Robert Hughes American Visions, Bookworm, Bard on the Box, Poems on the Box and Poetry Nation, during which time she also Chaired the BBC Alternative Program Development Unit and Australian Program Development Unit, submitting several successful television program proposals to the Controllers of BBC1 & 2.

Since her return to Australia, alongside her acting career, she has worked in a variety of production roles for Channel 9, Southern Cross Broadcasting, Freemantle Media and Endemol Southern Star on programs such as Big Brother, Comedy Inc., The X-Factor, Australian Idol and 1 vs 100.

Sally has been a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) for over 30+ years. Her professional memberships include Associate Member of the Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG) and the Australian Writers’ Guild. She was also a Professional Member of the Australian Film Institute and AACTA (Actor, Director & Producer’s Chapters), serving as a Juror on numerous individual award categories for several years for the AFI Awards and AACTA Awards (the AFI Awards’ successor). She is also a previous member of British Equity.

She has served as a Juror for the ATOM Awards in the Best Documentary and Best Web Series Award categories, as well as serving as a Jury member for the New Jersey Web Fest, New Zealand Web Fest and New York City (NYC) Web Fest, and as Jury President for the Melbourne Web Fest in Australia and the Valley Film Festival in Los Angeles. She is is a former member of the Board of Trustees for the Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia and Melbourne Web Fest, as well as being a previous member of British Equity.

She has spoken at various schools and events about the importance of creativity, including being invited to give the Keynote Speech at the 2017 Independent Schools Victoria AGM, to a room of 211 independent school principals, the Victorian Minister for the Arts, the Victorian Shadow Minister for the Arts and members of the Victorian Education Department about the importance of the Arts in education. She has also presented on panels for the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association Conference, Melbourne Web Fest, NYC Web Fest, the Arts Learning Festival and the St Kilda Film Festival.

Sally (centre) on set as director in Vienna, Austria for the documentary Champion.

BORROWERS AND LENDERS:
THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION (UK)

“McLean’s combined expertise is on full display in Shakespeare Republic, which features both a critical eye and ear to Shakespeare’s text, and high production values … The vignettes are themselves a metaphorical gauntlet thrown down to the viewer, daring them to imagine what a full production in this world might look like … Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay any artist is that they left me wanting more, and Shakespeare Republic has done exactly that.“

Sally has also played lead, guest and supporting roles in numerous Australian, US and UK film, theatre and television productions since her teens. To see her full acting credits, visit www.sallymclean.com. She continues to work as an actor while developing several projects as a writer/director – Shakespeare-related and not – for the stage and screen.