Tony Knight was educated at Sydney Grammar School and trained at the Drama Centre London, which includes in its alumni Colin Firth, Frances de la Tour, Paul Bettany, Penelope Wilton, Michael Fassbinder and Tom Hardy. Tony has considerable knowledge, experience and expertise as a professional acting teacher and director.
Tony has been the Program Leader for the Musical Theatre (B.A. Hons.) course at the LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore, developing and implementing a new curriculum. He was the Head of Acting at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), training some of Australia’s most celebrated national and international actors, such as Cate Blanchett, Sam Worthington, Alex O’Loughlin and Miranda Otto.
Tony has taught, directed and lectured in many parts of the world, including Australia, the USA, Japan, Romania, Singapore and Tonga. He has spoken at numerous international and national conferences, including the annual ITI-Drama Schools Conference in Romania, and at the Musical Theatre Educators Conference, in Perth 2015, which included delivering a paper re current research – What’s Hidden Underneath: Secrets & Sex –The Pajama Game and American Drama n the early 1950s, the Age of McCarthyism, HUAC, and The Kinsey Report.
Tony has a passionate interest in all the performing arts, and dedicated to improving the training of young actors. He is now freelancing and completing his PhD on Richard Burbage: Shakespeare’s Actor & the Art of ‘Personation’. Now resident in Adelaide, South Australia, Most recently he has successfully delivered three public lectures on the ‘Identity of the Australian Actor’ at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra.
Tony He has been teaching at SA Casting and Angela Heesom Casting, as well as his own private classes. He has also been directing and producing, including three successful professional productions – Harold Pinter’s Old Times, and William Mastrosimone’s Extremities at the Adelaide Festival Centre, and Gardner McKay’s Toyer at the Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide.
