Liesel Badorrek is a Creator (director, writer, performer) based in Sydney, Australia and working across Drama, Opera, Cabaret, Theatre for Young Audiences and Site-Specific Performance.

She is a passionate believer in the capacity of art and culture to both enrich and transform lives when it is inclusive and relevant. She believes that everyone has the right to participate in the creation of art and that new work should tell the stories and explore the concerns of a contemporary audience.

As the founder and director of Loose Canon Arts for eighteen years, Liesel created new work for productions that toured extensively through Asia and the Middle East, accessing audiences of all ages, varied religious and cultural backgrounds and in diverse and unusual performance spaces.

Liesel has created a large body of work for young audiences as well as Cabarets, Performance Installations and bespoke theatre for public events. Her career as a Director has seen her develop multiple new works, including international collaborations as well as working across both theatre and opera with projects ranging from one-person fringe shows to large-scale outdoor operas.

Her extensive experience creating performances for family and young audiences has been the heart of her long relationship with CDP Theatre – Australia’s premier company touring work for young audiences.

The work she has made with CDP has been seen by tens of thousands of children and their families across Australia, as well as New Zealand, Singapore, England and the United States. Liesel has a literature degree from Griffith University and has been the author of multiple performance texts including the librettos for three children’s operas for Opera Australia.

With Opera Australia she has worked in multiple capacities: as both a Director and Librettist as well as Revival and Assistant director on various productions and Director of the company’s Regional Scholarship program.

Her work in Opera has given her a love for the form that is the basis for her desire to see it transform and expand into an artistic space of greater representation and inclusivity – a space that invites participation and tells stories that reflect current concerns and ideas and speaks to who we are now.

She is a seasoned cabaret performer and director and continues to collaborate with independent artists and companies to create new work. She is particularly interested in artistic relationships that give rise to the exploration of new theatrical forms and modes of storytelling.

She is the recipient of a 2023 Churchill Fellowship which will see her explore new ways of making Opera with and for different audiences in order to expand both the form and reach of Opera.