Deidre Rubenstein | |
---|---|
Born | Deidre Rubenstein 28 February 1948 Melbourne, Australia |
Education | National Institute of Dramatic Art |
Occupation(s) | Actor, dramatist, playwright |
Years active | 1966–current |
Deidre Rubenstein (born 1948) [1] is a Jewish-Australian [2] screen and theatre actress, dramatist and playwright, well known for her performance in Australian soap operas and main stage dramatic roles.
Rubenstein graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1967. [3]
Rubenstein has worked in television comedies, drama, mini-series and TV movies. [4] In 1970 she appeared in an episode of Homicide . She played a recurring guest role in Prisoner (1979–80), as terrorist Janet Dominguez.
She had leading roles in 1990 film Breaking Through and 1985 miniseries Palace of Dreams , the latter for which she won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress.
In 2004 Rubenstein played the scheming Svetlanka Ristic for twelve episodes of the soap opera Neighbours . [4]
She has appeared in further guest roles in 1980 miniseries Water Under The Bridge , medical dramas G.P. and MDA , Mercury , comedy series Introducing Gary Petty , The Secret Life of Us , Kick and police dramas Blue Heelers and City Homicide .
Rubenstein also has appeared in Australian feature films Siam Sunset (1999), Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger alongside Keisha Castle-Hughes and Essie Davis (2008), Salvation with Wendy Hughes (2008) and Force of Destiny alongside David Wenham (2015).
Rubenstein's career in the theatre includes work with several major Australian companies, including the Nimrod Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company. [5]
In 1993, she had a solo show called What's a Girl to Do?, [6] where she performed poems written by contemporary Australian female poets. [7] It was later performed by Rubenstein at The Stables Theatre in Sydney (1994) and at the 1995 Edinburgh Festival. [8]
This show inspired her to do another solo show using work commissioned for her, work that was written to be performed live. She was awarded a Victorian Government Women Artist's Grant and commission contemporary writers to produce the performance pieces that were later produced in a book called Confidentially Yours. The first performance was in the Playbox Theatre Centre, C.U.B Malthouse, Melbourne on 11 February 1998. The writers commissioned to produce the work that became Confidentially Yours were Janis Balodis, Andrew Bovell, Nick Enright, Michael Gurr, Daniel Keene, Joanna Murray-Smith and Debra Oswald. Andrew Bovell wrote a pair of stories for the show that he later used in the script for the film Lantana .
In 2005, Rubenstein performed in Menopause the Musical , a comedy breaking down the taboos about menopause. [9] with Caroline Gillmer, Susan-Ann Walker and Jane Clifton. Rubenstein as 'The Dubbo Housewife', explored the stereotypes and madness of that time in a woman's life.
In 2015, she played Gertrude Stein in the musical Loving Repeating - a Musical of Gertrude Stein in Melbourne.
Rubenstein has produced a significant body of work as a narrator of audio books and has won several awards in this field. [10]
Year | Title | Role | Type |
---|---|---|---|
1990 | Breaking Through | Ann | Film |
1991 | The Girl Who Came Late (aka Daydream Believer) | Trish Schultz | Feature film |
1996 | Inner Sanctuary | Peggy | Feature film |
1999 | Siam Sunset | Celia Droon | Feature film |
2000 | The Calling | Martha O’Connor | Short film |
2001 | Like Mother Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes | Las Vegas Judge | TV film |
2002 | Secret Bridesmaids' Business | Ruth | TV film |
2004 | Josh Jarman | Theatre Actress | Feature film |
2008 | Salvation | Gloria’s Coach | Feature film |
2008 | Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger | Mrs Fleisher | Feature film |
2011 | Underbelly Files: The Man Who Got Away | Uncredited | TV film |
2015 | Force of Destiny | Miriam | Feature film |
2023 | The Rooster | Mrs Poulson | Feature film |
Year | Title | Role | Type |
---|---|---|---|
1970 | Homicide | Jane | TV series, 1 episode |
1978–1980 | Prisoner | Janet Dominguez | TV series, 5 episodes |
1980 | Water Under the Bridge | Lainey | TV series, 3 episodes |
1982 | The Mike Walsh Show | Guest (with Tony Taylor) | TV series, 1 episode |
1985 | Palace of Dreams | Chana Mendel | Miniseries, 10 episodes |
1988 | Australians | Nance | Miniseries, 1 episode |
1988 | Rafferty's Rules | Peggy Guest | TV series, 1 episode |
1988 | A Country Practice | Helen Morris | TV series, 2 episodes |
1989 | E Street | Louise Baker | TV series, 1 episode |
1989 | G.P. | Iris Grimshaw | TV series, 3 episodes |
1996 | Mercury | Steffi Petrakis | Miniseries, 2 episodes |
1997–2003 | Blue Heelers | Helen Delaney / Magda Lapenscu | TV series, 2 episodes |
2000 | Introducing Gary Petty | Nancy | TV series, 6 episodes |
2001–2002 | BackBerner | Psychologist | TV series, 2 episodes |
2002 | The Secret Life of Us | Nathan’s Mum | TV series, 2 episodes |
2002 | MDA | Dr Fallows | TV series, 1 episode |
2004 | Neighbours | Svetlanka Ristic | TV series, 12 episodes |
2007 | Kick | Reva Feinmann | Miniseries, 1 episode |
2008 | Saddle Club | Rosemary Cross | TV series, 1 episode |
2008 | City Homicide | Cheridah Lapstone | TV series, 1 episode |
2021 | Superwog | Agnes | YouTube series, 1 episode |
2024 | White Fever | Grandma Coral | TV series, 1 episode |
Year | Title | Role | Type |
---|---|---|---|
1980 | You and the Night and the House Wine | Playwright / Director | Nimrod Theatre, Sydney |
1981 | A Couple of Strangers | Devisor | Nimrod Theatre, Sydney |
1982 | Burn Victim | Writer | Nimrod Theatre, Sydney |
1988 | You and the Night and the House Wine | Playwright | Riverina Playhouse, Wagga Wagga |
1993; 1994; 1995 | What's a Girl to Do? | Devisor | Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne with Playbox Theatre Company, Stables Theatre, Sydney, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh for Edinburgh Festival |
1993; 1994; 1995 | Dorothy Parker Says | Creator | Fairfax Studio, Melbourne, Mietta’s, Melbourne, Stables Theatre, Sydney, Queanbeyan School of Arts Cafe with Victorian Arts Centre |
1998; 2002 | Confidentially Yours | Devisor | Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Butter Factory Theatre, Wodonga with Playbox Theatre Company |
Year | Work | Award | Category | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1985 | Palace of Dreams | Australian Film Institute Awards | Award as Best Actress | Won |
1986 | The Dunera Boys | Australian Film Institute Awards | Award as Best Actress | Won |
1996 | Deidre Rubenstein | Women Artists Grants | Victorian Government initiative to encourage emerging women artists living and working in Victoria | Honoured [13] |
1998 | Dreamtime Alice by Mandy Sayer | TDK Australian Audio Book Awards | Narrator Award for Unabridged Fiction | Won [14] |
2001 | The Architect by Jillian Watkinson | Vision Australia Library Awards | Adult Narrator of the Year Award (joint award with James Wright) | Won [15] |
Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in The Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre.
John Anthony Bell is an Australian actor, theatre director and theatre manager. He has been a major influence on the development of Australian theatre in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The Nimrod Theatre Company, commonly known as The Nimrod, was an Australian theatre company based in Sydney. It was founded in 1970 by Australian actors John Bell, Richard Wherrett and Ken Horler, and gained a reputation for producing more "good new Australian drama" from 1970 to 1985 than any other Australian theatre company.
Janet Andrewartha was an Australian television and theatre actress and director and singer. Andrewartha began her career as a high school music teacher before attending drama school. She graduated in 1979 and began securing television and theatre roles.
Debra Oswald is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, radio and children's fiction.
Lindy Davies is an Australian actress, director, actor trainer and performance consultant. She played Ruth Ballinger in the Australian soap opera Prisoner in 1985, and won the AFI (AACTA) Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1986 film Malcolm. She went on to be the head of drama at the Victorian College of the Arts for over 11 years until 2007, and worked as a performance consultant on films including Afterglow (1997) and Away From Her (2006) with Julie Christie.
Nicholas Paul Enright AM was an Australian dramatist, playwright and theatre director.
Theatre of Australia refers to the history of the live performing arts in Australia: performed, written or produced by Australians.
Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director, notable for his 1986 play Away.
John Henry Romeril is an Australian playwright and teacher. He has written around 60 plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, and is known for his 1975 play The Floating World.
Barry Dickins is a prolific Australian playwright, author, artist, actor, educator and journalist, probably best known for his historical dramas and his reminiscences about growing up and living in working class Melbourne. His most well-known work is the award-winning stage play Remember Ronald Ryan, a dramatization of the life and death of Ronald Ryan, the last man executed in Australia. He has also written dramas and comedies about other controversial figures such as poet Sylvia Plath, opera singer Joan Sutherland, criminal Squizzy Taylor, actor Frank Thring, playwright Oscar Wilde and artist Brett Whiteley.
Joanna Murray-Smith is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, novelist, librettist, and newspaper columnist.
Hannie Rayson is a multi-award-winning Australian playwright and newspaper columnist.
Lou Bennett is an Indigenous Australian musician, actress and academic researching Aboriginal languages and their retrieval.
Anna Volska is an Australian stage and television actress. She arrived in Australia when she was young and has acted from a young age.
Sally McKenzie also credited as Sally MacKenzie, is an Australian actress, director, playwright and screenwriter. She graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1977. She later earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Queensland University of Technology.
Melanie Beddie is an Australian actor, director, dramaturg and acting teacher. She is founder and director of Branch Theatre Company.
Jenny Kemp is an Australian theatre director and writer.
Aubrey Mellor is an Australian theatre director, dramaturge and teacher.
Anthony Michael Crowley is an Australian playwright, composer, director, designer and educator. Musical Theatre works include Vincent: An Acapella Opera, Supernature, The Villain of Flowers, The Journey Girl, Nathaniel Storm, The Wild Blue, Tribe, Superfreaks, and Motor Mouth Loves Suck Face.