Jo Turner

Jo is a Sydney based actor, director and teacher who trained at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He lived and worked in Europe for several years performing in traditional theatre, creating new work as an actor and director and running workshops on the Lecoq Method. Since returning to Sydney Jo has worked as a performer with The Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Street, The Ensemble Theatre, The Australian Theatre of the Deaf, Railway Street Theatre and B Sharp, Black Swan Theatre Company (WA) and La Boite Theatre (Qld) as well as in film (You Can’t Stop the Murders, The Making of…) and on television (Backberner, White Collar Blue, All Saints).

As an independent artist Jo recently founded his own company (White Rhino) which is dedicated to the production of new visually driven work. White Rhino was the inaugural winner of Hothouse Theatre’s A Month in The Country program to help develop their first show Don’t Stare too Much, which Jo co-wrote and directed. Don’t Stare Too Much was presented to a sell out audiences at the Darlinghurst Theatre. White Rhino presents stage one of it’s new work Mademoiselle Fifi at the Darlo in December 2006. Jo is also a co-creator and performer of the new multi-media work The Window which recently toured to Japan after premiering in Queensland.

Jo’s recent directing credits include Puntilla and His Man Matti by Brecht for ATYP, No Chance in Hell Hotel (Darlinghurst Theatre), Aunt Aggie’s Gut Rot (Adelaide Fringe) and UWS Nepean graduate showcase day.

As a teacher Jo has worked extensively with youth theatre companies (ATYP and Shopfront) as well as adult actor training institutions (NIDA, QUT, The Actors Centre, The Actors College of Film and TV and The University of Western Sydney) primarily in the areas of improvisation, comedy, physical approaches to acting and creating new work. He also runs workshops in playbuilding, clown, melodrama, bouffon, neutral mask and movement.