Andi Snelling

Andi Snelling is a multi-award-winning performer, writer and director. She makes boundary-pushing theatre that explores the human condition through the personal as universal with raw honesty and playful physicality. She has been described as “the standout” (Herald Sun), “sublimely talented” (The Age/SMH) and “so skilled that you’re left wanting more” (Daily Review). Andi is an Australia Council for the Arts Future Leader 2022.

Andi has been on stage her entire life, growing up as a gymnast/dancer competing at national level. She was 3x Australia Junior Sport Aerobics Champion as a teenager. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (French & German) and Diploma in Creative Arts (Theatre Studies) from The University of Melbourne, which she completed on a scholarship program at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she also trained in contemporary dance and contact improvisation.

Andi studied a Masters in Performance (Acting) at prestigious London drama school, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, with Dame Judi Dench as its president. She has continued to train extensively across many artistic forms including clowning, bouffon, puppetry, physical theatre, and improv comedy. She has undertaken acting programs at The Actors’ Temple London, at the Howard Fine Acting Studio Melbourne, and worked with many greats, such as Mike Leigh, Irina Brown (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Clown Master Giovanni Fussetti.

Andi’s acting career highlights include: Edith in Picnic at Hanging Rock (BBC), Brinda (recurring role 2017-2019) in Neighbours (Fremantle Media), Ensemble in Crazy for You (London Palladium), Ellie in Gleisdreieck (Cannes Film Festival finalist), Inflight Voice for Qatar Airways, Odysseus in The Penelopiad (Stork Theatre), and her many appearances on Channel 31 comedy shows.

As a theatre-maker, her work fights for justice and reminds its audience that we all matter in the shared fabric of humanity. Her solo shows, verbatim theatre work, #DearDiary (2015), and gothic dance theatre piece, Déjà Vu (And Other Forms of Knowing) (2016) enjoyed critical success and multiple sell-out seasons. Her latest physical theatre work exploring her chronic illness, Happy-Go-Wrong (2019) has garnered standing ovations, a slew of 5-star reviews, won 5 awards, received two Green Room Award nominations for Best Performer and Best Writing (Independent Theatre, 2019), and made several ‘Best Theatre Of 2019’ lists, including being named a “highlight of the year” by The Age. Happy-Go-Wrong was also awarded Best Theatre of Adelaide Fringe 2021 by The Advertiser and has since been touring to main stages across Australia. Andi is currently developing her fourth solo show, Accidental Radical, a spy-thriller with fully embedded access.

Andi has gathered many eclectic experiences throughout her international career, including; 7 years with improv comedy troupe The Big Hoo-Haa Melbourne, MC work for corporates, councils, literary events, The Wheeler Centre and City of Melbourne, being ‘celebrity-mobbed’ as Dora the Explorer and Peppa Pig for 2 years in the UK, 8 years as a Presenter for Zoos Victoria, 9 years creating educational content & performing shows on waste & sustainability for the Banyule City Council, many years working as a translator and proofreader (she speaks French & German), having her poetry published, being a sought-after corporate and medical role-play specialist for 10 years, including for The State Government of Victoria and The Royal Children’s Hospital, and having her academic writing on the subject of Empathy in Medicine published by the University of Western Sydney.

Andi is an active voice in the disability arts community, with Happy-Go-Wrong creating a lot of media and speaking opportunities around the intersection of art and health. She was honoured to present at Meeting Place 2019 in Canberra – Australia’s annual forum for arts, culture and disability. Andi is also an Ambassador for the Lyme Disease Association of Australia, a Peer Assessor for City of Melbourne, on the board at No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability, a member of the Arts Centre Melbourne Arts Wellbeing Advisory Group and works as a Disability Inclusion Facilitator for Purple Orange. She runs her own arts mentoring business Kick Up The Arts, helping independent artists to create and sustain their own work.

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