ABOUT CHRIS AND MOCKINGBIRD

Mockingbird Theatrics is the creation of renowned director, actor and tutor Chris Baldock. Founded in Melbourne in 2012 alongside Executive Producer and Publicist Kris Weber, the company was established with a clear mission: to produce high-quality theatre that honours the finest plays of the 20th and 21st centuries while moving, thrilling and challenging audiences.

Within only a handful of productions, Mockingbird quickly established itself as one of Melbourne’s most respected independent theatre companies, attracting some of the city’s finest actors and designers and earning a reputation for bold, intelligent productions of modern classics.

Following Chris’s move to Canberra in 2017, Mockingbird was reborn in the nation’s capital. Recognising the extraordinary talent within the local acting community, Chris set out to create opportunities for artists while presenting ambitious, high-quality theatre for Canberra audiences. That vision continues to drive the company today.

Originally from New Zealand and based in Melbourne for nearly twenty-five years, Chris has become one of Canberra’s most sought-after directors. His Canberra credits include highly acclaimed productions of A View from the Bridge, Strictly Ballroom, Oh, What a Lovely War, 42nd Street, One Man, Two Guvnors, The Art of Coarse Acting, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Laramie Project and its sequel The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later. His work has received numerous Canberra Critics Circle Awards and Combined Area Theatre (CAT) Awards, and has frequently appeared in The Canberra Times “Best of Theatre” lists.

In 2025, Mockingbird became theatre-company-in-residence at Belconnen Arts Centre, launching its residency with the acclaimed production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which received CAT Awards for Best Direction and Best Production of a Play. The company followed this with productions of When the Rain Stops Falling, Meteor Shower, The Wolves, A Hundred Words for Snow and Shakespeare in Love, with several receiving further CAT nominations. The 2026 season continues this momentum with productions including C*ck, Bull and The Girl on the Train.

At the 2025 CAT Awards, Chris received the Gold CAT Award for “outstanding achievement in acting, directing, design, technical work, producing, training and theatre management through his work in Mockingbird Theatrics.”

With over one hundred directing credits across Australia and New Zealand, Chris’s productions range from modern classics to premieres. His acclaimed staging of The Laramie Project at Chapel off Chapel won the Victorian Green Room Award for Best Independent Production, received a rare five-star review in The Sunday Age, and appeared on numerous “Best of the Year” lists. For Mockingbird in Melbourne he followed this success with highly regarded productions of Blue/Orange, How I Learned to Drive, Equus, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Temperamentals and Quills.

Other notable productions include the tour of Black Diva Power: Nina Simone & Billy Holiday starring Ruth Rogers-Wright, Cloudstreet, Twelve Angry Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Nance(Australian premiere), 33 Variations (Australian premiere), Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Burning (starring Libby Tanner) Old Wicked Songs, Kindertransport, The Drawer Boy, Three Days of Rain, Master Class, Terra Nova, The Shoe-Horn Sonata, Dealer’s Choice, Amadeus, Blood Brothers, Of Mice and Men, Shirley Valentine, Under Milk Wood and The Heidi Chronicles. He has also directed numerous musicals and concerts, including Chicago starring Logie winner Lisa Chappell, the New Zealand revival of Hair, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Mame, and the Victorian premiere of A Slice of Saturday Night.

As an actor, Chris has appeared in a wide range of roles including Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss and Gross Indecency, Roo in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Gene in Side Man (Victorian Drama League Award), Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, George IV in The Madness of George III, Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and Moonface Martin in Anything Goes. Canberra audiences have recently seen him in When the Rain Stops Falling (CAT Award for Best Monologue and a nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and The Drawer Boy, for which he received both a Canberra Critics Circle Award and a CAT Award for Best Leading Actor. He will next appear in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Every Brilliant Thing in 2026.

Chris’s voice can also be heard in the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent exhibition In Their Own Words, and he regularly performs and provides actors for government and educational role-play training programs.

Across his career Chris has received more than seventy awards for directing, acting and set and sound design. In addition to his creative work, he has served as a theatre reviewer for ArtsHub, Theatre People and Theatrecraft, and as an adjudicator for the Victorian Drama League Awards and the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria Awards.

A passionate and dedicated teacher, Chris has spent many years mentoring emerging actors and helping them develop the craft, discipline and confidence required for professional training. Many of his students have gone on to gain places at some of the world’s most prestigious drama schools, including NIDA, VCA, WAAPA, QUT, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, among others. Supporting and nurturing the next generation of performers remains a central part of his work.