Gordon Costello, Artistic Director

Gordon began his performing career at the age of 15, when he formed a punk band, the Ambitious Vegetables, with some high school friends. He played guitar, and over the course of several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s went on to perform in various bands as vocalist, bass guitarist and keyboard player, culminating in his being awarded a Gold Album with NZ pop band The Mockers for their début album, “Swear it’s true,” in 1984.

In the mid ‘80s he emigrated to Australia, and soon afterward began performing in the theatre, his first show being in the role of Mr. Cox, in Sullivan and Burnand’s “Cox and Box,” with the Mosman Gilbert & Sullivan Society (now Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Sydney).

Since then, he has performed in almost all the G&S operas, in such diverse roles as The Mikado, Major-General Stanley in the Pirates of Penzance, Giuseppe Palmieri in one production of The Gondoliers, and Don Alhambra in a different production of that same opera. His most recent appearance was as Dick Deadeye in GSOS’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” last year.

He has previously directed three operas, Puccini’s “Il Tabarro,” Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana,” and Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” for the Oratorio, Opera & Theatre Company of Australasia in the mid ‘90s, but this production of the Gondoliers brings Gordon his first opportunity to direct a G&S show.

Gordon studied Opera at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, and has performed with several companies around Sydney over the last 25 years. In the early 2000s he wrote the music for a short film, “The Rip-Off,” and has written vocal and orchestral arrangements for concert performances, and collaborated with several other Sydney musicians as songwriter and lyricist.

He is, however, the only person in show business not currently working on a screenplay.