Our Musical Director - Joanna Weinberg
Joanna Weinberg has been the Cleftomaniacs’ Musical Director since 2018. She has a career spanning three decades creating and performing musical theatre and cabaret as well as film.
Born in London, Joanna studied drama at the University of Cape Town and played leading roles in plays, films and TV shows, before emigrating to Australia in 1997.
A prolific writer, in recent years alone Joanna has created, recorded and performed in the cabaret shows including Pandora's Bag (Hayes Theatre Cabaret Festival), The Piano Diaries (Melbourne Cabaret Festival) and Baroness Bianka's Bloodsongs (Hayes Festival), all of which were critically acclaimed and have travelled widely.
Joanna's work typically features strong and complex female characters - a trait developed in her acting days when she was bored by the two-dimensional parts available for women. Her musical about IVF - Lifeforce - the Mother of all Journeys, directed by Lisa Freshwater, won the Sydney Fringe best musical in 2013. The film Goddess, based on her one-woman show Sinksongs (directed by Mark Lamprell) proved popular with audiences worldwide and earned her a Critics Circle nomination for best music in a feature film.
Joanna directs cabaret and theatre in Sydney and occasionally takes on unusual singing students. Her most recent musical The Secret Singer played at the Eternity Playhouse in Sydney and has been picked up for touring in 2020. In 2019 Joanna premiered a new work satirising the contemporary art scene Minky Opens a Gallery starring emerging talent Jodine Wolman, and performed the role of 'Barushka' in Darlinghurst Theatre's production of Once, a musical based on the movie of the same name. Joanna also performed the role of Sharon the in black comedy musical Time to Buy, which screened on SBS television in 2022.
Joanna’s other choirs include Choir Rocks and the Bay Singers.
Born in London, Joanna studied drama at the University of Cape Town and played leading roles in plays, films and TV shows, before emigrating to Australia in 1997.
A prolific writer, in recent years alone Joanna has created, recorded and performed in the cabaret shows including Pandora's Bag (Hayes Theatre Cabaret Festival), The Piano Diaries (Melbourne Cabaret Festival) and Baroness Bianka's Bloodsongs (Hayes Festival), all of which were critically acclaimed and have travelled widely.
Joanna's work typically features strong and complex female characters - a trait developed in her acting days when she was bored by the two-dimensional parts available for women. Her musical about IVF - Lifeforce - the Mother of all Journeys, directed by Lisa Freshwater, won the Sydney Fringe best musical in 2013. The film Goddess, based on her one-woman show Sinksongs (directed by Mark Lamprell) proved popular with audiences worldwide and earned her a Critics Circle nomination for best music in a feature film.
Joanna directs cabaret and theatre in Sydney and occasionally takes on unusual singing students. Her most recent musical The Secret Singer played at the Eternity Playhouse in Sydney and has been picked up for touring in 2020. In 2019 Joanna premiered a new work satirising the contemporary art scene Minky Opens a Gallery starring emerging talent Jodine Wolman, and performed the role of 'Barushka' in Darlinghurst Theatre's production of Once, a musical based on the movie of the same name. Joanna also performed the role of Sharon the in black comedy musical Time to Buy, which screened on SBS television in 2022.
Joanna’s other choirs include Choir Rocks and the Bay Singers.