Toby Schmitz

Toby Schmitz is an Australian actor who also works as a playwright, a director and a novelist. He grew up in Perth and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1999. On stage he has taken leading roles for Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir St Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company, playing Hamlet, the title part in Ruben Guthrie and Elyot Chase in Private Lives, and in 2016 he made his Broadway debut in The Present. He played the pirate John Rackham across four seasons of Black Sails, and his films include The Rage in Placid Lake (2003), Somersault (2004) and Griff the Invisible (2010). He won Sydney Theatre Company's Patrick White Playwrights' Award in 2002 for Lucky, and his Belvoir staging of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers took prizes at the Sydney Theatre Awards, among them best mainstage production and the award for best new Australian work.