sally mclean
creator, director, writer & editor
An award-winning, multi-hyphenate Australian-born creative, Sally McLean is first and foremost an actor, playing lead, guest and supporting roles in numerous Australian, US and UK film, theatre and television productions since her teens.
A graduate of The Actors Institute, London, Sally McLean’s work in screen production began with her years working at the BBC in London for BBC Music & Arts. This led to her writing and producing her first feature film A Little Rain Must Fall (thought to be the first drama shot on DV in the UK) and forming her own production business, Incognita Enterprises, under the guidance of Honorary Patron, Sir Nigel Hawthorne KB, CBE, an association that continued until his passing in December 2001.
Sally’s work as Actor/Director/Writer includes the multi award-winning digital series Shakespeare Republic which has been officially selected and screened at over 110 international film festivals, nominated for over 100 awards and won over 60 awards to date including Best Director, Best Web Series, Best Actress (for Sally personally) and Best Ensemble Cast in numerous festivals and industry awards. A highlight was being the recipient of the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award for Best Digital Series in the USA in 2017, which saw Sally join the ranks of fellow CINE alumni such as Steven Spielberg (the then CINE President) Oprah Winfrey, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jim Henson, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, among others. Fellow award winners that year were Christian Slater’s Mr Robot, Variety’s Actors on Actors and National Geographic’s MARS series.
Another highlight was winning the Best Film Award at the 2020 Falstaff Awards in the USA for Shakespeare Republic Season Three, decided by a jury of academics from around the world. Honorary Mentions for the award that year included the UK’s Shakespeare’s Globe broadcast program, Canada’s Stratford Festival broadcast series and the UK’s National Theatre Live at Home program. Previous winners of this award include the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender & Marion Cotillard.
Shakespeare Republic would go on to be named the Most Awarded Anthology Series in the world & ranked as the #6 Web Series globally in the 2021 Web Series World Cup, as decided by the amount of awards the season received from the top web series festivals worldwide. The series was acquired for the official collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in 2018 and named as an “Acquisition Highlight” in the NFSA’s 2018/19 Annual Report. The third season of the series was acquired and added to the official collection at the NFSA in 2020.
Her Shakespeare short film, Speaking Daggers, a spin off from the series, was selected for 22 international film festivals – winning 3 awards, as well as a “Highly Commended” Finalist nod from Sir Kenneth Branagh in his role as Jury President for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Shakespeare Film Festival in the UK in 2017.
As well as directing and adapting the works, she appears on screen in both projects alongside Nadine Garner, Michala Banas, Alan Fletcher, Scott Major, Christopher Kirby and Dean Haglund, among others.
A second spin-off from Shakespeare Republic, the limited short form series, Dark Arcadia, is currently finishing it’s run on the international film festival circuit. It has won 29 awards to date, including a Best Actress award and 6 awards for Best Directing for Sally personally, as well as being named in the Top 10 web series globally in the 2024 WSWC rankings. Also created, adapted, directed and starring Sally in the role of “Hecate MacFindlay”, the series was funded by Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Partnerships Australia and the British Shakespeare Association.
Sally’s work in the web series world has been highlighted in the academic tomes Short, Narrative & Serialized: a complete guide to the web series phenomenon (Bassaget, Burkholder, 2019) and The Web Series Experiment (Routledge, 2026) and her work with Shakespeare has been the subject of several academic presentations and plenary panels at Early Modern Literature and Shakespeare seminars and conferences in Australia, the UK and USA from 2016 to now.
Her first published work on Shakespeare, an essay exploring her methodology behind Shakespeare Republic and Shakespeare performance in general, was published in the UK by Routledge Press in 2020 as part of the academic essay collection, Playfulness In Shakespearean Adaptations edited by Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie. The third season of Shakespeare Republic has been taught at Syracuse University, USA, discussed in papers presented at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference (USA) and BritGrad Conference (UK) and is also further explored in the Arden Shakespeare collection, Lockdown Shakespeare: New Evolutions in Performance and Adaptation, published by Bloomsbury Press in the UK in July 2022.
Sally’s experience as a Shakespearean actor and director and thoughts on Shakespeare performance in the 21st Century in general were also featured in the book Shakespeare & The Actor through interviews with Professor Emerita, British Shakespeare Association Honorary Fellow and author Lois Potter, alongside actors such as Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Sir Antony Sher, among others. The book was published by Oxford University Press in September 2022.
Her work adapting Shakespeare for the screen has been further discussed in the book Authenticity and Adaptation, published by Palgrave Macmillan (UK/USA) in March, 2025. Sally’s work is analysed in depth alongside filmmakers such as Guillermo Del Toro, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Zac Snyder, Taika Waititi and James Gunn, among others.
2025 marked the 10th Anniversary of Shakespeare Republic and was celebrated with the podcast Musing on the Bard: a podcast for the Shakespeare curious, produced, edited and hosted by Sally, made possible by a grant from the British Shakespeare Association. Interviewing various members of the Shakespeare Republic ensemble based around the world about Shakespeare, acting & creativity in general, the podcast debuted on Apple Podcasts at #15 in the Performing Arts category in Australia and at #7 in Romania. The podcast went onto be named a 2025 Fan Fave, Instant Hit Show and Talked About Show on Spotify, as per the 2025 Spotify Wrapped.
Sally has additionally worked in production for Channel Nine, Endemol Southern Star and others on programs such as Comedy Inc, Big Brother, Australian Idol, The X-Factor and 1 VS 100 and is currently writer/director/producer for her first feature-length documentary, Champion and Till The Boys Come Home, a WW2 drama being adapted from her 2004 stage play PS I Love You, currently in development.
Other industry activities include serving as an official Jury member in both acting and screen craft categories for the AFI Awards, AACTA Awards and ATOM Awards from 2010 to 2016, as well as serving as a Jury member for the New Jersey Web Fest, New Zealand Web Fest and NYC Web Fest. Sally has also presented on panels for the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association, Melbourne Web Fest, the Arts Learning Festival and the St Kilda Film Festival, among others.
Sally continues to work as an actor in film & TV while developing several projects – Shakespeare-related and not – for the stage and screen.
More information:
www.sallymclean.com
www.incognitaenterprises.com
www.imdb.com/name/nm0572643