Sydney Dramaturgical Company

Freelance / independent contractor · Sydney · 15 hrs/week · $45.38/hr (Fair Work Journalists Published Media Award MA000067)

Part-time independent contractor engagement, 12 months from December 2026 through December 2027

Interviews this week over Zoom. Applications by Wednesday 20 August, 5pm AEST.

ABOUT SDC

Sydney Dramaturgical Company is an independent theatre company and web magazine publishing live performance criticism across Sydney, New York, and Montréal. We produce in odd years and write in even ones. We pay writers at working critic rate on first draft, run a paid emerging critic mentorship stream, and operate with a transparent AI/automation policy that keeps human writing central while automating everything around it.

We're hiring a Sydney Editorial Lead to hold day-to-day editorial responsibility for SDC's Sydney coverage across a 12-month funded period (December 2026 – December 2027), while the Founder & Editor is based in New York completing an MS in Data Visualization at Parsons. Editorial direction stays with the Founder; the Sydney Editorial Lead runs the Sydney arm.

WHAT THE ROLE ACTUALLY IS

Most of SDC's editorial infrastructure is automated — commissioning workflows, deadline tracking, publication scheduling, payment processing, listicles, applicant screening, roster CRM.

What can't be automated is the relationship work and the taste work.

Writer-facing work

- Direct relationships with SDC's Sydney contributors (~30 working critics and emerging writers across the roster of ~90)
- Editorial passes on first drafts: judgment, care, sharpening arguments, catching factual issues, honouring voice
- Onboarding new Sydney-based writers as the roster grows




- Weekly editorial mentorship touchpoints with emerging critics on the Sydney stream
- Substantive editorial back-and-forth — the conversations that make a piece land

PR- and venue-facing work
- Primary Sydney contact for PR partners (Kabuku PR and equivalent mid-tier firms) and venue programming teams (Belvoir St, Sydney Fringe Festival, and others as the network grows)
- Press comps coordination and coverage negotiations
- Managing SDC's coverage relationship with Sydney Fringe Festival specifically, including as lead editorial contact for the 2027 festival cycle
- Representing SDC at Sydney industry events, opening nights, and sector gatherings when useful

Social media (Sydney channel)

- Editing Instagram carousels for SDC's Sydney feed. Workflow: Gamma spits out three ~15-slide draft carousels from each published piece; you receive both the article and the drafts by email; you collage/cut/re-sequence into a single 9-slide-or-fewer carousel that reads well and honours the piece. ~30 minutes per carousel. Frequency: 2-5 per week, higher during Sydney Fringe.
- See unedited example: https://gamma.app/docs/lacuna-jb8e7qktxyx5d4f
- Vs edited example: https://gamma.app/docs/lacuna-jzn544bargav9xc
- Uploading finished carousels to a shared Google Drive folder (a downstream automation handles posting)
- No caption writing required; captions are automated

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR





- Sharp critical judgment and real feel for editorial voice
- Writing background in criticism, journalism, or arts/culture publishing (you don't need to have edited at scale before, but you know valuable writing from the inside)
- Comfortable running warm, professional relationships with writers, PRs, and venue teams
- Aesthetically confident on social media, especially the visual/sequencing side
- Reliable, organised, communicative — hold multiple deadlines and writers at once without dropping threads
- Based in Sydney, available for industry events, opening nights, and Sydney Fringe

Bonus (not required)

- Existing relationships within Sydney's live performance sector
- Bilingual capacity (English/French)

STRUCTURAL DETAILS

- Independent contractor, 12 months from December 2026 through December 2027
- 15 hours per week, flexible scheduling
- $45.38/hr standard, ~$50.83/hr for the ~1 hr/week evening check-in with the Founder in NYC — per Fair Work Journalists Published Media Award MA000067, Digital publications sector, Band 1 Level 5 casual classification
- Reports to Founder & Editor; weekly editorial mentorship
- Engagement contingent on Creative Australia grant funding (notification early December 2026); "subject to funding" clause applies
- Classification and scope reviewed at 12-month renewal

TO APPLY Apply on LinkedIn or send to [email protected] by Wednesday 20 August, 5pm AEST:
- Resume or brief experience paragraph
- One writing sample (any format, any length)
- One paragraph on why SDC
- 2-3 windows you're free for a 30-min Zoom this week (Wednesday–Friday preferred)
- Interviews rolling this week. Decision by end of week.

📌 Editorial Lead (Sydney)
🏢 Sydney Dramaturgical
📍 Sydney