Opera director, performer and broadcaster Penny Shaw returns to St Helen’s

Penny Shaw (Class of 1989) returned to St Helen’s in June to speak to students considering pursuing a career in music and the performing arts about her professional singing career over the past thirty years. It was extraordinary to hear about her varied and broad experiences spanning performing in opera, music theatre, cabaret and TV as well as more recent work involving writing and directing shows. Penny, who has lived in Australia for the past 25 years, went on to give the audience a short solo performance in Chapel, which was a wonderful setting for her stunning voice.

With a breath-taking biography, some highlights include her productions for Freeze Frame Opera, which are celebrated for their clarity, emotional impact and accessible storytelling. In a recent accolade, Penny received consecutive Best Director and Best Production nominations at the Performing Arts WA Awards (2024-2025) for The Princess and the Showgirl, an adaptation of Adriana Lecouvreur and Don Giovanni, which reimagined Mozart's classic for the #metoo era. 

She also creates and directs opera education programs, so far adapting classic operas The Magic Flute, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro for Primary School children. Each show has toured over forty schools in the Perth Metropolitan area. 

As a performer, Penny has sung with WA Opera for the last 20 years as both a chorister and a principal artist, including playing Ruth in their 2025 production of The Pirates of Penzance. She is also part of comic opera duo DivaLicious who have appeared everywhere from Australia's Got Talent to the Sydney Opera House.

Her multifaceted career bridges performance and direction, always focusing on making music compelling and accessible to contemporary audiences. She also presents the long-running Arts Collage show on Radio Fremantle helping promote live events in WA and has a successful comedy podcast ‘Diary of a (teenage!) Diva’, which features snippets about her experiences of life at St Helen’s in the 1980s. In her podcast, Penny reads extracts from her diaries written whilst at the School.

We wish Penny all the best for her fascinating and varied career in the performing arts and are very grateful she could join us in school to share her experiences with the students. Wonderful for our budding performers to hear from such an inspiration! Thank you, Penny.