THEATRE director and former Lambton High student, Mathew Lee, has picked up four Sydney Theatre Awards for his production of Symphonie Fantastique.
"I'm pretty overwhelmed and very excited. I didn't expect this at all," Mr Lee told the Newcastle Herald.
"I've always been to these awards and seen friends and colleagues winning awards, which is amazing, but it was a nice change to pick up a few of my own."
Now a Sydney-based actor and director, Mr Lee started out in Young People's Theatre (YPT) in Hamilton as a 16-year-old.
"YPT has great facilities and they really encourage young people to get in try anything - director, acting, costume or working behind the scenes," Mr Lee said.
"It's there that I developed an active relationship with theatre and sparked my love for it."
Symphonie Fantastique won best independent production, best sound design and composition of an independent production, best ensemble and best lighting design of an independent production.
The production also received nominations for best independent director, independent costume design and independent set design.
The concept for Symphonie Fantastique was born between Mr Lee and partner and musical director Oliver Shermacher, who suggested a show based on Hector Berlioz's 1830 symphony.
"The original work is a programmatic symphony which is basically a symphony with a storyline," Mr Lee said.
"It's about a guy who is really obsessed with a woman and his attempts to win her combined with his almost abusive relationship with her when she doesn't reciprocate."
"We wanted to bring this into the modern day and make a queer inspired, drug-fueled dancefloor piece.
"Around the time of the original symphony they were dealing with opium problems so we wanted to bring that in and make an inclusive piece with phsycaldellic drugs and how that might affect relationships."
Symphonie Fantastique is described by The Little Eggs Collective - the theatre company behind the production - as a "a dark and perfumed symphony that revels in fascination, obsession, the dizzying highs and self-destructive lows of a pained artist and their drug induced hallucinations".
The production also featured Newcastle's Cassie Hamilton, with Mathew and Cassie meeting at YPT and further developing their working relationship in Sydney.
