SIREN THEATRE CO
.jpg)
Charlie Josephine - Playwright (they/he)
Charlie Josephine is an actor and a writer, passionate about making work that centres working class women and queer people.
In 2023 their play COWBOIS opened at the RSC’s Swan Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon where it was nominated for Best New Play at the WhatOnStage Awards, before transferring to the main stage of the Royal Court Theatre in January 2024.
Recent theatre work includes FLIES for Boundless Theatre ONE OF THEM ONES for Pentabus Theatre, and BIRDS AND BEES for Theatre Centre. Their previous plays include BITCH BOXER and BLUSH.
They are also currently developing a new feature biopic. Charlie is an associate artist at the NSDF and board trustee at Cardboard Citizens.
It’s 1883 in the Wild West and 2025 at the Seymour Centre, because Cowbois rides both timelines at once, yanking the dusty myths of cowboy cinema straight into the now.
When Charlie Josephine dove into classic Westerns, they found a genre clogged with racism, heteronormativity, and women written thinner than tumbleweed. So, they stole the swagger, ditched the bigotry, and rebuilt the Western with queer voltage. A Trojan horse in spurs, Cowbois smuggles big ideas about gender, sexuality, and class into what Josephine calls “a really great night out.”
Real cowboys were far more diverse than Hollywood’s lantern-jawed fantasies, and Josephine draws on trans histories and global gender-nonconformity to reclaim that truth. Their outlaw hero, Jack Cannon (Jules Billington), blows into a half-asleep frontier town run by its womenfolk and flips the place like a card table. Confident, charismatic, unapologetically trans masc, Jack ignites a full-bodied reckoning with identity, power, and possibility.
This may be a story about a quiet town blooming into a queer utopia, but Josephine wanted it to welcome everyone. The challenge? Fuse rebellious, sweaty queer joy with a satisfyingly “straight” storytelling spine. The payoff? A show where trans audiences feel seen, queer audiences feel lifted, and newcomers get swept into something they didn’t expect but won’t forget.
“It feels exciting when a trans person is grateful to see representation onstage, or a queer person is grateful to see two queer people fall in love,” Josephine says. “To achieve both in one show feels like a huge achievement. I’m really proud of that.”
Rehearsal Room images: Pollyanna Nowicki
First Performance was given by RSC at The Swan Theatre, UK on 14 October 2023
MEET THE MAKER: PRODUCTION DESIGNER EMELIA SIMCOX
Emelia Simcox brings a rare blend of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation to Cowbois. A UNSW Design and Applied Arts graduate, she began her career through a coveted Scenic Art traineeship at Opera Australia, learning the scale, discipline and alchemy of theatrical illusion. That early work sparked an international chapter across London and Ireland, where she expanded her expertise in design, scenic art and large-format visual storytelling.
Returning home, Emelia went on to lead the scenic art departments at Sydney Theatre Company and Opera Australia, helping shape some of the nation’s most ambitious visual worlds. Alongside her theatre work, she founded SIMCOX, an acclaimed wallpaper and fabric design label that merges hand-drawn scenic techniques with contemporary digital print. Each design begins as a full-scale artwork before being scanned into layered digital compositions that honour the integrity of the human line. The result: a look that is atmospheric, contemporary and alive to natural light.
Her artistic roots run deep. As the daughter of designers and scenic artists, she grew up inside Sydney’s paint shops surrounded by glitter, canvas and possibility. Watching her father, Cliff Simcox, shift from display art into theatre and television shaped her belief that design is both craft and calling. “It was a magical world of illusion,” she recalls. “I fell in love with the idea of creating an entirely new world on a thin piece of canvas.”
Today, Emelia is a practitioner who can paint a horizon by hand, build a world in Photoshop, and conjure a universe that feels handmade, timeless and daring. Her advice to emerging designers: "work hard, stay brave, stay original, enjoy the ride, and make the work for yourself first."
As she continues expanding SIMCOX and designing for stage and screen, Emelia brings that blend of tradition and invention to Cowbois — a frontier town ready to be rewritten.
 Kate Gaul (She/Her) Director |  Jules Billington (They/Them) Jack Cannon |  Matthew Abotomey (He/Him) Sheriff Roger Jones |
|---|---|---|
 Aisling Bermingham (She/Her) Sound Designer |  Faith Chaza (They/Them) Lucy/Lou |  Bianca Dreis (She/Her) Stage Manager |
 Rhiannon Bryan (They/Them) – Intimacy Director |  Emily Cascarino (She/Her) Miss Lillian |  Branden Christine (She/Her) Mary |
 Clay Crighton (They/Them) Composer/Lyricist/MD & Charlie Parkhurst |  Eve Fielding (She /Her) Assistant Designer |  Nelson Fannon (He/Him) Tommy's Toothless Boy |
 Matilda Holton (She/They) ASM |  Lana Filies (She/Her) Chaperone & Tommy's Toothless Boy |  Nicholas Hiatt (He/Him) Frank/Tommy's Toothless Boy |
 Lara Lightfoot (They/Them) Associate Director |  Danica Lani (S/He) - Choreographer |  Henry Lopez (He/Him) - James |
 Jess Nipperess (She/Her) Assistant Director |  Jane Phegan (She/Her) Sally Ann |  Edward O'Leary (He/They) George |
 Aimie McKenna (She/Her) Jane |  Emelia Simcox (She/Her) Designer |  Kirsty Semaan (She/Her) Rehearsal Observer |
 Zachary Aleksander (He/They) Toothless Tommy |  Leon Walshe (He/Him) John |  Beau Jordan (He/Him) Kid |
 Rory Spinks (He/Him) Kid |  Ollie Jenkins (He/Him) Kid |