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Deidre Rubenstein (born 1948)^[1] is an Australian television and theatre actress, as well as a dramatist and playwright well known for her performance in Australian soap operas and main stage dramatic roles. She has won the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award as Best Actress.

Rubenstein graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1967^[2] and has worked extensively in live theatre, television, films and as a narrator of audio books. She has produced a significant body of work as a narrator of audio books and has won several awards in this field.^[3]

Television work

Rubenstein has worked in television comedies, drama, mini-series and TV movies.^[4] In 1970 she appeared in an episode of Homicide. She played a guest role in Prisoner (1979–80), as terrorist Janet Dominguez. In 2004 Rubenstein played the scheming Svetlanka Ristic in the soap opera Neighbours.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Type
1990	Breaking Through	Ann	Film
1991	The Girl Who Came Late (aka Daydream Believer)	Trish Schultz	Feature film
1996	The Inner Sanctuary	Peggy	Feature film
1999	Siam Sunset	Celia Droon	Feature film
2000	The Calling	Martha O’Connor	Short film
2001	Like Mother Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes	Las Vegas Judge	TV film
2002	Secret Bridesmaids' Business	Ruth	TV film
2004	Josh Jarman	Theatre Actress	Feature film
2008	Salvation	Gloria’s Coach	Feature film
2008	Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger	Mrs Fleisher	Feature film
2011	Underbelly Files: The Man Who Got Away	Uncredited	TV film
2015	Force of Destiny	Miriam	Feature film
2023	The Rooster	Mrs Poulson	Feature film

Television

Year	Title	Role	Type
1970	Homicide	Jane	TV series, 1 episode
1978-1980	Prisoner	Janet Dominguez	TV series, 5 episodes
1980	Water Under the Bridge	Lainey	TV series, 3 episodes
1982	The Mike Walsh Show	Guest - Herself with Tony Taylor	TV series, 1 episode
1985	Palace of Dreams	Chana Mendel	Miniseries, 10 episodes
1988	Australians	Nance	Miniseries, 1 episode
1988	Rafferty's Rules	Peggy Guest	TV series, 1 episode
1988	A Country Practice	Helen Morris	TV series, 2 episodes
1989	E Street	Louise Baker	TV series, 1 episode
1989	G.P.	Iris Grimshaw	TV series, Recurring role
1996	Mercury	Steffi Petrakis	Miniseries, 2 episodes
1997-2003	Blue Heelers	Helen Delaney, Magda Lapenscu	TV series, 2 episodes
2000	Introducing Gary Petty	Nancy	TV series, 6 episodes
2001-02	BackBerner	Psychologist	TV series, 2 episodes
2002	The Secret Life of Us	Nathan’s Mum	TV series, 2 episodes
2002	MDA	Dr Fallows	TV series, 1 episode
2004	Neighbours	Svetlanka Ristic	TV series, 12 episodes
2007	Kick	Reva Feinmann	Miniseries, 1 episode
2008	Saddle Club	Rosemary Cross	TV series, 1 episode
2008	City Homicide	Cheridah Lapstone	TV series, 1 episode
2021	Superwog	Agnes	YouTube series, 1 episode

Theatre

Rubenstein's career in the theatre includes work with several major Australian companies, including the Nimrod Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company.^[5]

In 1993, she had a solo show called What's a Girl to Do?,^[6] where she performed poems written by contemporary Australian women poets.^[7] It was later performed by Rubenstein at The Stables Theatre in Sydney (1994) and at the 1995 Edinburgh Festival.^[8]

This show inspired her to do another solo show using work commissioned for her, work that was written to be performed live. She was awarded a Victorian Government Women Artist's Grant and commission contemporary writers to produce the performance pieces that were later and produced in a book called Confidentially yours. The first performance was in the Playbox Theatre Centre, C.U.B Malthouse, Melbourne on 11 February 1998. The writers commissioned to produce the work that became Confidentially Yours were, Janis Balodis, Andrew Bovell, Nick Enright, Michael Gurr, Daniel Keene, Joanna Murray-Smith and Debra Oswald. Andrew Bovell wrote a pair of stories for the show that he later used in the script for the film Lantana.

In 2005, Rubenstein performed in Menopause the Musical, a comedy breaking down the taboos about menopause.^[9] With Caroline Gillmer, Susan-Ann Walker and Jane Clifton, Rubenstein, as "The Dubbo Housewife", explored the stereotypes and madness of that time in a woman's life.

In 2015, she played Gertrude Stein in the musical Loving Repeating - a Musical of Gertrude Stein in Melbourne.

Awards and nominations

1996 – a recipient of the inaugural Women Artists Grants, a Victorian Government initiative to encourage emerging women artists living and working in Victoria.^[10]
1998 – TDK Australian Audio Book Awards Narrator Award for Unabridged Fiction:^[11] Dreamtime Alice by Mandy Sayer
2001 – Vision Australia Library Awards, joint winner of the Adult Narrator of the Year Award^[12] with James Wright reading of The Architect by Jillian Watkinson.

Bibliography

Rubenstein, Deirdre, ed. (1998). Confidentially yours (Australian Drama – 20th Century). Melbourne: Currency Press, Sydney, in Association with Playbox Theatre Centre, Monash University. ISBN 0-86819-553-7.

References

^ "Australian Library Collection". Libraries Australia. Retrieved 8 August 2007.
^ "NIDA Graduates". NIDA. Archived from the original on 5 February 2014. Retrieved 6 August 2007.
^ "Bibliography in Louis Braille Audio Books". 30 June 2007. Archived from the original on 27 June 2002.
^ ^a ^b "IMDb Filmography". 30 June 2007.
^ "Deirdre Rubenstein as "The Dubbo Housewife"". 2 February 2005. Archived from the original on 30 August 2007.
^ "What's a Girl To Do? By Deidre Rubenstein". Playbox theatre Center General Information. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 8 August 2007.
^ Rubenstein, Deirdre, ed. (1998). Confidentially yours (Australian Drama – 20th Century). Melbourne: Currency Press, Sydney, in Association with Playbox Theatre Centre, Monash University. p. iv. ISBN 0-86819-553-7.
^ Rubenstein (1998). p.iv
^ "Flushed with Success". The Age. Melbourne. 31 January 2005.
^ "News Release: Women Artists Honoured". 6 May 1997. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
^ "Medial Release: TDK Australian Audio Book Awards celebrate 10 years of excellence". 11 November 1998.
^ "Louis Braille Audio Award List". 30 June 2007. Archived from the original on 28 January 2013.