It's A Small World After All: Romy Bartz

by carol

In 2002, 22 students received a Bachelor’s Degree in Acting from Australia’s National Institute for Dramatic Acting. Alex O’Loughlin, then Alexander O’Lachlan, was part of that graduation class. Eight years later, I wondered how his other classmates had fared.

Classmate Romy Bartz turned out to be the daughter of Australian actress Belinda Giblin, best known for her long-running TV appearances on The Box and Sons and Daughters.  Giblin cast her daughter as her co-star in a 2003 production of Love Child.

Bartz, 21 when she graduated from NIDA, also filmed the episode of White Collar Blue which featured Alex and another 2002 grad, Tanya Goldberg.  White Collar Blue’s second season also offered roles to NIDA '02 classmates Wil Traval, Katrina Campbell, Richard Gyoerify, and Zoe Houghton.

In addition to her continuing stage performances, Bartz teaches acting, particularly to young people.  She has been part of the NIDA on Tour program, taking the NIDA experience to other cities and small towns.  In 2008, she was joined by ’02 fellow alum Sam Haft. 

Bartz receives favorable reviews such as the one for Rabbit, produced in November 2008.  “Kate Mulvany and Romy Bartz are two of the best in the business and they demonstrate why with such ease and creativity it makes you gasp.”   She was the lead actress in Plastic, a short film which received an AFI Award nomination in 2009.

In 2010 she starred in Diagnosis, winner of a Short+Sweet Auckland, a humorous exploration of the modern tendency to over medicate, “with a top draw cast of Romy Bartz and Kim Taylor.”

Her resume, like Alex's, also includes an interesting skill set:  RAD Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Piano and musical theatre, monologue, puppetry and clowning.