About
photo by Dan Grant
In the eight years since my 2012 Graduate Diploma in Dramatic Arts (Playwriting) from NIDA, I’ve written 14 plays, and been involved in 33 productions in different capacities. My work has won 5 awards, including the Performing Arts Western Australia Awards’ 2019 Best New Work and Best Main Stage Production for You Know We Belong Together. My work has received a further 10 award nominations, including Performing Arts Western Australia Awards Best Independent Production for both The Epic and Tamagotchi Reset and Other Doomsdays.
With many of my ideas I am experimenting in different forms of text-based work. I am drawn to stories that represent solidarity and empowerment for women and minorities.
I recently worked with media arts renegades pvi collective as their Program Coordinator, dramaturg for KISS club, performer for blackmarket (PIAF 2017), and resist Prague Quadrennial and the Disrupted Festival of Ideas.
As a former co-Artistic Director of Crack Theatre Festival (now Crack X Festival, part of This is Not Art), and current Executive Director at Outloud, I support and champion young, emerging and experimental performance artists.
TElling true stories
I have a keen interest in true stories and verbatim. Most recently, in 2018 I co-created award-winning You Know We Belong Together with Julia Hales and Clare Watson for Perth Festival, Black Swan State Theatre Company and DAADA, which was remounted at the Heath Ledger Theatre in 2019. The lead creative, Julia Hales, and the entire supporting cast of You Know We Belong Together have Down syndrome. The response to this work was tremendous, and had a huge impact on the lives of the cast. Seeing Julia’s advocacy work for differently-abled artists expand after the show has been particularly important, as well as a doctor’s response: “Yesterday I had a conversation with a couple who had a diagnosis of Down syndrome for their unborn child, and I encouraged them to terminate the pregnancy. This will be a very different conversation from now on.” I want to make work that elicits this kind of response with every topic that I write about. My interest in this type of work began with Metro Arts Brisbane for The Vertebras, Envelope (2013) was based on 250 responses to a survey of people aged 5-98 about the ambiguity of reaching adulthood. Under a 2018 commission for The Blue Room Theatre and The Centre for Stories, I wrote Fifty Marias, a verbatim piece about a 98-year-old Greek-Australian migrant with a ‘magical’ object they attribute to their survival of an earthquake, WWII, and ageing.
TELLING TALL TALES
My work has frequently reworked myth and legend in order to show the longevity of widespread patterns of thinking and oppression. In 2014 I wrote award nominated Selkie under ATYP’s’ 4x4 program, about a mythical ‘other’ who is trapped in a toxic relationship. Selkie’s themes around intimate partner abuse resonated with audiences and so far has had productions at the Hayman Theatre (2015), The Blue Room (2016), WITS’ Festival Fatale (2016), and was published by Australian Plays (2018). Also published in 2018, my retelling of Medusa advocates for sexual assault survivors and rallies its audience for solidarity. Medusa was written with Black Swan State Theatre Company’s Emerging Writers’ Program in 2016 and had a Blue Room Theatre production in 2018. The responses to these two productions has been a primary reason why this career continues to be so important to me; the audiences’ comments after Medusa’s showings included “how do you know what it feels like to be an older woman?” and “I feel like you’ve written my story somehow”. Similarly, after Selkie I had several moving conversations where I was told things like “Now I feel like I can leave my abusive partner,” and “I need to change the way I talk to my wife”.
Also employing mythology, under our production company Ten Tonne Sparrow, Tom Hogan and I co-wrote and performed in award nominated show The Epic (2015) at The Blue Room Theatre, Bondi Feast (2015), PICA (2016) and toured regional NSW, QLD and Tasmania with Arts On Tour (2018). The Epic uses different national creation myths to question and debunk Australia’s own nationalistic mythologies. In 2016 we wrote Tamagotchi Reset and Other Doomsdays about end-of-days stories and addressing climate-based extinction, with developments with JUTE Theatre Company and Bundanon Theatre Trust and a Blue Room Theatre production in 2017.
AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
I also write on a range of topics from the political to the scientific and the interpersonal. Under a commission for WAAPA and Playwriting Australia I wrote The Election (2017), an interactive social experiment based on the traits voters look for in leaders. In 2019, I was funded by Inspiring Australia, SciTech, and Fringeworld to write Number 16, based on the story of the world’s oldest spider who died in WA. It also addresses single women in rural areas and the impact of mining on biodiversity. I have also developed an interactive performance art piece Text Roulette, which had two seasons in Perth (2018, 2019) and was selected for the English Theatre Berlin’s Expo Festival (2019). This show addresses digital communication anxieties and helps audiences to send their tricky text messages live on stage. In 2020, my commissioned play Scaredy Cat about understanding anxiety, for kids aged 5-7, will tour with Terrapin Puppet Theatre Company.
The work I dramaturge for theatre, dance, circus and contemporary performance work also fits into these broad themes, including historical women and events, such as award nominated Hypatia (The Open Lid Ensemble & The Blue Room Theatre, 2017), Salon (dir: Timothy Brown) for the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, and Apples and Eve (dir: Lucas Jervies) for Expressions Dance Company.
I would be happy to chat with you about how we might work together. Get in touch!