DRAMATURGY, DIRECTING, DEVISED WORK AND PERFORMANCE

DRAMATURGY

I work closely with writers, directors and choreographers to help them tell the story they want to tell. I’ve worked with artists making theatre, dance, circus and contemporary performance work.

While available for all kinds of stories, I largely have a background in working with artists telling personal stories, and particularly within the mental health, social justice, and disability sectors. I am always pleased to help artists dealing with these powerful and delicate topics. 

I employ a holistic approach - when I work with someone, I am available to advise on script, performance, research, and preparations for production. I aim to give you tools to develop your craft beyond this project and into your future practice. 

I will offer you suggestions, ideas, flag areas for development, and potential solutions. I see work as in-flux and us working together as a team to help you tell the story you want to tell in the best possible way. 

I’m available for blocks of sessions or ongoing mentorship, as well as performing once-off script assessments, where I provide a detailed written report on my thoughts around voice, story, structure, arcs, and development, and notes.

DIRECTING AND
DEVISED WORK

DEVISED WORK

I enjoy collaborating with other writers, performers, visual artists and movement artists to create new work. I’m especially excited when I can work with artists from different forms, creating interdisciplinary work that pushes the boundaries of form and content.

I’ve worked with feminist groups such as Hey! Precious (WA) on their development for Unrule for The Blue Room Theatre’s Winter Nights Festival 2018. Unrule was a hilarious, horror filled exploration of the ways the bodies (and experiences) of those who identify as female are misunderstood by the health system.

I was a founding member of all-female interdisciplinary group The Vertebras (QLD), and worked with them on The Room for the World Theatre Festival 2012 and at the State Library of QLD 2011, and Can You Keep A Secret for 2high Festival 2011. These shows were both interactive works that invited audiences to play and think about the ways their bodies move, the secrets they choose to keep, and how much power they have in any given situation.

I’ve worked in comedy collaboration Rock Candy (NT) with Scary Time in 2010, and Story Time in 2009, both at the Tease Festival. These plays parodied fairy tales and horror films, and were very silly and a lot of fun.

I’ve also devised and performed in the horror genre, with Acacia Hills in 2009 Brown’s Mart Theatre (NT) and North Melbourne Town Hall (VIC), Melbourne Fringe Festival. This work was based on accounts and news stories about Yowies, (Australia’s big foot).

I’ve also devised and co-directed Pig Man in 2006 for Darwin Festival and Chambers Crescent Theatre (NT), working with first-time actors and performers with disabilities. This work was part of an NT urban legend bus tour trilogy, and explored the stories about a half-man-half-pig living in a local creek.

DIRECTING

I direct work that feels like it inherently must be seen live, that will make a theatre space feel like a place of transformation. I am drawn to stories that are fierce, with an aspect of vulnerability.

Most recently I directed and dramaturged The Beast and the Bride and Interrupting a Crisis (click the titles for more information).

Before then, in 2009 I was an assistant director of Origins, a large-scale multi-arts show for Corrugated Iron Youth Arts (NT) celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.

In 2008 at Brown’s Mart Theatre (NT), I co-directed Shakespeare’s Fools, an investigation of the jokers and clowns in Shakespeare’s body of work.

Also in Brown’s Mart Theatre, in 2007 I directed Briefs, a collection of short plays by emerging Australian playwrights. In 2007 I also co-directed Shakespeare’s Chicks, which gathered together the best monologues and scenes for women in Shakespeare’s plays.

In 2005 I directed Dust by Mike Folie, for Corrugated Iron Youth Arts at Brown’s Mart Theatre. This work showcased recent graduates.

PERFORMANCE

I generally work in performance art rather than acting. I’m interested in storytelling and facilitating other people’s storytelling.

In 2017 I was a custodian in Perth Festival’s Museum of Water by Amy Sharrocks, which collected stories and samples of water about our shifting relationship with this vital substance.

For renegade playful, political media arts org pvi collective, I’ve performed in resist at the Prague Quadrennial (2015), the Disrupted Festival of Ideas (2016), and Curtin University (2017). This work invites contestants to solve large and small differences using the ancient art of tug-of-war. I’ve also performed in their end-of-the-world real life RPG blackmarket for Perth Festival (2016), in which audiences need to hustle and trade to learn to survive in the post-collapse economy.

I performed in and dramaturged Sad Girls Club (2016) by Vidya Rajan, for The Blue Room Theatre’s Summer Nights Program. This work was about the phenomenon of the ‘sad girl’, which both fetishises and diminishes women’s darker emotions.

I’ve been an actor for Centrelink’s Advanced Customer Aggression Training (2009, 2010, 2011) and NT Government’s TV and print Domestic Violence Awareness campaign (2010). I also have been an actor for Police Child Forensic Interview training, for Darwin Theatre Company and the NT Police (2009, 2010)

More traditional acting roles include for Darwin Theatre Company - A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - I played Mustardseed (2010). I also performed in three plays of DTC’s readings series (2008 and 2007).
And for JUTE Theatre’s Indie Season and the Playhouse Theatre Bundaberg (QLD) (2009, 2010) I played the lead character and puppeteered for Roland Thring and the Year All His Christmases Came At Once, by Rod Ainsworth.

PERFORMANCE POETRY

I have also had a brief career as a performance poet -

In 2016 I was a feature writer for Paper Mountain’s Writ Poetry Review event, and in 2015, a feature writer for Ships in the Night (both WA).

In 2010 and 2011 I performed in the Tease Festival (NT), I was a feature poet for Stellar, the NT Writers’ Centre’s National Science Week event (2011), and in Off The Page, the NT Writers’ Centre’s regular event (2011, 2009).

In 2008 I was a feature writer at The Spinning Room (VIC), and a finalist at the National Poetry Slam. I was also a team member of the Team Slam at the Inaugural ‘Night Words Festival’, Sydney Opera House (NSW). Our team won!