Meet the Writers

Jean Tong

Playwriting Fellow

Jean Tong is a writer and director. Jean is developing Flat Earthers: The Musical with Lou Wall and James Gales for Griffin Theatre Company. Their previous theatre work includes Hungry Ghosts (Melbourne Theatre Company); hit musical Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit (The Butterfly Club – Best Writing/Best Ensemble nominee, 2018 Green Room Awards) and Caesar (La Boite Theatre). They directed Christopher Chen’s Caught at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre in 2022. In 2020, Jean was a Philip Parsons Writing Fellow at Belvoir Theatre. Current TV projects include a one-hour episode on Netflix’s Heartbreak High Season 2 and a half-hour episode on SBS’ Erotic Stories. Previous TV projects include Episode 2 on Safe Home (Kindling Pictures for SBS), and two episodes for Season 2 of 100% Wolf for Flying Bark/ABC. They have worked in numerous writers’ rooms, as the Script Coordinator for New Gold Mountain (Goalpost Pictures and SBS), and as the Development Assistant at Goalpost Pictures from 2019 to 2021.

Kamarra Bell-Wykes

Commission

Angus Cerini

Commission

Angus Cerini is a playwright and theatre maker. His work has been performed throughout Australia and internationally and includes Resplendence (Neon at MTC); The Bleeding Tree (Griffin Theatre) and Wonnangatta (Sydney Theatre Company). He has twice been awarded The Victorian Premier's Literary Award and has won the NSW Premiers Literary Award, The Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, the Griffin Play Prize, the David Williamson Prize, an AWGIE, a Helpmann and Green Room Awards. In 2021 he was the Patrick White Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company.

Claire G Coleman

Co-Commission

Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. Born in Perth she has spent most of her life in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. She has written three novels, Terra Nullius (2019), The Old Lie (2019) and Enclave (2022), and a non-fiction book Lies Damned Lies: A personal exploration of the impact of colonisation (2021).

Her art criticism has been published in Spectrum, Artlink and Art Collector and in exhibition catalogues for NGV, AGSA and NGA and others. Her conceptual/video work Refugium won the Incinerator Art Award in 2021 and she featured in a number of exhibitions in 2022.

She writes novels, poetry, short-fiction, drama and essay and has featured in the Saturday Paper, Guardian, Meanjin, Australian Poetry and many others. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in multiple anthologies.

Patricia Cornelius

Commission

Roshelle Fong

Co-Commission

Roshelle Fong (she/her) is a Hong Kong born multidisciplinary artist who created the award-winning immersive show nomnomnom (2018), adapted in East Iceland, Shanghai and Sydney. She also made the online interactive theatre show Thirsty! (2020) for Griffin Theatre’s Griffin Lock-in and Google Creative Lab’s Theatre, made for the internet, and co-created the Green Room Award nominated theatre show Poona (2021) with Keziah Warner for Next Wave. In 2022 Roshelle worked with Melbourne Theatre Company as Assistant Director and AV collaborator on Laurinda, and wrote for the theatre’s annual playwriting showcase Cybec Electric Scenes.  She was also a participant in Australia Council for the Arts and Creative New Zealand‘s Digital Fellowship Program and RISING Festival’s Headroom Award mentorship. Roshelle’s graduating play for the Masters of Theatre (Writing) at Victorian College of the Arts, 红铅 The Red Lead, won the Bruntwood Playwriting Prize International Award 2022 part of UK’s largest national playwriting competition. 

Matt Heffernen

Co-Commission

Matt Heffernan is Luritja technologist from central Australia who has worked in various sectors from government, not for profits and private industry. He is an alumni of the School of Cybernetics at ANU and is committed to ensuring that Indigenous people are up-skilled in and don’t miss out on technological advancements, and economic development. He is passionate about exploring the ways in which new technologies intersect with Indigenous culture and knowledge. As well as examining the ways in which culture can be expressed via emerging mediums. He also sometimes just loves coding.

Declan Furber Gillick

Commission

Declan Furber Gillick is an artist, writer and performer based on his own country, Mparntwe (Alice Springs), with a practice spanning theatre, television, prose, poetry, music, rap and visual arts. Declan's works for stage include Bighouse Dreaming, Scar Trees and The Great Emu War. He is currently working on a television adaptation of Melissa Lucashenko's Miles Franklin Award-Winning Novel Too Much Lip. Declan has worked as an educator, mentor and co-writer with Desert Pea Media, University of Melbourne Student Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Peoples Young Artists Program and Victorian College of The Arts. He has had work published with Fine Print, Affirm Press, Australian Poetry Journal, University of Queensland Press, Southerly Journal, Redroom Poetry, Magabala Books and Kill Your Darlings. He was Melbourne Athenaeum Library’s 2022 Playwright in Residence and is a resident studio artist at Watch This Space, an Artist Run Initiative in Mparntwe. He holds a Masters in Writing For Performance from Victorian College of The Arts (2017).

Tom Gleisner

Co-Commission

Tom Gleisner has worn pretty much all the hats in terms of writing and performing during his 30 years at Working Dog, but Bloom marks his first foray into the art of writing for a musical. His love for the stage, and comedy, began while at the University of Melbourne, where he completed a law degree. Since then, as a partner in the Working Dog production company, he has written, directed, produced and hosted TV shows such as Have You Been Paying Attention?, Thank God You’re Here, A River Somewhere and Utopia. On the big screen, he co-wrote The Castle and The Dish. Away from the entertainment world, Tom passionately supports many charities, including Learning for Life, which he established with his wife Mary to help families access specialised autism treatment. He also chairs Challenge, which is dedicated to supporting children with cancer. It was the combination of both these areas of dedication that lead to Tom being honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia (General Division).

Katie Weston

Co-Commission

Katie Weston is a Melbourne-based singer, actor, musician and composer. Previous original music theatre works include Sugartown and her acclaimed Falling Forward. Recent stage credits include Vivid White (Melbourne Theatre Company); Uninvited: The Songs of Alanis Morissette (KWM/Marrollo); Suddenly (DHB Theatrical) and The Last 5 Years (KWM). As Music Director, Katie’s credits include Legally Blonde and RENT (James Terry Collective). TV credits include the role of Antonia Hardmon on Neighbours. Original releases include the rock EP Say The Word (2010) and her forthcoming electronic record, Conversation Ended. Katie was nominated for the Green Room Award for Best Musical Direction, was awarded the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria Award for Female in a Leading Role twice and Nova100’s Best New Artist. Katie is a leading vocalist and pianist for live music events around Australia. Qualifications include a Master of Music – Contemporary Voice from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and a Bachelor of Music Composition from the Victorian College of the Arts. Katie is making her professional debut as a composer with Bloom and is proudly represented by Ian White Management. 

Sheridan Harbridge

Co-Commission

Sheridan Harbridge is an award-winning actor, writer and director, graduating from NIDA in 2006. For Melbourne Theatre Company she appeared in The Beast, The Speechmaker, North by Northwest and Prima Facie, for which she won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Actress. She has appeared in many works for Belvoir, STC, Griffin and Sydney Festival, including Muriels Wedding the Musical, Calamity Jane, The Dog/The Cat, Stop Girl, and Queen Fatima.

As a writer, her musical Songs for the Fallen, won Best Musical, Outstanding actress at the New York Music Theatre Festival, and a Green Room Award for its season at Arts Centre Melbourne. She directed and co-wrote Nosferatutu, with her time in the Griffin Studio. She most recently directed the new musical Dubbo Championship Wrestling for Hayes Theatre, and 44 Sex Acts in One Week for Sydney Festival.

Glenn Moorhouse

Co-Commission

Glenn Moorhouse has enjoyed a rich and colourful 25-year career in the Australian music industry. Guitarist, composer, arranger and musical director – his musical journey has delivered more twists and turns than the rugged coast lines of his island home, Tasmania. Throughout the years he has collaborated and performed with some of Australia’s premier artists: iOTA, Chris Cheney, Prinnie Stevens, Bobby Fox, Phil Jamieson, Sarah McLeod, Don Walker, Marcia Hines, Paul McDermott  and Tina Arena, to name a few.

His work in Music Theatre has seen him perform in the original Australian Jersey Boys production (New Theatricals) and Richard O’Brien’s legendary Rocky Horror (John Frost). As musical director, Glenn has brought the punk ethos of Green Day’s American Idiot (Shake & Stir) to the nation as well as recently developing a new Australian work Dubbo Championship Wrestling (Hayes Theatre Co).

Claudia Karvan

Co-Commission

Claudia Karvan is one of Australia’s most respected, awarded and acclaimed film and television actors. The third season of Bump, in which she stars, co-created and co-produced with Rough Diamond for Stan, was released last year and is now in development for a fourth season. Claudia co-produced and co-created the first three series of Nine Network’s Doctor Doctor and co-created, produced and starred in the Foxtel series Spirited and Love My Way.  Claudia has starred in many Australian television series and miniseries including Books That Made Us, The Other Guy, Newton’s Law, Jack Irish, The Time Of Our Lives, Puberty Blues, The Broken Shore, The Secret Life Of Us, My Brother Jack and Small Claims. Her film credits include Moja Vesna, June Again, which earnt her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 2021 AACTA Awards, Daybreakers, Dating The Enemy alongside Guy Pearce, The Long Weekend opposite Jim Caviezel, Gillian Armstrong’s High Tide with Judy Davis, Paperback Hero with Hugh Jackman and The Heartbreak Kid. Theatre credits include Fred, Poor Super Man with STC and The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? For STC and SASTC.

Aran Thangaratnam

Co-Commission

Aran Thangaratnam is a writer from Melbourne whose recent work includes plays such as Stay Woke and The Aussie Ethnic Identity Crisis, and activities like making sure he's dancing like no one is watching. Aran seeks to tell interesting stories seldom seen in the Australian landscape, largely about the business of growing up in Australia with a last name like Thangaratnam.

Benjamin Law

Commission

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter who created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning TV series The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia), wrote the sold-out mainstage play Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2020), and is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer on the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023). He has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.

Every week, Benjamin co-hosts ABC Radio National’s weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything and interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon, and has appeared on TV shows like Australian Survivor (Ten), Filthy Rich and Homeless (SBS), Q&A (ABC), The Drum (ABC) and The Project (Ten). He has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond – including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review – and is a literary scout for Hachette Australia.

Benjamin works and lives on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation (Sydney). He is a board member of Story Factory, committee member of the Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship and ambassador for Plan Australia, the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, Victorian Pride Centre, Bridge for Asylum Seekers and the Pinnacle Foundation.

Kirsty Marillier

Commission

Kirsty Marillier is a South African actor and award-winning playwright. She is currently part of the Emerging Writers Group at Sydney Theatre Company and has two completed works: Orange Thrower, which premiered with Griffin Theatre Company and National Theatre of Parramatta — Winner of the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting (2022) and the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award (2019) and highly commended for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (2023). Other works include The Zap — Winner of the Max Afford Playwrights Award (2020), shortlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting (2022) and runner-up for the Shane and Cathryn Brennan Prize (2022). Kirsty has been a part of multiple creative programs including Studio Artist Program (2020) at Griffin Theatre Company, the Rough Draft Program at Sydney Theatre Company (2019) and the Besen Writers Group at Malthouse Theatre (2018). Recent acting credits include Home and Away, The Cherry Orchard at Belvoir St Theatre, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Home, I'm Darling at Sydney Theatre Company. 

Kate Mulvany

Co-Commission

Kate Mulvany OAM holds a Bachelor of Arts and honorary Doctorate of Letters from Curtin University, Western Australia. She is an award-winning actor, playwright, screenwriter, librettist and dramaturg. Kate’s acting roles include Antigone, Lady Macbeth, Cassius (in Julius Caesar), Dorine (in Tartuffe) and Richard of Gloucester (Richard III) for Bell Shakespeare, for which she won the 2017 Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Play. She won again the following year for her performance in the one-person show, Every Brilliant Thing for Belvoir. Onscreen, Kate has most recently starred in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Foxtel’s The Twelve, and as Nazi-hunting nun Sister Harriet in the Amazon series Hunters, opposite Al Pacino. As a writer, Kate’s award-winning plays include The Seed, Medea (co-written with Anne-Louise Sarks), The Mares and adaptations of Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones, Ruth Park’s The Harp in the South trilogy and Playing Beatie Bow.

Sally Sara

Commission

Sally Sara is an award-winning journalist, writer and author. She has reported from more than 40 countries as a foreign correspondent with the ABC, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. Sally has won two Walkley Awards and has twice been a finalist in the Graham Perkin Award – Australian Journalist of the Year. She has won four UN Media Awards and been nominated for AACTA and Logie Awards. 

Sally has written for the New York Times and Boston Globe. Her book, Gogo Mama, profiled the lives of 12 African women and was longlisted for the Walkley Non-Fiction Book Award. In 2011, Sally was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia, AM, for service to journalism and the community. Her first play, Stop Girl, premiered at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney in 2021, and received four nominations in the Sydney Theatre Awards.

Melanie Tait

Commission

Melanie Tait is a playwright, screenwriter and author. For Paramount+, she has just adapted for the big screen her own sell-out stage play The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race. The play premiered at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney in March 2019 and toured nationally in 2021. It had seasons around Australia including at the State Theatre Company of SA and at Queensland Theatre. Melanie's next play, A Broadcast Coup, opened in January 2023 at Ensemble Theatre as part of Sydney Festival. Her first play The Vegemite Tales won critical and popular acclaim, playing eight years in London, including two on the West End. Melanie is also a trained journalist, and previously worked for 12 years with the Australian national broadcaster ABC.

Carolyn Burns

Co-Commission

Carolyn was born and raised in New Zealand and began her career working for TVNZ as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She also started writing drama, including an 18-part children’s adventure-comedy for television called The Retrievers and a full-length stage play for adults called Objection Overruled. After moving to Australia she was selected to attend the then year-long script writing course at AFTVRS in Sydney. She has continued to write for children’s television as well as the stage, but since shifting to Melbourne with husband Simon Phillips has worked mainly as a freelance script consultant and dramaturg. In 2014 she adapted the Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest. Directed by Simon, it has toured Australia and played in both the UK and Canada. In 2015 she joined forces with Simon and singer/songwriter Tim Finn to adapt Madeline St John’s book The Women in Black to the stage. Ladies in Black won the 2016 Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work. 

Tim Finn

Co-Commission

Having established himself in the early 1970s as a founding member of art-pop-rock pioneers Split Enz and later as a member of the internationally successful band Crowded House (alongside brother Neil), Tim Finn has penned some of the most treasured songs in contemporary music. Add to this, a successful solo career that continues to flourish. In recent years Finn has helped develop new work for theatre. This has included the highly successful musical Ladies in Black, which received a Helpmann Award for Best Australian New Work, White Cloud, a one-man observation of his family heritage and culture, and The Fiery Maze, a raw and provocative piece based on the works of the late Dorothy Porter. Recently Finn has helped create Ihitai'Avei'a-Star Navigator, commissioned by West Australian Opera with New Zealand Opera.

Elise Esther Hearst

Co-Commission

Elise Esther Hearst is a Melbourne-based playwright and storyteller. Elise trained in London at the Royal Court Theatre and had a long-time collaboration with independent theatre company Arthur and director Paige Rattray. Her plays include Bright World, co-written with Andrea James (Theatreworks), The Mesh (Red Stitch) and The Sea Project (part of MTC’s inaugural Cybec Readings series and shortlisted for the Griffin Award). Her play Dirtyland was part of the PWA National Play Festival. Elise is a former resident playwright at the Griffin Theatre. From 2019-2020, Elise was an MTC resident writer as part of the Next Stage writers' program.

Emme Hoy

Writer-in-Residence

Shortlisted for the 2019 Bruntwood Prize and recipient of the Belvoir Philip Parson’s Fellowship, the 2020  STC and NIDA Pathways Commission and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Writer in Residence Program, Emme completed her Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Performance at NIDA.

Her original television series Nobody’s Perfect was longlisted for AWG’S Primetime TV Competition, shortlisted in the ABC/AWG Laugh Out Loud Competition, the Monte Miller Awards and was a semi-finalist in WeScreenplay’s international Television competition. In 2020 she won the AWG/Audible On Air Competition with her original series Left Behind.

In 2017 Emme’s play Extinction of the Learned Response was shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwright’s Award, the Griffin Award and the 2018 Theatre 503 Playwriting Award; and her co-written play Bathory Begins was awarded the 2019 ATYP co-commission.

Emme’s plays include: Salem (NIDA); Strangers (Bondi Feast); Five Year Plan (Silent Theatre); St Joan (Additional Text, Sydney Theatre Company); La Finta Giardiniera (Queensland Conservatorium), Extinction of the Learned Response (Belvoir’s 25a); and Bathory Begins (ATYP, Q Theatre).

Andrea James

Commission

Andrea James is a Yorta Yorta/Gunnaikurnai theatre maker and VCA graduate. She is a Next Stage playwright at Melbourne Theatre Company and is writing The Black Woman of Gippsland set on her Grandmother’s country. Andrea wrote and directed Winyanboga Yurringa (Carriageworks 2016, Geelong Performing Arts Centre 2016, Belvoir 2019). For Griffin Theatre Company, her play Dogged written with Catherine Ryan premiered in 2021 where she also directed Ghosting the Party by Melissa Bubnic in 2022. Ahead of its national tour, Sunshine Super Girl played at Griffith Regional Theatre in 2020 and Sydney Festival in 2021. Andrea was Artistic Director of Melbourne Workers Theatre 2001–2008, Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at Blacktown Arts Centre 2010–2012, Aboriginal Producer at Carriageworks from 2012–2016, and is currently an Artistic Associate at Griffin Theatre Company. She was a participant of the British Council’s Accelerate Program for Aboriginal Art Leaders 2013 and was awarded the Mona Brand Award for Women Writers.

Petra Kalive

Co-Commission

Petra Kalive has previously directed Laurinda, Touching the Void, The Lifespan of a Fact, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes (Green Room Award nominated Outstanding Direction & Outstanding Production), Hungry Ghosts, Beached and Melbourne Talam (Green Room Award-nominated Best Director) for Melbourne Theatre Company, as well as the live online reading of Pandora. She has also worked for Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Arena Theatre Company, Complete Works Theatre Company, St Martins Youth Arts Centre, Monash University Centre for Theatre and Performance, La Trobe Performing Arts Department and the Victorian College of the Arts. Independent directorial credits include Emilia (Essential Theatre/Arts Centre Melbourne); Taxithi (fortyfivedownstairs – Green Room Award-nominated Best Director); Oil Babies, which she also wrote (Lab Kelpie – shortlisted for the NSW Premier Literary Awards); and a musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career (Monash University). Petra was Artistic Director of Union House Theatre from 2014–19 and Associate Director for Melbourne Theatre Company 2020–22.

Phillip Kavanagh

Co-Commission

Phillip Kavanagh is a playwright, originally from Adelaide. He completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Flinders University, as well as a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art (Playwriting) at NIDA. He is currently a PhD candidate at Flinders University. Phillip has been awarded the Patrick White Playwrights' Award, Jill Blewett Playwright's Award, and the Colin Thiele Creative Writing Scholarship. His plays include Jesikah (STCSA), Deluge (Tiny Bricks/Brink/Adelaide Festival), Replay (Griffin) and a new adaptation of Moliére’s Tartuffe (Brink/STCSA). Phillip is one-half of the independent theatre company Tiny Bricks, a creative partnership with director Nescha Jelk. From 2019-2020, Phillip was an MTC resident writer as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers' Program.

Nathan Maynard

Commission

Nathan is a descendant of the chief of the Trawlwoolway Clan and of the whole of the North East Tasmanian Indigenous peoples. Nathan has 17 years’ experience as a dancer in schools and communities. In 2012 he performed in Shadow Dreams (Terrapin /TSO). In 2013 and 2014 Nathan was selected for the Tasmania Performs Artists Residency and in 2014 received an Arts Tasmania grant for a year-long career development program. His play The Season was featured in the 2015 Yellamundie Festival (Moogahlin). The Tasmania Performs production received MFI funding and premiered in 2017 at the Sydney Festival, Ten Days on the Island and Melbourne Festival followed by an 11-venue national tour in 2018. Nathan’s play for children A Not So Traditional Story produced by Terrapin, toured to primary schools across Tasmania in 2018 and in 2019 and was presented at Arts Centre Melbourne and Brisbane Festival. Nathan received Tasmanian Aboriginal Artist of the Year Award in 2006 and 2013, and Tasmanian Aboriginal of the Year at the 2017 NAIDOC awards. In 2019 he was awarded the Balnaves Foundation Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship at Belvoir and a Churchill Fellowship. Before he discovered his love for writing, Nathan worked in land management for 16 years. He balances his life between family, community, culture and writing.

Diana Nguyen

Co-Commission

Diana Nguyen is an actor, comedian and writer. Diana has been in the entertainment industry for 15 years, and performed all over Australia and internationally in LA and Edinburgh.

Diana has performed on TV, film and theatre including devising over ten shows, including Dirty Diana and Naked (standup), Dirty Baby and Viet Kieu (theatre). She has also appeared on TV: The Project (Ch10), Q+A (ABC), How to Stay Married (Ch10), 5 bedrooms (Ch10), Fancy Boy (ABC) and Fat Pizza (Ch7).

In 2008, Diana's popular short story Five Ways to Disappoint Your Vietnamese Mother was published in Alice Pung's book Growing up Asian in Australia. This started her need to share her story of growing up in Springvale and lead to the creation of the theatre show, Phi and Me.

She is the co-creator of Phi and Me, the first ever Vietnamese Australian family comedy series which was first performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2011, sharing the love of a refugee mother's love for her child living in Australia.

In 2019 Phi and Me became the first ever Vietnamese Australian family comedy web series which was funded by Screen Australia and crowd funders from around the world.

Simon Phillips

Co-Commission

Simon Phillips was Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company South Australia from 1990–94 and Artistic Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company from 2000–11, where he oversaw the design and construction of the company’s new headquarters and the Southbank Theatre. Since then he has resumed his national and international freelance career. His directing credits range from contemporary and Shakespearean classics to musicals to opera. He has also directed the premieres of many works by leading Australian writers. He has received seven Green Room Awards and six Helpmann Awards.

Merlynn Tong

Writer-in-Residence

Merlynn Tong is an Actor and Playwright. Some of her playwriting credits include Antigone (adaptation, Queensland Theatre), Good Grief (Queensland Theatre), Golden Blood (development, Melbourne Theatre Company/Griffin Theatre Company), The Big Mac (co-writer, development, Black Swan Theatre Company), Come to Where I am (Critical Stages Touring/Paines Plough Theatre Company, UK), SITE (co-writer, development, Kate Wild, Ellen van Neerven & Sarah Winter), SKIN (Dear Australia, Playwriting Australia), Cocky Jerry Jah (co-librettist, development), Ma Ma Ma Mad (Wax Lyrical) and Blue Bones (Playlab Productions). Her one-woman-show Blue Bones, presented by Playlab Productions, that she also performed in, has won 6 Matilda Awards including the Lord Mayor Award for Best New Australian Work, Best Mainstage Production and Best Female Actor in a Leading Role. She is also the prize recipient of Screen Queensland’s Screen to Stage pitch, The First 10 Pages 2.0. Her works are published by Playlab.

Some of her recent performances include White Pearl (Sydney Theatre Company & National Theatre of Parramatta), The Shot (Queensland Theatre, The Scene Project), Harrow 2 (ABC), Reef Break (ABC/M6), Top of the Lake: China Girl (BBC & Sundance Films, Jane Campion), What I’m Here For (Elbow Room & Flowstate), The Mathematics of Longing (La Boite Theatre), The Lost Lending Library (Punchdrunk & Imaginary Theatre), Hotelling (Bleached Arts), Bitch: Origin of the Female Species (Brisbane Festival), Blue Bones (Playlab Productions), Viral (Shock Therapy Productions), Straight White Men (La Boite Theatre), Ma Ma Ma Mad (Wax Lyrical), The Theory of Everything (Brisbane Festival), The Wizards from Oz (Taiwan, Taoyuan International Children’s Festival) and Hot Brown Honey (Judith Wright Centre).

Van Badham

Commission

Van Badham is an internationally-award-winning writer, activist and occasional broadcaster, whose essays, fiction and criticism have appeared in numerous publications and whose plays have been staged all over the world. She began a weekly column in the Guardian in 2013 and appears regularly on television. Her published books include the plays Muff (NSW Premier’s Nick Enright Play Award) and The Bull, The Moon and the Coronet of Stars (Griffin), Banging Denmark (Sydney Theatre Company), the YA novel Burnt Snow and numerous anthologies of essays and poetry. She tweets via @vanbadham.

Aidan Fennessy

Commission

Aidan Fennessy is a writer and director. His work has been produced extensively both here and overseas. His writing credits include What Rhymes With Cars
and Girls (Melbourne Theatre Company), National Interest (MTC and Black Swan State Theatre Company), The Way Things Work (Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre and Tamarama Rock Surfers), The House on The Lake (Black Swan State Theatre Company, Griffin Theatre Company, and productions in Rome, Athens and Madrid), The Trade (Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Tasmanian Theatre Company), Chilling and Killing My Annabel Lee (Playbox/Chameleon, Queensland Theatre Company). He was nominated at the 2016 Helpmann Awards for Best New Work. He won the 2012 Victorian Premier People’s Choice Award and the 2010 Griffin Award. Aidan was co-founder of Chameleon Theatre, a member of the HotHouse Theatre Directorite, Artistic Director of The Storeroom Theatre Workshop and Associate Director of Melbourne Theatre Company.

Declan Furber Gillick

Commission

Declan Furber Gillick is a multidisciplinary artist from Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and a proud Arrernte man with Irish-Australian heritage. His practice spans writing, theatre, poetry, music, rap, film, television and visual arts. Declan will be making his Melbourne Theare Company debut with Jacky. Other credit include Scar Trees (Ilbijerri Theatre Company) and Bighouse Dreaming (Melbourne Fringe Festival, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival). He is currently working as part of a First Nations writing team to adapt Melissa Lucashenko’s novel Too Much Lip for television. Bighouse Dreaming was awarded the Green Room Award for Best Independent Writing and Best Ensemble, Melbourne Fringe Awards for Best Performance Work and Best Writing, Melbourne Festival Discovery Award and Best Emerging Indigenous Artist. In 2018 he took up a residency as part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage Writers’ Program. He has also worked with Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Peoples Young Artist Program. Declan completed a Masters of Writing for Performance at The Victorian College of The Arts in 2017.

Dan Giovannoni

Commission

Dan Giovannoni lives and works in Narrm/Melbourne. His plays include Merciless Gods (adapted from the book by Christos Tsiolkas for Little Ones Theatre), Jurassica (Red Stitch), Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (Barking Gecko Theatre Company), Turbine (Malthouse Theatre) and Cut Snake (Arthur). In 2016, he was awarded a Green Room Award for Jurassica (New Writing for the Australian Stage) and a Helpmann Award for Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (Best Presentation for Children). Plays in development include House and Little Prince, Big Prince (further collaborations with Bambert director Luke Kerridge), and Mad as a Cute Snake with Amelia Evans. Dan is currently under commission from Arena Theatre Company (Air Race) and is a winner of a Mike Walsh Fellowship 2016. He is a Writer in Residence at Melbourne Theatre Company as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program.

Elise Esther Hearst

Writer-in-Residence

Elise Esther Hearst is a Melbourne-based playwright and storyteller. Elise trained in London at the Royal Court Theatre and had a long-time collaboration with independent theatre company Arthur and director Paige Rattray. Her plays include Bright World, co-written with Andrea James (Theatreworks), The Mesh (Red Stitch) and The Sea Project (part of MTC’s inaugural Cybec Readings series and shortlisted for the Griffin Award). Her play Dirtyland was part of the PWA National Play Festival. Elise is a former resident playwright at the Griffin Theatre. From 2019-2020, Elise was an MTC resident writer as part of the Next Stage writers' program.

Andrea James

Writer-in-Residence

Andrea James is a Yorta Yorta/Gunnaikurnai theatre maker and VCA graduate. She is a Next Stage playwright at Melbourne Theatre Company and is writing The Black Woman of Gippsland set on her Grandmother’s country. Andrea wrote and directed Winyanboga Yurringa (Carriageworks 2016, Geelong Performing Arts Centre 2016, Belvoir 2019). For Griffin Theatre Company, her play Dogged written with Catherine Ryan premiered in 2021 where she also directed Ghosting the Party by Melissa Bubnic in 2022. Ahead of its national tour, Sunshine Super Girl played at Griffith Regional Theatre in 2020 and Sydney Festival in 2021. Andrea was Artistic Director of Melbourne Workers Theatre 2001–2008, Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at Blacktown Arts Centre 2010–2012, Aboriginal Producer at Carriageworks from 2012–2016, and is currently an Artistic Associate at Griffin Theatre Company. She was a participant of the British Council’s Accelerate Program for Aboriginal Art Leaders 2013 and was awarded the Mona Brand Award for Women Writers.

Phillip Kavanagh

Writer-in-Residence

Phillip Kavanagh is a playwright, originally from Adelaide. He completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Flinders University, as well as a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art (Playwriting) at NIDA. He is currently a PhD candidate at Flinders University. Phillip has been awarded the Patrick White Playwrights' Award, Jill Blewett Playwright's Award, and the Colin Thiele Creative Writing Scholarship. His plays include Jesikah (STCSA), Deluge (Tiny Bricks/Brink/Adelaide Festival), Replay (Griffin) and a new adaptation of Moliére’s Tartuffe (Brink/STCSA). Phillip is one-half of the independent theatre company Tiny Bricks, a creative partnership with director Nescha Jelk. From 2019-2020, Phillip was an MTC resident writer as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers' Program.

Anchuli Felicia King

Commission

Anchuli Felicia King is a playwright, screenwriter and multidisciplinary artist of Thai-Australian descent. King’s plays have been produced by the Royal Court Theatre (London), Manhattan Theater Club (New York), Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), American Shakespeare Center (Staunton), Melbourne Theatre Company (Melbourne), Sydney Theatre Company, National Theatre of Parramatta, Belvoir Theatre (Sydney) and La Boite Theatre (Brisbane). She is under commission with the Royal Court Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Atlantic Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company. Her play Golden Shield had its Off-Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2023.

As a screenwriter, Felicia has written episodes on The Sympathizer, the TV adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel starring Robert Downey Jr and Sandra Oh (HBO), and Mary and George (AMC), a historical drama series starring Julianne Moore. She has also written episodes for The Baby, a dark horror comedy produced by Sister Pictures for HBO/Sky, The Twelve, a trial drama for the Foxtel Group and Deadloch, an Amazon original series. She has original series in development with Sister Pictures, AMC, BBC Studios, SKE Creative and Amazon.

Melissa Reeves

Commission

Melissa Reeves is a multi-award winning Melbourne Playwright. Her most recent play is Archimedes War. It was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Awards in 2022. Other works include Furious Mattress, and The Spook – which premiered at Belvoir and was awarded the 2005 Louis Esson Prize for Drama in the Victorian Premiers Awards, and two AWGIES for best new play, Happy Ending, commissioned and produced by Melbourne Theatre Company, Sweetown - awarded the Jill Blewitt Memorial Playwrights Award in 1993, In Cahoots and Road Movie.  She adapted Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People, for Belvoir. She has co-written a number of plays including Magpie, (with Richard Frankland) and Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class, Fever and Anthem (all with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas, composer-Irine Vela).

Chris Summers

Commission

Chris Summers is an award-winning Australian playwright, academic and former NEXT STAGE resident writer at Melbourne Theatre Company. Plays include True Crime (MTC NEXT STAGE Commission, 2020), Being Better (MTC NEXT STAGE Commission, presented MPavilion 2019), Pedagogy (Max Afford Playwright’s Award 2016, National Play Festival 2016, PWA Lost Plays / HotHouse Theatre 2019) and King Artur (Sydney Theatre Company Patrick White Playwright’s Award 2013, presented Sydney Writers’ Festival). Chris has held literary positions with Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre and been appointed peer for the Australia Council and Creative Victoria. Holding a PhD in playwriting, Chris is currently a Lecturer in Arts Education (Drama) at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the University of Melbourne Theatre Board.

Louris van de Geer

Commission

Louris van de Geer’s work includes: Hello There, We’ve Been Waiting For You (Next Wave Festival 2014); Tuesday (MKA 2012) which also adapted for ABC Radio National; Hunny-Bun & Baby Doll (Dixon Place NYC 2015 & Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010); Looking Glass and Triumph, which will both premiere in 2016. Louris holds a Masters of Writing for Performance from the VCA and has interned with Richard Maxwell from New York City Players, Marius von Mayenburg at the Schaubühne Berlin and Ivo van Hove from Toneelgroep Amsterdam. She is the recipient of the 2015 Malcolm Robertson Prize and was named as one of Melbourne Writers Festival’s ’30 Under 30’ best young writers in Melbourne.

Dan Giovannoni

Commission

Dan Giovannoni’s plays for families, young people and adults have been produced across Australia in theatres, school halls, parks, tents and even a barn outside of Hobart. Plays include The Great Un-Wondering of Wilbur Whittaker (2022), HOUSE (2021), Mad as a Cute Snake (2019), Air Race (2018), Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (2016), Jurassica (2015), Cut Snake (2011) and two adaptations of Christos Tsiolkas’s writing, Merciless Gods (2018) and Loaded (2020). He has won three Green Room Association awards – for Loaded, Merciless Gods and Jurassica – and Bambert's Book of Lost Stories won a Helpmann award for Best Presentation for Children, and was nominated for Best New Australian Work. He was an inaugural writer-in-residence at Melbourne Theatre Company as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program, where he was commissioned to write The Body and SLAP. BANG. KISS. A graduate of NIDA, Dan lives on Wurundjeri country in Melbourne with his husband, daughter and two dogs.

Declan Furber Gillick

Writer-in-residence

Declan Furber Gillick is a multidisciplinary artist from Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and a proud Arrernte man with Irish-Australian heritage. His practice spans writing, theatre, poetry, music, rap, film, television and visual arts. Declan will be making his Melbourne Theare Company debut with Jacky. Other credit include Scar Trees (Ilbijerri Theatre Company) and Bighouse Dreaming (Melbourne Fringe Festival, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival). He is currently working as part of a First Nations writing team to adapt Melissa Lucashenko’s novel Too Much Lip for television. Bighouse Dreaming was awarded the Green Room Award for Best Independent Writing and Best Ensemble, Melbourne Fringe Awards for Best Performance Work and Best Writing, Melbourne Festival Discovery Award and Best Emerging Indigenous Artist. In 2018 he took up a residency as part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage Writers’ Program. He has also worked with Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Peoples Young Artist Program. Declan completed a Masters of Writing for Performance at The Victorian College of The Arts in 2017.

Tom Holloway

Commission

Anchuli Felicia King

Commission

Anchuli Felicia King is a playwright, screenwriter and multidisciplinary artist of Thai-Australian descent. King’s plays have been produced by the Royal Court Theatre (London), Manhattan Theater Club (New York), Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), American Shakespeare Center (Staunton), Melbourne Theatre Company (Melbourne), Sydney Theatre Company, National Theatre of Parramatta, Belvoir Theatre (Sydney) and La Boite Theatre (Brisbane). She is under commission with the Royal Court Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Atlantic Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company. Her play Golden Shield had its Off-Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2023.

As a screenwriter, Felicia has written episodes on The Sympathizer, the TV adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel starring Robert Downey Jr and Sandra Oh (HBO), and Mary and George (AMC), a historical drama series starring Julianne Moore. She has also written episodes for The Baby, a dark horror comedy produced by Sister Pictures for HBO/Sky, The Twelve, a trial drama for the Foxtel Group and Deadloch, an Amazon original series. She has original series in development with Sister Pictures, AMC, BBC Studios, SKE Creative and Amazon.

Joe Penhall

Commission

Joe Penhall is a British-Australian writer who divides his time between London, Los Angeles and Melbourne, working across film, theatre and TV.

He is perhaps best known for his film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road, for which Nick Cave composed the music; his West End hit musical, Sunny Afternoon, written with Ray Davies about 1960s group The Kinks; and most recently his Netflix original series Mindhunter. Sunny Afternoon won four Olivier Awards including Best New Musical. Joe wrote Blue/Orange for the National Theatre UK starring Bill Nighy, which went on to win an Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Award, and the Critics Circle Awards for Best Play, before being staged by MTC in 2002. In 2004 he wrote an exposé on tabloid journalism and celebrity, Dumb Show, for Royal Court Theatre, which also played to MTCaudiences in 2006. His other work includes the play Some Voices; feature film Enduring Love, based on Ian McEwan’s novel; award-winning television series The Long Firm; and Moses Jones for BBC Television.

Melissa Reeves

Writer-in-residence

Melissa Reeves is a multi-award winning Melbourne Playwright. Her most recent play is Archimedes War. It was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Awards in 2022. Other works include Furious Mattress, and The Spook – which premiered at Belvoir and was awarded the 2005 Louis Esson Prize for Drama in the Victorian Premiers Awards, and two AWGIES for best new play, Happy Ending, commissioned and produced by Melbourne Theatre Company, Sweetown - awarded the Jill Blewitt Memorial Playwrights Award in 1993, In Cahoots and Road Movie.  She adapted Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People, for Belvoir. She has co-written a number of plays including Magpie, (with Richard Frankland) and Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class, Fever and Anthem (all with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas, composer-Irine Vela).

Natesha Somasundaram

Commission

Natesha is a writer and director for television, theatre and film.

Natesha wrote Ep 6 of the highly acclaimed Netflix/Fremantle AACTA nominated series Heartbreak High (one hour of drama). She also wrote an episode for the second season of Tim Minchin’s Upright (half-hour comedy) produced by Lingo Pictures/Foxtel; Natesha wrote 2 episodes for the AACTA nominated Nickelodeon/Fremantle action-comedy series Rock Island Mysteries, as well as several sketches for the Amazon original comedy series The Moth Effect produced by Bunya Films. Natesha’s other screenwriting credits include The Unlisted (Aquarius Films/Netflix), Big Words, Small Stories (Moody Street Productions/Telegael) and season 2 of Get Krack!n (ABC).

Natesha was a resident playwright at Melbourne Theatre Company from 2017 to 2019. Her debut play Jeremy and Lucas Buy A Fucking House (which she also performed in and co-directed), premiered to a sell-out season in 2017, returned to La Mama in 2018 for another sell-out season as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and was nominated for Best Writing at the 2019 Green Room Awards. Her other plays have been performed at: Malthouse; Belvoir’s 25A; Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric; La Mama Theatre; Play Writing Australia’s National Play Festival; Melbourne Fringe Festival; and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Kylie Trounson

Commission

Kylie Trounson is an award-winning Australian playwright, actor and lawyer.

Kylie’s plays Pandora and Happy Ending were commissioned by MTC in 2018 and 2019. Pandora explores the science and ethics behind pursuing the perfect genome and was workshopped, rehearsed, and filmed for MTC during 2020’s lockdown. Her play The Waiting Room premiered at MTC in 2015 and was nominated for an AWGIE award in 2016. This unique take on the story of the development of IVF technology in Melbourne focused on her father, Alan Trounson’s, role in the race to achieve the world’s first ‘test-tube’ baby.

Other plays include The Hyacinth Project (La Mama); Melbourne Fringe Festival award-winning shows Uninvited Guests and Hotel; The Lost Story Of The Magdalene Asylum (Green Room Award nominee for Best Site-Specific Production 2010); and Love Letters (Victorian Arts Centre).

Kylie was writer-in-residence for Red Stitch Actors Theatre between 2010 and 2011. For Red Stitch she wrote Merman, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Patrick White Playwright’s Award.

Kylie studied playwriting at The New Play Institute in San Francisco and the Queensland University of Technology.

Chris Ryan

Co-Commission

Chris Ryan is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts in Music (Voice) and Acting.

His writing credits include co-writing/adapting Thyestes for Malthouse/Belvoir (2010 Green Room Award for Best Adaptation/Best Main Stage Production), and co-writing/adapting The Wild Duck for Belvoir (2011 Helpmann Award for Best Play 2011 and Sydney Theatre Award for Best Mainstage Production). He also wrote for Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Malthouse Theatre) and co-wrote and performed Andre Tonight! for the Melbourne Fringe Festival (Melbourne Festival Discovery Award 2016). In 2018 he co-wrote Thicker Than Water(TerryandTheCuz) which premiered at Joe’s Pub/Public Theater NYC and will return in summer 2019 for an extended season.

The Wild Duck has been performed internationally to critical acclaim at London’s Barbican, Holland Festival and Vienna Festwochen. Thyestes has received similar acclaim in France (Nanterre-Amandiers), Holland (Holland Festival) and Germany (Theater Der Welt).

Chris Ryan has been commissioned alongside Megan Washington and Mark Leonard Winter to create a new musical work.

As an actor, Chris made his Broadway debut in 2016 in The Present (STC/Thompson Turner Productions).

Other credits include The Hypocrite (Melbourne Theatre Company); Three Sisters, All My Sons, Cyrano De Bergerac, Gross Und Klein (Sydney Theatre Company); Thyestes, Measure for Measure (Belvoir); Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid (Malthouse Theatre) and King Kong (Global Creatures) for which he received a Helpmann nomination for Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical.

Chris Summers

Writer-in-residence

Chris Summers is an award-winning Australian playwright, academic and former NEXT STAGE resident writer at Melbourne Theatre Company. Plays include True Crime (MTC NEXT STAGE Commission, 2020), Being Better (MTC NEXT STAGE Commission, presented MPavilion 2019), Pedagogy (Max Afford Playwright’s Award 2016, National Play Festival 2016, PWA Lost Plays / HotHouse Theatre 2019) and King Artur (Sydney Theatre Company Patrick White Playwright’s Award 2013, presented Sydney Writers’ Festival). Chris has held literary positions with Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre and been appointed peer for the Australia Council and Creative Victoria. Holding a PhD in playwriting, Chris is currently a Lecturer in Arts Education (Drama) at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the University of Melbourne Theatre Board.

Megan Washington

Co-Commission

Megan Washington is an Australian musician and songwriter also known mononymously as Washington. Originally performing jazz music, her style evolved to indie pop and alternative rock where she sings and plays piano and guitar. In 2010, she released her debut album, I Believe You Liar, on Universal Music, which peaked at number three on the ARIA Albums Chart and, by end of 2011, received a platinum certificate from ARIA for shipment of 70,000 copies.

In December 2009 Washington won the inaugural Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition for her track ‘How to Tame Lions’. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 she won the Best Female Artist and Breakthrough Artist awards and received five further nominations for work associated with I Believe You Liar and ‘How to Tame Lions’.

Washington’s second album, There There, was released on 12 September 2014 through Universal Music.

Megan Washington has been commissioned alongside Chris Ryan and Mark Leonard Winter to create a new musical work.

Mark Leonard Winter

Co-Commission

Mark Leonard Winter graduated from the acting program at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2005.

Mark works as an actor, writer and director with Black Lung Theatre and the critically acclaimed Hayloft Project. Mark co-wrote and appeared in Malthouse theatre’s Thyestes, which ran a sell-out season and was awarded Best Production, Best Ensemble and Best Adaptation at the 2010 Green Room Awards. Thyestes was remounted by Belvoir and the Sydney Festival in 2012 and performed internationally in 2014-2015. In 2018, Thyestes was be remounted for the Adelaide Festival.

Mark is a 2017 recipient of the prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship. The Fellowship recognises outstanding talent and exceptional courage in mid-career artists.

Mark’s theatre credits as an actor include: Miss Julie and Birdland (Melbourne Theatre Company); Three Sisters, Chimerica, Suddenly Last Summer and The Effect (Sydney Theatre Company).

Mark’s feature film credits include: The Dressmaker; Healing; Balibo and Van Dieman’s Land. His television credits include: Top of the Lake: China Girl (Foxtel, BBC Two); Cleverman (ABC); Pacific (HBO) and Killing Time (TV1). Mark recently finished shooting the Netflix series Pine Gap.

Mark Leonard Winter has been commissioned alongside Chris Ryan and Megan Washington to create a new musical work.

Angus Cerini

Commission

Angus Cerini is a playwright and theatre maker. His work has been performed throughout Australia and internationally and includes Resplendence (Neon at MTC); The Bleeding Tree (Griffin Theatre) and Wonnangatta (Sydney Theatre Company). He has twice been awarded The Victorian Premier's Literary Award and has won the NSW Premiers Literary Award, The Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, the Griffin Play Prize, the David Williamson Prize, an AWGIE, a Helpmann and Green Room Awards. In 2021 he was the Patrick White Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company.

Patricia Cornelius

Commission

Dan Giovannoni

Writer-in-Residence

Dan Giovannoni’s plays for families, young people and adults have been produced across Australia in theatres, school halls, parks, tents and even a barn outside of Hobart. Plays include The Great Un-Wondering of Wilbur Whittaker (2022), HOUSE (2021), Mad as a Cute Snake (2019), Air Race (2018), Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories (2016), Jurassica (2015), Cut Snake (2011) and two adaptations of Christos Tsiolkas’s writing, Merciless Gods (2018) and Loaded (2020). He has won three Green Room Association awards – for Loaded, Merciless Gods and Jurassica – and Bambert's Book of Lost Stories won a Helpmann award for Best Presentation for Children, and was nominated for Best New Australian Work. He was an inaugural writer-in-residence at Melbourne Theatre Company as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program, where he was commissioned to write The Body and SLAP. BANG. KISS. A graduate of NIDA, Dan lives on Wurundjeri country in Melbourne with his husband, daughter and two dogs.

Michael Gow

Commission

Michael Gow’s plays include the Australian classic Away, The Kid, On Top of the World, Europe, Sweet Phoebe, Live Acts on Stage, 17 (for the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain), Toy Symphony and Once in Royal David’s City. His plays have been performed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Vietnam, Japan and all over the US.

Michael has been Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company and Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company. He has directed for all the major Australian theatre companies as well as Opera Australia, Australian Theatre for Young People and the Lincoln Centre’s New Visions New Voices programme.

Michael’s awards include two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, two Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards and an AFI Award for writing the ABC miniseries Edens Lost. His most recent play Once in Royal David’s City premiered at Belvoir in 2014. In 2015 he directed a remount of his production of The Magic Flute for Opera Australia and his translation of Mother Courage and Her Children premiered at Belvoir. 2016 saw two critically acclaimed productions touring under Michael’s direction; Voyage to the Moon(for which he also wrote the libretto) with Victorian Opera / Musica Vivia and The Pearlfishers for Opera Australia.

In 2017 Away was staged as a co-production between STC and Malthouse while Once in Royal David’s City will enjoy Brisbane and Perth premieres at Queensland Theatre and Black Swan State Theatre Company.

Benjamin Law

Commission

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter who created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning TV series The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia), wrote the sold-out mainstage play Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2020), and is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer on the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023). He has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.

Every week, Benjamin co-hosts ABC Radio National’s weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything and interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon, and has appeared on TV shows like Australian Survivor (Ten), Filthy Rich and Homeless (SBS), Q&A (ABC), The Drum (ABC) and The Project (Ten). He has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond – including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review – and is a literary scout for Hachette Australia.

Benjamin works and lives on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation (Sydney). He is a board member of Story Factory, committee member of the Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship and ambassador for Plan Australia, the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, Victorian Pride Centre, Bridge for Asylum Seekers and the Pinnacle Foundation.

Joanna Murray-Smith

Commission

Joanna Murray-Smith is a Melbourne based playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Her works at Melbourne Theatre Company include Three Little Words, Switzerland, Pennsylvania Avenue, Songs for Nobodies, True Minds, Rockabye, The Gift, The Female of the Species and Ninety. Joanna’s play Honour, written in 1995, remains her most successful work to date and has been produced in over two dozen countries. Many of her plays have appeared all over the world, including on Broadway, the West End and at the Royal National Theatre in London.

Joanna has won three Premier’s Literary Awards for her dramas Honour, Nightfall and Rapture. Her 2004 play Bombshells won the Fringe Fest Award at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the London Theatregoers Choice Award the following year.

Joanna has also published three novels: Truce, Judgement Rock and Sunnyside and two operas produced by Opera Australia: Love in the Age of Therapy (composed by Paul Grabowsky) and The Divorce (composed by Elena Kats-Chernin and aired on ABCTV last year).

Leah Purcell

Commission

Leah Purcell is an internationally acclaimed director, writer and actor. In 2016, she was the start-up director on the hit 7 Network/Screentime series, The Secret Daughter. In 2015, Leah directed episodes of Goalpost Picture/Pukeko’s Cleverman which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, aired locally on the ABC and on the Sundance Channel in the US. She is currently directing the follow up series, Cleverman 2.

Her play, The Drover’s Wife (in which she also played the title role), was a part of Belvoir Theatre’s 2016 season. Leah was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama and the Victorian Prize for Literature for this play.

Leah is currently developing a film based on the play and an original screenplay, Moxie Girls, with the support of Screen Australia. Leah’s theatre directing credits include Brothers Wreck (Belvoir Theatre), Don’t Take Your Love to Town, a play she also co-devised and starred in (Belvoir Theatre), Stolen (ACPA), Actor on a Box – Dreaming and Theatre In Practice – Stolen (Sydney Theatre Company Theatre in Education), The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table (QPAC), 7 Stages of Grieving (Sydney Theatre Company), Reflections: 40 Years and to the Future (ACPA/QPAC) and Howie The Rookie (Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts).

In 1997, Leah co-wrote Box the Pony which was the smash hit of the 1997 Festival of the Dreaming and has played to sell-out seasons at the Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney Opera House, the 1999 Edinburgh Festival and the Barbican Theatre in London. The published text of the play won the 1999 NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the 2000 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Play.

Leah was a script consultant on Love Child series two and three for Playmaker Media. Leah also nominated and won Logies and AACTA Awards as part of Redfern Now series one and two and Cleverman series one. She won the 2016 AWGIE for best script TV Teen Drama Ready for this which was also nominated for an international Emmy for Best Teen Drama series.

Natesha Somasundaram

Writer-in-Residence

Natesha is a writer and director for television, theatre and film.

Natesha wrote Ep 6 of the highly acclaimed Netflix/Fremantle AACTA nominated series Heartbreak High (one hour of drama). She also wrote an episode for the second season of Tim Minchin’s Upright (half-hour comedy) produced by Lingo Pictures/Foxtel; Natesha wrote 2 episodes for the AACTA nominated Nickelodeon/Fremantle action-comedy series Rock Island Mysteries, as well as several sketches for the Amazon original comedy series The Moth Effect produced by Bunya Films. Natesha’s other screenwriting credits include The Unlisted (Aquarius Films/Netflix), Big Words, Small Stories (Moody Street Productions/Telegael) and season 2 of Get Krack!n (ABC).

Natesha was a resident playwright at Melbourne Theatre Company from 2017 to 2019. Her debut play Jeremy and Lucas Buy A Fucking House (which she also performed in and co-directed), premiered to a sell-out season in 2017, returned to La Mama in 2018 for another sell-out season as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and was nominated for Best Writing at the 2019 Green Room Awards. Her other plays have been performed at: Malthouse; Belvoir’s 25A; Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric; La Mama Theatre; Play Writing Australia’s National Play Festival; Melbourne Fringe Festival; and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Kylie Trounson

Writer-in-Residence

Kylie Trounson is an award-winning Australian playwright, actor and lawyer.

Kylie’s plays Pandora and Happy Ending were commissioned by MTC in 2018 and 2019. Pandora explores the science and ethics behind pursuing the perfect genome and was workshopped, rehearsed, and filmed for MTC during 2020’s lockdown. Her play The Waiting Room premiered at MTC in 2015 and was nominated for an AWGIE award in 2016. This unique take on the story of the development of IVF technology in Melbourne focused on her father, Alan Trounson’s, role in the race to achieve the world’s first ‘test-tube’ baby.

Other plays include The Hyacinth Project (La Mama); Melbourne Fringe Festival award-winning shows Uninvited Guests and Hotel; The Lost Story Of The Magdalene Asylum (Green Room Award nominee for Best Site-Specific Production 2010); and Love Letters (Victorian Arts Centre).

Kylie was writer-in-residence for Red Stitch Actors Theatre between 2010 and 2011. For Red Stitch she wrote Merman, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Patrick White Playwright’s Award.

Kylie studied playwriting at The New Play Institute in San Francisco and the Queensland University of Technology.

Ellen van Neerven

Commission

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning Mununjali writer from South East Queensland. Their first book, Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen was named as a Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist in 2015. Ellen's second book, a collection of poetry, Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and Highly Commended for the Wesley Michel Wright Prize.

Ellen’s writing has appeared in publications such as Frankie Magazine, The Saturday Paper, The Griffith Review, The Lifted Brow, Meanjin and Overland. They have been invited to talk and perform their work in Canada, the US, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, and across Australia.