Marlin

Christian Leavesley

Christian is the Artistic Director of Arena Theatre Company. He studied theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, Monash University and the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a writer and director, who is known for devising and adapting classics, and for directing premieres of new Australian writing. He co-founded multi-award winning company Uncle Semolina(& friends), whose works include Gilgamesh, Ticky Tacky and OT have been programmed internationally at venues such as the London Barbican Centre, the Chao Yung Cultural Centre Beijing, Studio Eve Tokyo and the Shanghai Centre of Dramatic Arts, among others. Nationally, Uncle Semolina has been presented at venues including the Sydney Opera House, the Adelaide Festival Centre, the Malthouse Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, and the Melbourne International Festival. Christian has provided curatorial and artistic advice to many arts organisations and educational institutions. He is a recipient of La Mama’s inaugural Lemon Gum Tree Award for outstanding artistic achievement, and the Malcolm Robertson Prize for new writing. He was also jointly awarded the Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship in 2005. He currently serves on the board of St Martins Youth Arts Centre.

Prior to his current position with Arena, he was Artistic Associate from 2008-2012. At Arena, Leavesley has directed the premiere of Starchaser by Lally Katz, and touring productions of Missing Link, Mr Freezy and Moth. He was the assistant director on large scale immersive installation work House of Dreaming. His first production as Artistic Director, Marlin, will be an adventure at sea played in a sea of foam.

Jolyon James

Jolyon James is the Artistic Associate at Arena Theatre Company. As a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) Jolyon has spent 20 years working both nationally and internationally as a performer in film, television, theatre and musical theatre. Alongside his acting career, he has developed a significant arts practice and has exhibited across the country. Most recently, through his own company BILLIEJEANISNOTMYLOVER, he was nominated as one of the top 10 emerging Australian photographers and was a finalist in the prestigious National Portrait Prize. Holding a Bachelor of Education, he maintains a strong connection between young people and creativity. He has written and directed numerous works for young adults and is currently producing his own dynamic television series for children.

Marg Horwell

Rachel Burke

Emily O’Brien

Jethro Woodward

Wang-Zheng Ting

Wang Zheng-Ting, teachers Chinese Instrumental Music at the University of Melbourne, an honorary research fellow at Monash University, graduated from Shanghai Music Conservatory and completed a MA in Ethnomusicology at Monash University and a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Melbourne Australia.

In 2007 and 2001 he was invited by the City University of New York as a visiting scholar. In 2007,2013 and 2014 he invited as adjudicator for the Arts Grants Program City of Melbourne. As a lecture and solo performer on the Sheng, he has performed many recitals: Melbourne Recital Centre (2009, 2013), Schweizeriusche Musikforschende Gesellschaft, Ortsgruppe, Zurich, Switzerland (2006); Center for study of free reed instrument the City University of New York (2003, 2001, 1999); the Victoria University Wellington in New Zealand (2002); Hoch Schule Fur Music Koln, in Wuppertal, Germany (2001); Mahasarakham University, Thailand (2001); St. Paul’s School London, England
(1999); New York’s Lincoln Center (1997).

He was invited to perform with New Zealand String Quartet in Willington (2009); performed with the Japanese Stringraphy Ensemble, Tokyo (2009); performed at Shanghai Oriental Radio Station, Shanghai China (2008); performed at China Festival, in Amsterdam, Holland (2005); performed with Christine Sullivan’s jazz band, Mara Jazz Band, Zydeco Jump and Women in Docs at the Shanghai International Spring Festival (2004 and 2001); performed at the International Double Reed Society World Conference in Melbourne (2004); performed with the Venice Chamber Orchestra, in Venice (2001); performed at the University of Michigan, USA (2003).

His performance lecture includes: Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universitat Basel, Switzerland (2006); Universitat Mozarteum Salzburg, in Innsbruck and at Universitat Wien, in Vienna, Austria (2006); Tokai University, Japan (2000); Performance and Lecture at Tokyo University, Japan (2000); University of California Los Angeles ( 1999). He also acted as organizer for the cultural event: one of the company coordinators for Melbourne International Festival 2002, 1999); Music and cultural coordinator for Asian Food Festival, Melbourne (1996); Music coordinator for Chinese New Year Festival, Melbourne (1996). His book Chinese Music in Australia: Victoria,1850s to mid-1990s was published in 1997. Many of his articles were published by international press which included Cambridge Scholars Press.

Lee Casey

Lee came to Arena from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival where she held the role of Marketing and Sponsorship Director. She has ten years experience in arts management, theatre and events having worked for a number of major cultural institutions across operations, marketing and sponsorship including Melbourne Festival and Southbank Centre in London. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from University of Melbourne/Victorian College of the Arts.

Alexandra Macalister-Bills

Ashlea Pyke

Ashlea began training at a very early age and continued to do so under the constant guidance of her mother and Aunt, Trudy and Lisa Harris, as well as Barbara Lynch and Constance Coward-Lemke. Ashlea began her professional career at 17, leaving home and school to join Louise Withers and Associates Australasian tour of We Will Rock You. She then went on to perform in Gary Ginivan’s My Grandma Lives in Gooligulch, the Production Company’s Oklahoma!, TML’s SHOUT!, Eddie Perfect’s Shane Warne The Musical, original cast and later as resident choreographer and the David Atkins directed Hairspray. Ashlea worked as choreographer and assistant director on everyone’s favorite music quiz show, Spicks and Specks farewell tour and choreographed Judith Lucy and Denise Scott in their recent comedy festival show The Spiral. She performed in Gordon Frost’s successful Australian Tour of Legally Blonde the Musical in the role of ‘Serena’ and most recently performed in Gordon Frost’s The Rocky Horror Show in the coveted role of ‘Columbia’. Ashlea is thrilled to join the cast of Marlin.

Christopher Bunworth

Christopher co-founded The Telluride Repertory Theatre Company (THE REP) in Telluride, Colorado in 1990. Performing numerous roles from the classical canon with Macbeth, Petruchio and Tartuffe proving highlights, he played the titular role in THE REP’s adaptation of F.W Murnau’s Nosferatu which toured to New York City and India in 2000.

Since arriving home he has been kept busy working across stage, screen and film. Recent TV credits include roles on The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Beaconsfield, Winners and Losers, Underbelly (Tell Them Lucifer Was Here), Killing Time and Bed of Roses, and his film credits include Predestination, Cut Snake, Vessel, I Am Evangeline, 3 Dollars, The Independent, Em 4 Jay and Scrapple.

As actor/producer with Larrikin.etc, he was last seen on stage at fortyfivedownstairs in the premiere season of Boy Out Of The Country by Felix Nobis, which will tour nationally in 2016. On screen he features as Porfiry in an upcoming independent film adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Chris trained at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, California. He has been a proud member of Actor’s Equity since 2002 and is a committee member of the Victorian Actor’s Benevolent Trust (VABT).

Jacob Williams

Damien Millar

Damien Millar was born in Papua New Guinea in 1970 and is yet to be born again.

A NIDA graduate, his plays include Emergency Sex (STC), The Modern International Dead (Act-o-matic, Deckchair, Griffin, Riverside) and Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime (Melbourne Workers Theatre), the last of which was co-written with Roanna Gonsalves and Raimondo Cortese. He’s currently working on a new group-devised prison-based performance with fellow Aussie playwrights Vanessa Bates, Caleb Lewis and Suzie Miller.

He’s won an AWGIE, a Griffin, a WA Guild Equity Award, a Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Work and the WA Premier’s Book Award. He’s also been shortlisted for pretty much every other major drama and literary award in the country.

His theatre work has been published by Currency and his fiction by Meanjin, Outrage, Westerly and Random House.

He once caught a flathead with his dad. He was proud at first and then he cried.