Cybec Scenes 2

Excerpts of works-in-development from three playwrights.

Assisted Living
by Hiroki Kobayashi

Taking care of grandfather means learning, and un-learning, the reality of honour and the honour of the everyday.

Vivid
by Hoa Pham

Khanh is deep in the world of asylum-seeker struggles but struggles herself with mental illness and the relentless presence of her fierce, and fiercely vivid, grandmother.

Entomology
by Natesha Somasundaram

One night on a crowded Melbourne train things get nasty.

Cybec Electric is only possible due to the support of Dr Roger Riordan AM and The Cybec Foundation.
MTC gratefully acknowledges the support of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne for Asia TOPA.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne and is supported by the Australian and Victorian Governments.

Hiroki Kobayashi

Hoa Pham

Natesha Somasundaram

Jo Kukathas

Emina Ashman

Jing-Xuan Chan

Joseph Lai

Georgina Naidu

Ricardo Rusch

Gareth Yuen

View All

Hiroki Kobayashi

Hiroki Kobayashi is a writer with interest in theatre and community engaged arts practices. Most recently he presented Polytics of Voice at the National Young Writers Festival and Crack Theatre Festival and undertook a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship. In the past he has been part of PWA’s Lotus Playwriting Project, an Emerging Cultural Leader at FCAC and a participant in the Malthouse Theatre Besen Writers program.

Hoa Pham

Hoa Pham is a psychologist and writer of seven books. Her novella The Other Shore won the Vive la Novella prize and her novel Vixen was awarded the Best Young Writer of the Year Award by the Sydney Morning Herald. Her play Silence was on the VCE Drama List in 2010. She is also the founder of Peril, an Asian-Australian online arts and culture magazine.

Natesha Somasundaram

Described as ‘puerile, offensive and mind-bendingly smart’, Natesha Somasundaram writes viciously funny stories that are sometimes sad and often weird. Natesha has previously developed work with Playwriting Australia and has had work presented at the 2016 National Play Festival, 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and has performed as an actor at the 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Her 2017 play Jeremy and Lucas buy a Fucking House sold out at La Mama Explorations and will be presented at the 2018 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Natesha is a Writer in Residence at Melbourne Theatre Company as part of the NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program.

Jo Kukathas

Jo Kukathas is an actor, writer and director of The Instant Café Theatre Company, Malaysia, best known for its political satire and contemporary theatre. She regularly performs and directs in Singapore, where she has received awards for acting, and has conducted workshops in Brazil and Taiwan. Other international work includes The Island in Between, a Malaysian-Japanese collaboration that she co-wrote and directed; Hotel Grand Asia, a three-year Asian collaboration project based out of Tokyo; and Break-Ing, a multilingual Malaysian collaboration that toured Japan and Singapore. She has also toured plays to the World Theatre Festival in Brisbane, OzAsia in Adelaide, Festival Tokyo in Japan and performed at the NY Fringe Festival. She has directed plays, an opera, various festivals as well as Shakespeare indoors and out.