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Artwork for Longhouse: Melbourne

Longhouse: Melbourne

Thursday 28 July, 5.30pm

Free event

Join Melbourne Theatre Company and Contemporary Asian Australian Performance for a free panel discussion featuring cast and creatives from Laurinda.

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Join us inside the Laurinda rehearsal room to be a part of a conversation with Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks and some of the extraordinary team behind the adaptation of Alice Pung’s much loved and lauded novel. Alice Qin will lead the discussion between playwright Diana Nguyen, director Petra Kalive, designer Eugyeene Teh and actor Fiona Choi, alongside Anne-Louise.

Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP)’s Longhouse program aims to forge a strong community of artists interested in exploring Asian Australian themes through performance.

Refreshments will be served in the rehearsal room after the panel. Space is limited, so booking early is recommended.


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Laurinda is commissioned with support from the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, with play development supported by MTC’s Playwrights Giving Circle Donors, The Ian Potter Foundation, Naomi Milgrom Foundation, The Myer Foundation and The University of Melbourne, and community engagement support by Playking Foundation. 

Artwork for Alice Qin

Alice Qin

Panel Moderator

Artwork for Diana Nguyen

Diana Nguyen

Writer

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.

Artwork for Petra Kalive

Petra Kalive

DIRECTOR

Petra trained at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and has extensive experience as a director, writer and dramaturg of new works for the stage. Her acclaimed adaptation of Peter Goldsworthy’s novel Three Dog Night toured nationally. She was Dramaturg at Red Stitch from 2009 – 2012, Assistant Dramaturg at The Malthouse in 2010.  Petra was Artistic Director of Union House Theatre (UHT) 2015-2020.

At Melbourne Theatre Company Petra has directed Laurinda, Touching the Void, The Lifespan of a Fact, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes (Green Room nom Best Direction), Hungry Ghosts, Melbourne Talam (Green Room nom Best Director) and Beached.

Petra has also worked for Belvoir Street, Sydney Theatre Company, Arena Theatre Company, Complete Works Theatre Company, Union House Theatre, St Martins Youth Arts Centre, La Trobe, Monash University & Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) performing arts programs. 

Her notable independent directing credits include the much-acclaimed Taxithi, which had two sell-out seasons at fortyfivedownstairs (Green Room nom Best Director), her own work Oil Babies at Northcote Town Hall (shortlisted for the NSW Premier Literary Awards 2019) and new Australian musical, My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin adapted by Dean Bryant and Matthew Frank.

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Eugyeene Teh

SET DESIGNER & AV COMPOSITION

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Fiona Choi

KATIE / MRS LESLIE / AS CAST

Artwork for Anne-Louise Sarks

Anne-Louise Sarks

MTC Artistic Director & Co-CEO

Anne-Louise is Artistic Director & Co-CEO of Melbourne Theatre Company.

An internationally acclaimed director, writer and dramaturg, Anne-Louise has directed over 30 productions with her work seen in Melbourne, Sydney, London, Helsinki, Mexico City, New York, Warsaw, Dublin, Auckland, Mumbai, Perth and Basel. Recent credits include Avalanche at the Barbican in London, and Our Town and Medea at Theater Basel. Most recently, she directed Stop Girl at Belvoir in Sydney. In 2018 her production of Blasted at Malthouse Theatre was nominated for four Green Room Awards.

Anne-Louise was previously Artistic Director of the Lyric Ensemble at the Lyric Hammersmith in London and of the leading Melbourne independent theatre company The Hayloft Project. She has been both Resident Director and an Associate Artist at Belvoir, Director in Residence at Malthouse Theatre, and in 2010 she was Emerging Resident Director at Melbourne Theatre Company.