Past resident writers.
ALBERTO DI TROIA
Alberto is a Melboourne-based playwright and filmmaker, and a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film & Television) and the Master of Writing For Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts. His plays include Truly Madly Britney (Theatre Works, Melbourne Theatre Company Cybec Electric), Ray Of Light (Australian Theatre For Young People), Girl Powers (Junior Space, ATYP), Coast (ABC Radio National, ATYP). Other work for theatre includes the live art/culinary experience I Still Haven't Found What I'm Cooking For, co-created with Hannah Fallowfield and Bethany J Fellows. His short film ‘Blood Trust’ has played festivals both nationally and internationally, as has his short-film editing work, and he recently produced independent feature film The Interlude (dir Holly Brindley). He was a 2016 ATYP Fresh Ink mentee, has been published by Currency Press and Voiceworks, is the recipient of the Lionel Gell Foundation Scholarship, The Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship, and the Erwin Rado Memorial Prize For Excellence, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Max Afford Award. Alberto has also worked in community arts, including most recently as Artistic Director of Into The Limelight, a government funded mental health, creativity and filmmaking project of Uniting Prahran.
AMELIA NEWMAN
Amelia Newman is a writer, director and performer. Amelia has worked extensively with Riot Stage Youth Theatre as a performer on Forever City (2015) and Lovely Mess (2017). They assistant director F. with Riot Stage for Poppy Seed Theatre Festival 2016 and are currently part of Riot Stages Youth Ensemble. In 2017 Amelia wrote, produced and directed Younger and Smaller which was a part of La Mamas Exploration season.
In 2018 Amelia performed in Lovely Mess (2018) as a part of Festival of Live Art and Fringe Festival. Amelia was a part of the Melbourne chapter of ATYP's Fresh Ink Program 2018. Amelia co-wrote Never Ending Night for Melbourne Fringe Festival 2018. Amelia is a part of Malthouse Vanguard 2018/19. In 2019 Amelia has been developing her work I am not a cake at Site works in Brunswick.
ANNA RODWAY
Anna is an actor, writer and theatre-maker based in Melbourne. She is one of the co-creators of Green Room-award nominated company Three Birds Theatre. Three Birds is devoted to bringing female-focused stories to the stage and has swiftly gained recognition as exciting innovators of sharp, comedy driven theatre. With Three Birds, Anna has co-written and performed in Three Birds One Cock (Adelaide Fringe, Metanoia Mechanics’ Institute, Natimuk Regional Engagement, FRISK Festival), LadyCake (Poppy Seed Theatre Festival, Nati Frinj) and Enter Ophelia (La Mama; NGA Engagement) with a new work in development this year. Anna has a Bachelor of Arts (Dean’s Scholars) from Monash University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre Practice) from the Victorian College of the Arts. Alongside her acting projects this year, she is currently developing a six-part comedy series and writing a feature film, The One, with AFTRS.
REBEKAH ROBERTSON
Rebekah Robertson is an emerging performer and theatre maker based in Western Sydney. Recently she has played the title role in Kirana with the National Theatre of Parramatta, Gena in Bachelorettewith Twelve Angry, Amber in Lightie and more. As a maker she has created and presented Sugarush through Crack Theatre Festival, Slow Dance at Performance Space, Customs House Circular Quay and Peacock Gallery Auburn, Smithereens at FR!SK/Melbourne Fringe and Give Up at Melbourne Fringe. She is 2017 Belvoir Artist Workshop Resident, Highway/234 Residency Recipient Associate Artist with Ondru and former LGBTI inclusion policy advisor for the City of Melbourne’s Creative City initiative
VIDYA RAJAN
Vidya is a writer and performance-maker from all over the place, but now from Melbourne. She likes working across playwriting, comedy, live art, and the internet. Some recent works include Last night, DeAr BeLoVed, A completely unified theory of you+me, Asian Ghost-ery Store. She was a 2016 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow and has a Masters in Writing for Performance from the VCA. She has also trained and performed extensively in improvisation with companies like The Big Hoo-Haa, iO Chicago, Naked Comedy Lab and Teatro De Los Sentidos. She is a current recipient of Westerly's Emerging Writer's program and Melbourne Festival's Director's Lab. She works in law sometimes and is perpetually saddened that no one yells at her to handle the truth. You can find some of her poetry and fiction in magazines, online and her family's never-ending whatsapp group chat/hellscape.
TOM MIDDLEDITCH
Tom is an Actor/Writer/Director/ Dramaturg/Philosopher living in Melbourne.
He is a co-founder of A_tistic(2015), a company dedicated to telling neurodiverse stories, and developing a Spectrum Theatre, with the goal of developing empathy for neurodiverse humans. A_tistic’s first devised production, Them Aspies, had two sell out season at Monash Uni Student theatre in 2014 and 2015, which Tom Co-directed.
Tom’s first full length play, Pinocchio Restrung, debuted in the 2016 Melbourne Fringe festival. Tom has also worked as a Dramaturg on Genius (St Martins, as part of the Festival of Live art (FOLA)). An extract of Tom’s work The Fog in their Eyes was selected as part of BetaFest (Lonely Company) earlier this year. Tom also directed OXAGEN’s production of Twelve Angry Jurors In May of 2017. His play, Alexithymia was selected to open the 2017 Poppy Seed Theatre Festival (Co Production with Citizen Theatre, Dir Jayde Kirchert).
NATESHA SOMASUNDARAM
Natesha Somasundaram is a great friend with a spicy personality. She started playwriting 18 months ago accidentally, but now she writes plays on purpose because it stops her brain from imploding. She likes writing about weird things and sad things and funny things and things that she loves. She has a bachelor of performing arts and half a bachelor of law. She's written for the National Play Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, the Melbourne Fringe Festival and has also been the mastermind behind her mum's passive aggressive email to online clothing stores. She is currently part of the Lotus development program with Playwriting Australia and her favourite youtube channel is the one where the guy cuts stuff up with a molten hot knife.
LIV SATCHELL
Liv is a writer, director and dramaturg trained at the VCA (Directing) and the University of Sydney. Her practice focuses on community development for emerging artists and producing new work through her company the voice in my hands. In 2013, she co-founded new writing development company Somersault Theatre in Sydney. She is the co-founder of Melbourne monthly performance program Small and Loud with Georgia Symons. Established in January 2016 at The Workers Club, Small and Loud provides a controlled development space for emerging artists to test short sections of full works-in-development in front of an audience. It has recently partnered with Arts Centre Melbourne to present its second year of work in The Channel. Her plays include My Name is Truda Vitz (Somersault Theatre, Tap Gallery) and I sat and waited but you were gone too long (La Mama Explorations). I sat and waited was showcased at Playwriting Australia’s National Play Festival at Malthouse Theatre in July and shortlisted for the Silver Gull Play Award and the Philip Parsons Fellowship.
YUKI IWAMA
Yuki is a Melbourne-based person(?) who sometimes likes to write plays, short stories, and unfinished novels. Their work is feminist focused, exploring gender, sexuality, and race. They is especially interested in trans* issues and the representation of race in the arts. Their experience in theatre include writing and directing plays that have been performed at La Mama Theatre, Mudfest, and Melbourne Fringe Festival. They was also a participant in ATYP's National Studio, mentored by Lachlan Philpott. They has recently worked as a creative director for RMIT's 2016 production of Snatches as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival and, most recently, they has spoken at the National Young Writers' Festival. They is currently writing and directing their upcoming play, Mercury Boy/F*ggot Girl which is planned to open later this year.
DALE THORBURN
Dale concerns himself with the intensity of a performer’s attention to their movement. The interface between brain and body, what that communication system is and what dynamics it can produce, provides him with the textiles to give form to thought. In his work he aims to elicit various textures and qualities from the performer’s volitions as a way to generate material. He is discovering a quality of oscillation in his process, an irreconcilable nexus of philosophies, between a need to redress story in performance and exposing a piece’s artifice. His skill and attention to physicality has seen him as a frequent collaborator in theatre and dance productions. He grew up in Brisbane, where he served as a principal artist with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre (2008-2013) and Artslink Queensland (2011-2013). In 2014 he relocated to Melbourne to complete a post-graduate diploma in performance creation (choreography) from the Victorian College of the Arts. He was awarded the choreographic development award from the faculty after his short study: No Children in this Neighborhood. He has worked professionally as an actor, dancer, director, movement director, dramaturg, devisor, consultant, teacher, improviser and choreographer.
GEORGIE HARRIS
Georgie is a Melbourne-based writer specialising in screen and theatre. Originally from Albury (not Wodonga), she moved to Melbourne in 2013 to undertake a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Screenwriting) at the Victorian College of the Arts. During her time at VCA Georgie majored in satire and developed a very disturbed idea of comedy. Since graduating she has interned at La Mama and has production managed a “puppet poetry slam” for Black Hole Theatre entitled Captured Whispers. In 2016 her work was featured in Red Stitch’s annual showcase Playlist. Being fairly new to theatre writing, Georgie hopes to use her year with Lonely Company to unlearn most of film school.
ERIC GARDINER
Eric is a playwright and performer from The Glorious Republic of Melbourne's Inner North. After co-writing several plays at The University of Melbourne, his first full length work, Bounty, premiered at the 2015 Melbourne Fringe, presented by Darebin Arts Speakeasy and MKA and directed by Tom Gutteridge. Last year Eric was longlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize, awarded to the best writers of nonfiction under 30 in Australia, and received first class honours from The University of Melbourne for his thesis on Australian adaptation theatre in practice. Previously Eric worked as a Creative Producer at The Emerging Writers Festival and Creative Associate at MKA, and has assisted in producing theatre and literature events in collaboration with companies including the Melbourne Festival, Darebin Arts Speakeasy, Monash University, The Victorian College of the Arts, Union House Theatre and Melbourne Theatre Company. In 2013 Eric was the co-Artistic Director of Mudfest, working with Josiah Lulham to lead The University of Melbourne’s student arts festival, the largest of its kind in Australia. Eric is currently producing The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, presented by Phil Rouse and Theatre Works, and performing in an independent production of Lally Katz's The Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, directed by Brendan McDougall.
JAMAICA ZUANETTI
Jamaica Zuanetti is a Melbourne based writer. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree, majoring in French and Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. She is an acting graduate of the National Theatre Drama School.
In 2015, she graduated with a Master of Writing for Performance from the Victorian College of the Arts, where she was the recipient of the Cassidy Bequest Scholarship. In 2016, she was an intern on Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric season. In 2017, she was a writer in residence with Lonely Company. Her play Too Ready Mirror was presented by Darebin Arts Speakeasy in 2017.
ALLEE RICHARDS
Allee is a playwright from Melbourne where she’s had two plays produced by Theatre 451. Her most recent play, Beers & Trees, was performed at La Mama as a part of the 2015 Explorations Season. An earlier draft of Beers & Trees was read at the Five Point One Reading Sessions in Adelaide. Last year Allee was a part of the Australian Theatre for Young People’s National Studio where she was mentored by playwright Lachlan Philpott. She also writes short fiction and has been published in Voiceworks and Visible Ink.
GEORGIA SYMONS
georgiasymons.com
SEANNA VAN HELTEN
Seanna van Helten is a writer and theatre-maker based in Melbourne, Australia. Her award-winning and Green Room Award nominated company, She Said Theatre, was co-founded with collaborator Penny Harpham and has produced works in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Darwin, Adelaide, New Zealand, and regional centres across Australia. Seanna's works include Salt (La Mama Theatre/She Said Theatre), Fallen (Sport for Jove Theatre Company/She Said Theatre), HART with Ian Michael (She Said Theatre), Laika and Wills (Melbourne Fringe 2013; winner of Outstanding Indigenous Artist Award for performer Ian Michael) and Breaking (Melbourne Fringe 2012). In 2016, her play Fallen was selected for development with Playwriting Australia, she was invited to be a resident writer at Lonely Company working with Bridget Mackey, and she was the recipient of the Australia Council's ArtStart grant. Seanna holds a Master of Writing for Performance from Victorian College of the Arts and a Master of Arts from University of Melbourne, where her dissertation was awarded the Percival Serle Prize. Seanna has also contributed to Rave Magazine, Milk Bar Mag, Griffith REVIEW and Voiceworks.