What inspired you to get involved in the theatre industry?

I started out performing in circus, with Circa and Flipside’s youth performance troupes in Brisbane - which was amazing! My family is pretty artsy, so I’ve always been exposed to a lot of theatre, and eventually an injury and my interest in theatrical storytelling led me to move into studying acting. After graduating, there were a few wonderful productions, and a lot of the classic not booking jobs, or not even being able to get in the room. I found the lack of agency very difficult, and brought my varied past experience into play to start creating my own work. I surprised myself by finding a real joy in writing, and rediscovered my interest in directing. Creating my own work finally helped me feel some ownership to not put my life on hold for acting, and to build the kind of life that I actually want to inhabit. I definitely enjoy being multi-hyphenate far more then I ever did being an “Actor”. 

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What have been the highs in your career so far?

The absolute high point so far has been the co-founding of my company: TART Theatre Collective, with the incredible Em Tambree last year. We share a deep commitment to creating rooms with integrity, playfulness, joy, respect.. there’s more, but it boils down to building the spaces we want to work in, and being in active conversation with the artists we work with. I am so grateful for Em's presence in my life, they are the best friend and colleague anyone could ask for - as we now know, starting and running a company is a lot and I would not want to do it alone. In that first year as TART we also toured a show that I directed - POLES: The Science of Magnetic Attraction - to Edinburgh Fringe and it sold out! Which was, in the best possible way, a pretty insane experience.

 

Where do you see yourself going in the futre? Is there something particular you want to do? 

Going forward, I am currently writing my next play, and on the hunt for the next directing project. This year TART is the resident theatre company at The Motley Bauhaus in Naarm/Melbourne. Right now we’re casting a brilliant play called Crocodile Fever, and have Expressions of Interest open.. so I’m very excited to see what projects and people we meet through all that! 

 

I’m terrible with the “5 year goals” type thing, but I love to keep learning and hope to remain curious, passionate, and keep working. Right now I’m obsessed with puppets, motion capture and physical theatre.. so we’ll see where that ends up.