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RoomWorks

SCRATCH nights are back and they’re moving online!

Brought to you by ATYP and Nightingale Content, RoomWorks is some sparkly sh*t from home.

RoomWorks will pay (yes, pay!) 10 young actors and 10 young writers $400 each to write and perform an original 1-2 minute monologue in teams of two, which will then be screened in a digital scratch night. With one week to complete the task, the 20 young artists chosen will attend online workshops and be given feedback by industry professionals throughout their process. The program will provide young artists with the opportunity to connect with others in the community, network with more experienced creators and practice their skills during this period apart.

Applications for RoomWorks will open on Monday June 8th and will close at midnight on Wednesday June 17th. Writers will be required to submit a sample of their work and actors a 1-minute self-tape. We encourage all artists age 18-26* to apply no matter where in the country you are or how much previous experience you have had!

The program will commence on Monday June 29th and all applicants must be available for workshops on the mornings of Monday June 29th, Wednesday July 1st and Friday July 3rd.

*All applicants must be between 18 and 26 years of age on the date the project commences. If you are not 18 before the start of the project or turn 27 during the week that it runs, you are not eligible to apply.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

RoomWorks ARTISTS

After receiving over 200 applications from eager young artists all around Australia, these final 20 artists were selected by a panel of industry professionals.

  • Lotte Beckett (20, VIC)

    Lotte is a 20-year-old acting student at 16th Street Actors Studio, and is also completing an Arts Degree at Melbourne University, majoring in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies.
    Originally from Sydney, Lotte has also studied at VCA and Howard Fine Acting Studio, and spent her childhood doing courses at ATYP and NIDA. She immersed herself in theatre throughout high school, finishing school as Drama Captain.

    It probably says a lot about me that in Year 11, she presented a TEDx talk about the importance of Shakespeare in early childhood education…
    So it’s true that she’s a Shakespeare geek, having assisted Sport For Jove
    in a number of their Shakespeare Carnivals. She has written and
    acted in several comedies and dramas at Melbourne University, and has
    had her writing performed at La Mama and Griffin Theatre.

    Lotte feels very lucky to be mentored by Suzie Miller in her writing, and
    Heather Mitchell in her acting. They have instilled the importance of
    responding to all opportunities, and showing up enthusiastically in
    moments that challenge her as an artist.

  • Toby Blome (23, NSW)

    Toby discovered his love for acting in Year 5. That initial passion to perform and make people laugh has swept him up on a trajectory that included
    constant performance at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts
    and the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) at NIDA.

    He has worked extensively in the professional and independent scene after graduating in 2017. Highlights include the role of Mark in Monkey Baa Theatre Company’s 2019 remount of Hitler’s Daughter that travelled up and down the east coast of Australia, in Red Line Production’s there will be a climax in 2018, Clarry/Tim in ATYP’s Intersection 2019: Arrival, PTE Yank Akell in director Kriv Stender’s Vietnam War film Danger Close: the Battle of Long Tan, and Eddie in Megan Wilding’s playwrighting debut A Little Piece of Ash at KXT.

    Toby is also one half of the clowning duo Rudy & Cuthbert, having created, written, and performed a number of shows at KXT, Old 505, and
    Melbourne’s Southbank Theatre, to critical acclaim.

  • An Dang (18, VIC)

    An is an 18-year-old artist with a love for acting. Born in Vietnam and raised in the UK, An moved to Australia in 2018, and since then she has continually explored the industry and seized every artistic opportunity.

    An has participated in work experience at Malthouse Theatre, received a NIDA Open Equity Scholarship, volunteered at Red Stitch PLAYlist, performed at Broadside Festival, and taken classes at establishment such as The Actors’ Lab, Melbourne Teen Actors, St Martins Youth Theatre, and more.

  • Peter Irankunda (QLD)

    Peter is a Brisbane-based artist who is currently studying Acting at Griffith University. In 2009, he came to Australia from Malawi and used to hate anything that involved
    standing in front of an audience. He discovered his passion for drama in high school and loved performing, writing and watching theatre performances during that time.

    Peter spent his first year out of school studying a Bachelor of Human Services and fantasising about a career in performance – telling stories, changing perspectives, challenging views, and using his voice to impact an audience. His passions, at current, lie on the theatre stage doing shows that are relevant, important and influential, and on the open mic every now and then voicing his opinion and story through poetry.

  • Mabel Li (22, NSW)

    Mabel is the daughter of two first-generation Canton-Chinese parents, and this has greatly influenced the actor and creative she wants to be. Born in Auckland and growing up in Sydney, it
    was rare to see an East or South-East Asian face in the Australian media.

    Mabel has just graduated from the BFA Fine Arts Acting course at NIDA (2019). With theatre credits including Delilah by the Hour directed by Claudia Osbourne at Brand X, Goldilocks written and directed by Michael Gow, Pool (no water) directed by Benjamin Schostakowski, Ah, Tuzenbach: A Melancholic Cabaret directed by Oleg Glushkov, Lulu: A Modern Sex
    Tragedy directed by Claudia Osborne and The Bacchae directed by Shannan Ely.

    In high school, Mabel was involved in the NSW State Drama Ensemble and Company where she performed at the State Drama Festival and in D.N.A at the Seymour Centre.

    In addition to acting, Mabel is a theatre-maker. During her time at NIDA, she created two pieces of verbatim work under her chosen elective, Applied Theatre, called “Tea Time” and “Before Us”. Both these works were created from interviews conducted with young Asian Australians living in the Inner-West and Western Sydney. She is also the recipient of the 2019-2020 BBM Youth Award Scholarship.

  • Teresa Li (NSW)

    Teresa is relatively new to acting – primarily because it’s not something that’s typically encouraged in an Asian household – but is something she has always wanted to try.

    She has been conducting individual practise and learning as much as possible independently, with the mindset of growth and improvement.

    RoomWorks is Teresa’s first acting project, and she is incredibly excited to participate and put her skills into practice. As an Asian-Australian, she believes it is important to contribute to the industry and add to Asian representation in the media as much as possible to reflect the multicultural Australian population.

  • Susanna Pang (19, NSW)

    Susanna is a proud Australian-born Chinese actor. She comes from a family that has a profound appreciation for the arts — her sister, who is one of her greatest inspirations, is a
    professional pianist. From her first drama lesson in year 8, her love for performing and storytelling only quadrupled.

    Susanna was a member of school performance ensembles as well as the State Drama Ensemble and in Year 11, her self-written HSC monologue was selected for OnStage. Titled Tiger Mum, she sought to dismantle the stigma surrounding tiger parenting through an 8-minute satirical piece which she performed for a week at the Seymour Centre. She was the Creative and Performing
    Arts Prefect at Sydney Girls High School where she worked to co-ordinate and organise large scale events such as concerts, open nights, musicals, and showcases. Whilst balancing her HSC studies that year, her musicology essay was included in Encore and her performance was
    nominated as well.

    Susanna is currently studying an Arts/Law degree at the University of Sydney majoring in Media and Communications along with Film Studies and she has worked as a crew member for OnScreen.

  • Sophie Strykowski (23, NSW)

    Sophie is a 23-year-old queer, and half Ashkenazi Jewish actor and creative. She graduated with a BA from UNSW (majoring in Theatre and Performance and minoring in English). She graduated with first-class honours in Theatre and Performance where she specialised in stand-up comedy.

    Since graduating University in 2019, Sophie has performed with ATYP in Intersection 2019: Arrival, as well as several other Independent theatre companies in Sydney. Some credits
    include performing in the ensemble piece Hairworm (2019) with Eye Contact Theatre Company, Van De Maar Papers (2019) with Ratcatch at the Old 505 and Love and Information (2016) with the Creative Practice Lab, directed by Tessa Leong. Most recently she performed with Theatre Travels in Girl Shut Your Mouth at the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2020. She
    has also performed in multiple SUDS and NUTS performances, as well as USYD revues (including the University of Sydney Revue 2019 directed by Kate Walder).

    Along with acting, Sophie has also worked collaboratively on developing new pieces of theatre and comedy. She is most passionate about queer emerging works. She assisted in the development of and performed in Kasia Vickery’s 2019 NIDA MFA Graduate Performance
    Play On. Sophie’s own comedy group, The Lazy Susans, debuted at the 2019 Sydney Fringe Festival, with a collaborative work that she both wrote and performed in, The Day that Changed Potato Bay.

  • Renae Valastro (NSW)

    Renae hails from a predominantly Italian town in rural Northern Queensland. She has an Advanced Diploma in stage and screen acting and experience in TVC, short films, theatre and
    web series ranging from extra, support and to lead roles.

  • Georgia Willson (NSW)

    Georgia is an Indigenous artist, with a creative background that began from studying drama throughout high school. She then continued to develop her craft at Screenwise, receiving a Diploma in Screen Acting.

    She has most recently worked as Production Runner on an upcoming Australian film and has begun to explore the realm of scriptwriting.

  • Flick Anderson (VIC)

    Flick is the founder and operator of FlickFlickCity – a brand specialising in
    supporting new to industry theatre makers. She has qualifications in performance on stage, screen, and radio, and debuted as a curator-
    producer in Sydney during 2019 with the launch of the Welcome to Dinner! Series.

    Her written work has been produced by festivals in Sydney (Short+Sweet Festival) and beyond (Brisk Festival in LA). She was contracted to complete a full script in 2019 with Queerspace Arts and was involved dramaturgically with several artists in 2019, including Puddle or Pond co-founder Amy Sole on their new work Reveal.

    Flick also has a background in academia, with a special interest in philosophy, politics and sociology. All of her work, by nature of my own background, grapples with tenets of Queer Theory, neurodiversity, and experiences of low socio-economic families.

  • Linda Chen (25, ACT)

    Linda is a Canberra (/sometimes Sydney!)-based actor and writer who has worked across stage and screen, as well as in performance art, digital/multimedia and in applied drama. She is also a recent graduate of the Australian National University, where she majored in English (with a Drama focus and bursts of Creative Writing courses) and Finance, minored in Film Studies and ultimately completed an Honours thesis centred around the ethics/practicality of applied theatre in fostering cross-cultural communication.

  • Bernadette Fam (23, NSW)

    Bernadette is a 23 years old Arabic-Australian emerging multidisciplinary artist working across theatre making, writing, directing, dramaturge and creative producing, training as an an actor at Sydney Theatre School from 2015-2017.

    As an artist, she is passionate about exploring the intricacies of identity, belonging and cultural connection in Australia’s current socio-economic landscape. Her recent credits include: directing the Youth Artist Ensemble for Q Theatre, Mother (Commission for the Annual Youth Theatre Festival – Q Theatre), Fight or Flight (Intersection 2020: Beat – ATYP), tutaj/ هناك  (here/there) (BATCH 2020/Green Door Theatre Company) and assistant directing Lady Tabouli (National Theatre of Parramatta/Sydney Festival). Bernadette is currently undertaking an active dramaturge mentorship underneath Jane Fitzgerald and was awarded the 2019 Create NSW Young Creative Leaders Fellowship. She is the Artist in Residence at PYT, Fairfield and the Associate Creative Producer of Green Door Theatre Company.

  • Jasper Lee-Lindsay (24, NSW)

    Jasper is a mixed race Chinese-Italian-Australian, and grew up around the inner-west of Sydney. He studied acting for 2 years at AFTT before branching out into writing and has received mentoring in writing through ATYP’s National Studio and Fresh Ink programs. My first short play, “Arthur & Marilyn”, won the award for best script at the Short + Sweet Festival in both Sydney and Los Angeles. Most recently, Jasper wrote a scene for ATYP’s Intersection 2019: Arrival as well as a short piece for the ATYP Home Theatre initiative during lockdown.

  • Callum Mackay (23, VIC)

    Originally from Sydney, Callum Mackay is an actor and writer based in Melbourne. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2018, Callum has performed as Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost (Melbourne Shakespeare Company), Davo in Blackrock (Ebbflow
    Theatre Co.), Steve in BLITZ at Melbourne Fringe, Tommy in Where’s My Money? (7th Floor Theatre) and Michal in The Pillowman (The Dark Room Theatre Company). At the VCA, Callum performed as Richard in Richard III, Treplev in The Seagull, Roy in Cosi, Talthybius in The Greeks, Announcer/Refugee/Lifeguard in The Skin of Our Teeth, and Hale in The Crucible. Callum has also acted in the web series ‘The Undergarment Odysseys’ and ‘The Waiting Game’. For Worst Generation Theatre, Callum has written The Last Train to Madeline which will be performed later this year. Callum is a proud member of MEAA and Equity.

  • Olivia McLeod (VIC)

    Olivia is a Melbourne born creative who has lived in London and studied Musical Theatre at NIDA in Sydney for a year. A major highlight of that course was being an ensemble member of
    Kip Williams’ Chimerica at STC, as well as travelling to Adelaide Fringe to perform Shannan Ely’s version of The Bacchae.

    She returned to Melbourne in 2018 to complete a Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne University, majoring in Creative Writing. That year she co-created a theatre company called Seemingly Wholesome Productions, with the aim of producing theatre that centres the work of female and non-binary creatives both on and off-stage. Olivia produced and acted in Sadie Hasler’s Fran and Leni in the Melbourne season, before taking it to Sydney Fringe in late 2019. Throughout this year she wrote a variety of work, some of which was published in TurnItIn magazine. She also participated in several small devised theatre works, and the short film ‘In Defence of Violet’s Summer’. Later in the year, Olivia self-directed and wrote a cabaret called A Series of Mistakes I’ve Made Told Through Broadway Song, which was performed at Club Voltaire on several occasions.

    This summer, she was accepted for an acting internship with Australian Shakespeare Company, understudied the role of Alice in Alice in Wonderland, and then went on to understudy Viola in Twelfth Night. In the last month, she acted in short films ‘Livestream’ and ‘Pressure Cooker’, and recently became a writer for online company Writer’s Edit.

  • Olivia Richards (19, NSW)

    Olivia was born and raised in rural Australia, near Albury. She always had a big imagination, and really liked to share her imagination with friends and classmates. Even in literacy classes, she loved to learn how to write and spell, so she could write stories. It was only in high school realised how many mediums and techniques you can use to write and tell stories.

    Olivia joined Drama in Year 8, then continued in Years 10-12 and was always the one to primarily write the scripts. That’s when her passion to be a playwright really took off, and her skills peaked in her final year of high school in 2019. She learnt creative writing for one term as a part of the English Standard Syllabus, did script writing for her Year 12 Individual Project, and attended a 2-day writing workshop run by Donna Abela, helping her to understand and bring clarity to her writing.

  • Shahrin Shamin (NSW)

    Shahrin a first-generation Bengali-Australian writer currently in her second year of an Arts/Law degree, majoring in English. Her first experiences with storytelling were from the South Asian films and plays her parents used to watch and she has been hooked ever since. Shahrin’s cultural background is incredibly important to her and she tries to imbue all of her writing with the
    warmth and complexity that she associates with her heritage.

    Shahrin believes women of colour have really unique and layered perspectives to offer in art, and she is really passionate about giving these stories and experiences a voice in her writing. She has had extensive professional experience producing radio scripts, as well as writing editorial pieces and non-fiction essays. She also written a few plays for university theatre ensembles.

  • Egan Sun-Bin (QLD)

    Egan is an Asian-Australian storyteller based in Brisbane. He is currently studying in Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Acting at Queensland University of Technology. Earlier forms of artistic training stem from his formal schooling years in Senior Drama Class studying Shakespeare and Blackrock while also being a part of Queensland Theatre’s Youth Ensemble from 2015-2017. His theatre credits include working with Queensland based companies like Debase, Shock Therapy Productions, Queensland Theatre, Shake and Stir and La Boite. He also started up an artistic collective called The Reaction Theory that produces theatrical works where he has been credited as a writer, director and producer.

  • Susan TakTak (NSW)

    Susan grew up in a Syrian household in Western Sydney and is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts in Screen Practice and Production at Macquarie University.
SUPPORTED BY

Justin Punch and Patty Akopiantz

Rob Thomas AO