CULTIVATE: Emerging Dramaturgs Program
ATYP is delighted to introduce our inaugural program for emerging dramaturgs who identify as First Nations or a Person of Colour. This program will provide participants with skills development and industry connections.
Four emerging dramaturgs will be selected to be part of this in-person program, from September 2022 for 12 months. Over the course of the program, the participants will be mentored by ATYP Resident Dramaturg Jane FitzGerald and writer, performance-maker, and story developer Jenevieve Chang. Participants will attend regular monthly meetings with the mentors to develop their craft and skills, and to build their theatre community.
There is no cost to participants for the program. ATYP warmly acknowledges that this program has only been made possible by generous support through the Australian Government’s RISE Fund.
2022-23 Program
About the program:
- Participants will attend 10 x 2.5-hour in-person workshop sessions once a month with their mentors. There may be some online components to the program.
- Sessions will cover practical aspects of dramaturgy, approaches to dramaturgical practice including non-Western dramaturgies, script assessment and communicating with writers.
- Sessions will include professional guests to offer a wide range of dramaturgical perspectives and to further develop knowledge, skills and industry connections.
To be eligible participants will need to:
- Identify as being First Nations or a Person of Colour.
- Be aged 18-26 (If you are over the age of 26 but feel as though you would strongly benefit from this program, please email Jane FitzGerald at hello@atyp.com.au).
- Have some experience in the past with theatre, live performance, writing or screen (may include study or work as a dramaturg, writer, poet, director, designer, performer or maker).
- Be available to meet the time commitments (briefly outlined above) between September 2022 and September 2023.
- Reside in the Greater Sydney region or be willing and practically able to travel to Sydney – sessions will be in-person at ATYP.
We strongly encourage applicants with intersectional experience including but not limited to people from Disabled and d/Deaf communities, and people from LGBTQIA+ communities.
If you have any questions about any aspect of the program please address an email to either Bernadette or Jane at [email protected] and we can arrange a time to chat.
APPLICATIONS FOR THE 22/23 PROGRAM HAVE NOW CLOSED
2022-23 Mentors
Jane is Resident Dramaturg at ATYP, where she oversees the company’s writing programs and commissions, and mentors emerging writers through the Fresh Ink and National Studio programs. Her work as Dramaturg for ATYP includes M.Rock, The Chapel, the Fire and the Dead Cat, Lights in the Park, Cusp, Bathory Begins, April Aardvark, Impending Everyone, Charlie Pilgrim, Wonderfly and Intersection: Bloom, Intersection: Unleashed, Intersection: Beat, Intersection: Arrival and Intersection: Chrysalis (by writers of the National Studio).
Other recent work includes Black Cockatoo (Sydney Festival/Ensemble), Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race (Ensemble), Lost Boys (Merrigong), The Big Dry (Ensemble/ATYP) and MROCK (ATYP/STC, 2014).
Previously Jane has been a Literary Manager at Ensemble Theatre (shared role). For STC she has been Literary Manager, Artistic Associate and administrator of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award as well as a dramaturg on new writing (Blueprints writers’ program) and mainstage productions including Volpone and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Festival of the Dreaming). She has worked as a script reader for the Royal Court London, Playwriting Australia, ANPC and Playworks, and has worked extensively as a Mentor with Year 12 students on HSC creative writing projects.
Jenevieve Chang is a writer, performance-maker and story developer who has worked in the UK, China and Australia. In Australia, Jenevieve has worked with Malthouse Theatre, Bell Shakespeare, Griffin Theatre and Monkey Baa Theatre. In the UK, she has worked with The National Theatre, The Young Vic, Yellow Earth Theatre, Chopped Logic and Fran Barbe Dance. As a solo performer, she has toured widely, performing in venues in Berlin, Vienna, Montreal, Luxembourg, Cardiff, Ljubljana and Istres.
Jenevieve’s multi-generational memoir, The Good Girl of Chinatown, was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. She has also written various radio plays for ABC Radio National.
Jenevieve is currently a Development Executive at ABC Drama & Comedy, and has also worked in executive and senior management positions at Screen Australia, NIDA and Arclight Films. Her play, Yong (Monkey Baa Theatre) will play at the Sydney Opera House in 2023.
2022-23 Participants
Varuna Naicker is a Fijian-Indian writer from Penrith, immigrating to Australia when her parents moved from Fiji in 1999. She holds a Bachelor of Communication degree majoring in Media Arts and Production. Varuna has deep interest in how social institutions form people’s perception of themselves and the perception of the world around them. This is reflected in her works that span across different forms of media, including film and writing. Varuna is currently an emerging artist completing a residency with Shopfront Arts. She is writing and directing a production titled Dalo Chips and Imli Chutney, a theatre piece following three Fijian Indian women who struggle to see eye to eye on the best way to get through community and life.
Clement Rukundo is an actor, poet, and theatre maker with a passion for movement and storytelling. He is a creator and producer of Unheard project, a collective that brings multicultural ethnic artists together to collaborate and share stories through art.
He learnt directing after graduating from acting school through devising new work and collaborating with independent theatre companies in Adelaide. In 2020 he directed a show called Journey by Soul Lounge and Actnow Theatre. He went on to work as an Assistant Director for Hibernation at State Theatre Company of South Australia, and Chalkface at State Theatre Company of South Australia and Sydney Theatre Company. He directed Unheard with Adelaide Festival Centre in 2022. He collaborated with The Gram Collective company as a poet writer for their first ever show New World Coming in July 2022. Clement’s motivation is to continue sharing stories and culture of where he is from. His hope is to motivate and inspire other people of colour to take up space and create and tell their stories too.
As an actor Clement’s theatre credits include How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found (director Corey McMahon), Could Be Perfect (director Jenn Havelberg) A Doll’s House (director Sasha Zahra), A Bright New Boise (director Christopher Pitman) and New World Coming (director Conner Reidy). He has also been in an RAA car insurance ad as well as the Mortal Kombat film as an extra.
Ayah Tayeh is a Palestinian theatre maker and she primarily works as a stage manager with a focus on new works that highlight and challenge the perception of underrepresented communities. Throughout her involvement in theatre, Ayah has advocated for more opportunities for people of colour in creative, backstage, and management spaces; she deeply believes that representation should exist further than what the audience can just see onstage. She hopes to be involved in the creation of more SWANA (South West Asian and North African) focused stories in the future and storytelling that reflects her own family and community, something she hasn’t often seen in theatre in Sydney.
Ayah is honoured to be part of ATYP’s inaugural Cultivate dramaturg program and is very excited to develop her own dramaturgical methodologies with their mentorship.
Her credits include: Counting and Cracking (UK, Belvoir), City of Gold (Sydney Theatre Company), seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), The Boomkak Panto (Belvoir), A Room of One’s Own (Belvoir), My Brilliant Career (Belvoir), Breaking Glass (Sydney Chamber Opera), Double Delicious (Contemporary Asian Australian Performance).
Adam Yoon is a multidisciplinary artist/theatre maker with an interest in exploring creative processes through physical and collaborative devised storytelling. He was a part of the inaugural Art Gallery of New South Wales Youth Collective and a member of the PYT Youth Ensemble 2019-2020. In 2020, he took part in Playwrights of Parramatta and is currently a member of the Ninefold Cohort Program as well as a creative collaborator with Little Eggs Collective. He was a dramaturg for A Game for Flies by Bria McCarthy which played at PYT and recently Moon Rabbit Rising by Nicole Pingon at Belvoir 25a. Adam currently works at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre supporting research around youth mental health and early childhood development.