Resident of Yarraville, Cultural chameleon and collector
Growing up, I had wanted to be a nun, but going to uni at 18 changed all that. For the first time in my life, other religions were treated the same as Christianity. Until then, Christianity was the most prominent religion that was taught to me. I did Anthropology at uni, and it made me rethink how religion is looked at, and I thought “Christianity’s not the best” and I stopped being a crazy Catholic.
I’ve had a very different view of the world from very young. My father handed me very specific books, opening up new worlds to me. I didn’t play with dolls and was a precocious reader. When I was in Year Seven, about 12 years old, my classmates were reading Paul Jennings and I was reading Robert Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth. I loved spy novels.
I come from Perth, both born and raised in Noongar country. My father’s family were descendants of Irish convicts, over six generations of settlers. The Swan River colony settlers requested convicts from Britain and they got petty thieves from Ireland convicted for crimes during the Famine. So most of the convicts had been convicted of stealing something small. My father’s great great great grandfather had stolen a sheep as his parents had died, and as eldest he had 10 brothers and sisters to feed.
Mum’s parents were from the Seychelles. Her parents left the Seychelles and her father built roads for the British in Kenya. Mum was born in Kenya and arrived in Australia at 12 years of age.
Both of my grandmothers died last year. At my maternal grandma’s funeral, I learnt a lot of Polish Jews were liberated in the eastern camps after the war and were shipped down the eastern European countries with some of them ending up in Kenya and not resettled on Palestinian land in Israel. These Polish families left Kenya at the same time as my mother’s family, and were her extended family in Perth.
To hear this story only last year was interesting because my father was an amateur historian of both World Wars, and I had studied the history of the Holocaust in uni while pursuing an Undergraduate Degree in History and English Literature. It seemed to close a circle for me.”
I’ve lived in Melbourne for just over a year, moving from WA to join wit incorporated. I had been writing for them for two years prior, and was invited to come over by Jennifer Piper, one of the company’s founders. Jennifer and I went to school together, and had kept in touch over the years. She knew that I had written and co-produced two short plays in Perth, so invited me to join the team and write a play with her, which became ‘A Scandal in the Weimar’ in the 2017 season.
Teams only work if you are being very truthful about the human inside of them, so you know everyone’s capacity. I came to work with wit incorporated as they are an artist-led company. They do the company work as well as the production work on each show. I respect that idea, as that makes the company experienced and practical artists. Currently that is what you need to be successful.
I make sure my stories are on a human scale, and it makes the artists and audience feel they are connected on a human level. Kids love seeing a real live person talking to them, that is real life. I like that. That’s why I like theatre.
I’ve only been in Yarraville for two months, and when I first got to Melbourne I was living in West Footscray. When I moved to Melbourne in September 2016, I had planned on devoting the year to wit incorporated as a company member, and to see my play created and produced from start to finish.
In the middle of that year I got involved with a section of the Australian artistic community and met very talented artists. I was greatly touched and influenced by them and as a result I started a talent agency as Principal, growing on my experience working for a Talent Agent in Perth.
Looking back I realise I just want to be in a book. In Year Seven I was Head Girl of a Catholic school, but when asked what I wanted to be when I was an adult I said I wanted to be an assassin – I was reading Jason Bourne at the time. I did not distinguish between the morals of the books. When I was young and wanted to be a nun, I wanted to be in the Bible. When I was reading Robert Ludlam, I wanted to be a spy. And as I now write, create plays and look after actors, I still just want to be in a book, really!
