2024 First Nations Playwrights Retreat & Development – Participants Announced!
The Australian Plays Transform team, along with our partner companies Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Moogahlin Performing Arts, and Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, are so excited to bring you this year’s playwright participants in the First Nations Playwrights Retreat, one of our longest-running programs. These playwrights, along with dramaturgs Glenn Shea and Shari Indriani Irwin, will head down to Bundanon (on Dharawal and Dhurga country) in October, to spend 10 days retreating and writing.
Alexis West
Alexis a Birra Gubba, Wakka Wakka, South Sea Islander, Anglo Australian woman living and learning on Permangk and Kaurna Country’s for almost 25 years. Written and collaborated with No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability, Karrikarinya Theatre Collective, Kurruru Youth Arts, State Theatre Company South Australia, Yirra Yaakin, Act Now Theatre Company, Vitals Statistix, Slingsby Theatre and Theatre Republic. Written/directed short documentaries NITV/SBS. Published in ‘Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia’, ‘Mindshare’, ‘Ora Nui’, ‘Our Mob’ ‘Spirit Festival Catalogues’, translated into Polish for ‘Poetiks’ most recently in ‘The Rock Remains’. Play HOUSE ARREST commissioned for Yirramboi 2025 staged sharing.
Bjorn Stewart
Bjorn is a Kuku Yalanji and Wemba-Wemba creator based in the Blue Mountains. For the past 15 years, Stewart has performed, written and directed on numerous Australian series such as; ‘Gold Diggers’, ‘Summer Love’, ‘Get Krack!n’, ‘Black Comedy’ and the AACTA award-winning series ‘All My Friends are Racist’. In theatre, Stewart has worked with companies such as; Belvoir St. Theatre, Griffin Theatre Company, Moogahlin Performing Arts and Ilbijerri Theatre Company. From his upbringing in Western Sydney and studying Performance Art at University of Wollongong. Stewart’s eclectic style brings a unique perspective from the urban Indigenous experience.
Jada Alberts
Jada was born and raised on their mother’s country, Garramilla (Darwin, NT), and they have family ties to the Yanyuwa, Bardi and Wardaman peoples. Jada has worked as an Actor, Writer and Director, in theatre and Film/TV.Jada’s writing credits include the critically acclaimed, Brother’s Wreck, Elektra/Orestes, Jarradah Gooragulli, Dance of the Brolgas (with Mooradoop Kathy Mills) and Aretha – A Love Letter to the Queen of Soul. In TV, Jada has written for Cleverman, Mystery Road, While the Men Are Away and Deadloch. Jada was awarded the Balnaves Indigenous Playwright’s Award in 2013 and the Mona Brand Emerging Playwright’s Award in 2016.
Jenny Fraser
Jenny is a Creative. Her old people hail from Migunburri Yugambeh Country in the Scenic Rim, Far Northern Bundjalung, on the border district between South East Queensland and the NSW Northern Rivers regions.
Fraser’s writing includes film scripts, poetry and commentary published in notable journals like Yellow Arrow Journal and Overland Literary Journal. Her art writing has been featured with prestigious platforms such as the Havana Biennale. A recipient of the Australia Council Experimental Artform Award and various writing residencies, her dedication to storytelling is well-recognised.
Dr Jenny Fraser has served on the National Advisory Group for the Centre for Indigenous Story, and as an Associate Member of the Centre for Creative Arts at Latrobe University.
John Harding
An experienced playwright, director and actor, John created Ilbijerri’s first play Up the Road in 1991, which was subsequently directed by Neil Armfield/Belvoir Theatre in 1996/7 (two national tours). For this production of Up the Road John was awarded the Australian Human Right Medal for Arts in 1997.
John directed his three of his plays, Second Helping in 2005 (ANT&R), Enuff in 2002 for the Blak Inside season at the Playbox, and No Parking in 2001 for the Bless Your Big Blak Arts Festival. John also took Enuff to New York: United Nations in 2005, presented as a part of the World Indigenous Peoples Forum, and three works (Up the Road, Enuff, and No Parking) to Hungary in 2005 as the artistic highlight of the EASA International Biennial Conference. John also wrote the Dirty Mile, a play about the history of Indigenous Fitzroy for Ilbijerri Theatre, which was performed in Melbourne in March/April 2006 & again in 2008, winning the 2009 Deadly Award for Literature (John as playwright). In January 2023 John produced and facilitated (directed by Kamarra Bell-Wykes) a four-day workshop of his latest work, Tick The Box in partnership with and conduced at The Victorian College of The Arts, University of Melbourne.
Nicola Ingram
Nic (she/her) is a proud Palawa and Wiradjuri theatremaker based in Nipaluna, Lutruwita (Hobart,Tasmania). She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2021 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting). Nic received the 2021 Emerging Tasmanian Aboriginal Writers Award and has since developed original works featured in YIRRAMBOI, Dark Mofo, and Melbourne Theatre Company’s emerging writers’ program First Stage. She is currently developing a new work that explores the complex relationships First Nations people navigate between family, community, government, and Country.
2024 ASSESSING PANEL
In 2024, the panel consisted of representatives from each of the partner companies: Lily Shearer, Amy Sole, and Maitland Schnaars.
We kindly ask that applicants do not contact the assessing panel to request feedback on their submissions.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts
investment and advisory body.
The Australian First Nations Playwright Retreat and Development Program is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funding from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund.
