Hasitha Adhikariarachchi
Hasitha Adhikariarachchi is a writer and raised in Sri Lanka, now calls Sydney home. Inspired by futility of everyday sexism, her work includes poetry and short fiction. Hasitha is the runner-up of the Poetry Section of International Women’s Day Writing Competition organized by South Coast Writers Centre. Hasitha has been featured by the Macquarie University in ‘Emerging Writers Festival – 2018’ and ‘South Asian Film, Arts & Literature Festival – 2017’. She won the ‘NSW Multilingual Poetry Slam 2017’ and performed in Embellishment in 2023.
Clementine Anderson
Clementine is a powerhouse of creativity and heart — an actor, producer, and teaching artist whose work spans independent film, theatre, and regional arts engagement.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) from the Queensland University of Technology and a Graduate Certificate in Public Policy from the University of Sydney. As an actor and producer, Clementine’s work has screened at festivals across Australia and internationally, including Sydney Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, and SXSW in Austin, Texas
Through her work with Sydney Theatre Company and Barking Gecko Theatre Company as a Teaching Artist, she has delivered programs across regional Australia – experiences that continue to shape her creative lens.
Sienna Brown
Sienna Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica, grew up in Toronto, Canada and now lives in Sydney, Australia. In Canada, she was a professional dancer with Toronto Dance Theatre, Canada’s premiere contemporary dance company. She’s a graduate of the prestigious Australian Film & TV School (AFTRS) where she gained a BA in television directing and editing. After graduating, she formed Pine Street Films, through which she produced, directed and wrote documentaries and educational films.
Her debut novel Master of My Fate, published in 2019 by Penguin Random House, won the MUD Literary Prize at Adelaide Writers Week for the best debut novel by an Australian writer and was shortlisted for the ARA Historical Fiction Novel Prize, in 2020.
In 2021, she was commissioned by ABC Radio National, the History Listen Series to create Caribbean Convicts in Australia, a podcast based on her research for Master.
In 2022, she was appointed Research Associate at Western Sydney University. Her position is being funded by a three-year Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Grant administered through the Writing & Society Research Centre. Under the auspices of the grant, she has just completed her second novel, Love Under A Tropical Sun set in Australia and Jamaica. She developed and co-produced Callaloo & Wattleseed, a unique one-day symposium, that focused for the first time on the cultural contributions of Caribbean Australians, in the arena of music, education, literature and performance.
She is currently working with The History Lab at UTS’s Impact Studios to produce further podcasts on the history of Caribbean people in Australia. Sienna’s also a Judge for the ARA Historical Fiction Novel Prize, 2024 which will be awarded in October. Sienna is represented by Gaby Naher, Left Bank Literary.
Lliane Clarke
Lliane is the Founding Artistic Director of Voices of Women and has directed Voices of Women’s program of storytelling workshops, live shows and film since 2018. She directed the feature film CLEARWAY (CORONA) in 2020, co-directed the award-winning feature film Entanglement in 2021 and the short films Our Mob, Invisibility, The Dress and Sun in My Bones in 2021. In 2022 she was awarded the Carla Zampatti Arts and Culture Medal from Multicultural NSW for the Entanglement program. In 2022-23 Entanglement was shown around the world in film festivals, including at The United Nations Womens Conference in Rwanda. Lliane has directed live shows Amplify on tour in 2022, Embellishment at Wagga Gallery, Studio 138 Dubbo and at KXT Broadway in Sydney in 2023 and Women of the Riverina at KXT Broadway and on tour in 2024.
Micharne Cloughley
Micharne Cloughley is a scriptwriter, playwright and producer. She writes research-driven stories about women across a wide range of genres, from television police procedurals to science fiction theatre. She was a staff writer for seasons 21 – 23 of Law & Order: SVU. As a playwright, Micharne was head writer for The Way They Live, and co-wrote The End and the Beginning, which were both performed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other plays include 43 Stages of Grieving: A Comedy, Flotsam, 99 Phone Calls You Shouldn’t Have Made, You and U.S., Not That Kind of Doll and One Flesh. Micharne began her career as a development producer and researcher, for both scripted and unscripted projects in film and television. She has over 10 years of experience in development, production and casting, working for international companies including Eyeworks, Endemol, Fremantle Media and Indievillage.
Micharne holds a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and Bachelor of Arts (Television Production) from Charles Sturt University. She is a current mentor for Girls Write Now and writes about the humorous intersection of Australian and American cultures for America Josh.
Catherine Enane
Catherine Enane is a Kenyan allround performer, theatre maker and director. She is professionally trained and a graduate of The Theatre Company of Kenya with over eleven years of experience in the performing arts. Catherine has featured in several theatre performances across the country and internationally (with good connections and an affinity for North Western Europe), furthermore she has performed and directed several theatrical performance. She has extensive experience managing theatre, coordinating social development projects and community engagement through arts.Currently, she is a conservation education and engagement specialist and Theatre Director for The Elephant Queen Outreach Program in Kenya.
Elizabeth Jigalin
Elizabeth Jigalin is a composer, performer, teaching artist and creative producer based in Sydney/Eora on Gadigal land. Elizabeth’s music has been premiered at festivals around the world including Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Extended Play, Darmstadt, BIFEM, Rouse Hills Psychedelia, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Women of Noise and Australia’s Silent Film Festival. At present, she is Composer-in-Residence for Voices of Women and Moorambilla Voices. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Sydney Youth Orchestras, Bundanon Trust, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Bondi Pavillion. Previously, her music and ideas have been brought to life by a variety of performers and commissioners including Biennale of Sydney, Inner West Voices, Vanessa Tomlinson, Will Hansen, Jane Aubourg, Ensemble Offspring, Soundstream, Screen Dive, Lost in Books and FBI’s All the Best. She is the recipient of several awards including 2023 APRA/AMCOS Art Music Fund, Ars Musica Australis Scholarship, AAO Mentorship, 1st Prize Centenary of Canberra Composition Competition and 1st Prize Unbound Flute Festival competition. Elizabeth is the founder of creative music collective the music box project who were awarded Excellence for Experimental Music at the 2020 APRA AMCOS/AMC Art Music Awards.
Keeley Karsten
Keeley Karsten can be seen starring as Natalie Fabelman in Steven Spielberg’s highly acclaimed film The Fabelmans, co-written by Tony Kushner. Karsten recently completed production on the new Apple+ Limited TV Series The Savant. Other titles include the feature film Adult Best Friends which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival (2024), the film Entanglement, as well as the short films Pretty Doesn’t Hurt and On Being Twelve, for which she received the accolades of Best Young Actress at the Snow Leopard International Film Festival and Best Child Actress at the Sydney Indie Short Festival. Her other television credits include Amazon’s Hunters and a starring role as the young Pam Sinclair in the documentary series Evil Lives Here.. Recent stage credits include the World Premiere play, Summer Session with The Bones Brigade (Loralai) and the musical Fun Home (Small Alison) at Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre.
Pooya Mohseni
Pooya Mohseni is a multi award-winning Iranian American actor, writer, filmmaker and transgender activist. Her stage credits include an obie win in the Pulitzer and Obie winning play English (Atlantic Theater Company + The Old Globe Theater), the world premiere of The Sex Party (Menier Chocolate Factory) in London, Hamlet (Play On Shakespeare Festival), She,He,Me (National Queer Theater), Our Town (Pride Plays), Galatea (The WP Project), The Good Muslim (EST), White Snake (Baltimore Center Stage), and the Audible production of Chonburi Hotel & The Butterfly Club (Williamstown Theater Festival). Her film and television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Big Dogs, Falling Water, Madam Secretary, Terrifier and See You Then. She is repped by Headline Talent Agency and TGTalent.
Alison Muir
Alison writes and performs comedy and film scripts and was a volunteer co-presenter and co-producer on 2SER-FM on arts program Entertainment Magazine for five years and in 1992 created the program Final Draft (about writing – all kinds), which is still running on 2SER today. She is also an effective and successful professional fundraiser whose strategies and initiatives have raised $60M through major gifts, bequests, grants, for not-for-profit and charitable organisations in the higher education, health, arts and social justice sectors. Her expertise includes designing customised fundraising strategies, building and strengthening donor relations, campaign design, appeals, special events, communications and media including writing and filmmaking.
Jeri Nicolas
As a native Hawaiian, Jeri was born in Honolulu and raised in Oceanside as a “marine brat”. For over 20 years, Jeri has worked in film, TV and theatre working behind the scenes. She has travelled all of North America touring as a hair supervisor for multiple Broadway tours.
During that time, she has been a part of many fundraising campaigns; Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS (BCEFA), Easter Bonnet Broadway Cares, It Gets Better campaign in Vancouver BC as well as the committees of She Fest San Diego and Pride by the Beach, Oceanside as Entertainment Chair. In addition, Jeri has added a new hat to her resume’ as an executive producer and documentary filmmaker.
A very out and proud member of the LGBTQ+ community for many years, Jeri continues to educate Lgbtq Pacific Islanders and other POC cultures.
Madison Prince
Madison Prince is a Black/ First Nations Australian actor, screenwriter and producer from the Nyikina Nation of Western Australia. She is a founding member of the United Stages Collective, the first U.S based collective of First Nations artists. Together, they voice the untold stories of Australia through creative mediums. Production credits include Nike.
Prince’s debut feature film, Conscientious Objector, is set to shoot in 2025. She is based in Los Angeles, California.
Erin Quill
Erin Quill is a Broadway performer and was in the original cast of Avenue Q. She is a writer, and of mixed race Chinese descent. She is a 5th Generation Australian who resides in the USA and takes pride in her dual Chinese Australian citizenship.
Brittanie Shipway
Brittanie Shipway is a Gumbaynggirr, Turkish and Australian storyteller, whose creative practise encompasses performing, writing, directing and dramaturgy.
Shipway wrote and performed in her debut play A Letter For Molly (Ensemble Theatre), under the directorial helm of Ursula Yovich. A Letter For Molly was developed in 2020 as part of Belvoir’s shutdown residency, and received funding from both Create NSW and the Australia Council for the Arts. This debut play was a semi-finalist piece in the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award (2021) and nominated for Best Play for the 2022 Broadway World Awards.
Her play Senser, premiered at Theatre Works in 2022, directed by kindred creative spirit Miranda Middleton, featuring original music by composer Jess Newman.
In 2022, Brittanie was the recipient of the prestigious Dreaming Award from the Australia Council of the Arts as well as Create NSW to develop her musical Yellow Rock.
Brittanie has also written and performed her queer audio piece Salt & Biber for ABC Radio, and has written a short story Gözleme which was recently published by SBS Voices.
As a performer, Brittanie has made her mark at the Sydney Opera House as Hermia in Bell Shakespeare’s worldwide premiere of The Lovers. She recently starred as Margaret Whitlam in the new Australian musical The Dismissal, as well as a national tour of Rolling Thunder Vietnam with the John Farnham band. She has also performed in a national tour of The Sapphires, Big Fish (The Hayes), Ordinary Days (Chapel Off Chapel), and starred in alongside Natalie Bassingthwaite and Paulini in Chess.
Kaye Tuckerman
Kaye Tuckerman is an actor, director and educator. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Kaye is based in New York City, and continues to work throughout the USA, Canada, London, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South Africa, and Kenya. Kaye was the Creative Producer/Director of The Australian Dance Awards for numerous years, Creative Director for Inglot NYC directing and designing multiple photo shoots, and fashion events, Casting Associate for Disney’s The Lion King (Australia), and Casting Director for Sydney Dance Company. She has directed multiple theater productions throughout Australia and Asia, and most recently has directed the short films: ‘Fragile’, ‘Black Canvas’, ‘Permission’, ‘Still Here’, ‘Trumped’, ‘Nana’s Room’, ‘Coping’, ‘The Last Queen’, ‘Soul Shaman’, ‘Choice’, ‘Famousland’, ‘On my Shoulder’, ‘JOE’, ‘Nil by Mouth’. Kaye co directed and co produced Entanglement and directed the shorts Trap Musik, On Being Twelve, Now You See Me, Fully Present, Body and Breath, Queen Bessie’s Gal, Isolation in Lockdown. She is a graduate of Australia’s two most prestigious arts institutions: WAAPA – Bachelor of Arts Music Theatre and NIDA – Post Graduate Diploma Directing.