About the session

This session took place on Tuesday 8 December 2020, 5-6pm AEDT.

Hosted by Fiona Choi and including a panel with Wesley Enoch (Artistic Director Sydney Festival), Matt Lutton (Artistic Director Malthouse Theatre), Marline Zaibak (Company and Casting Manager Malthouse Theatre) and Paige Rattray (Associate Director STC), this conversation focuses on mainstage contexts, discussing the initiatives, processes and policies that have been created to make the workplace more inclusive and productive. It will also branch out into what work remains and what challenges lie ahead. Music Theatre has a place within the broader theatre ecology, and producers, directors and anyone who hold space in professional theatre will no doubt find many invaluable take-away messages and learnings applicable to music theatre practice.

About the speakers

Host

  • Fiona Choi

    Fiona Choi is proud her performing career features so many diverse & authentic stories. She is well-known to theatre-goers for her recent roles in MTC’s Torch The Place, Golden Shield & The Lady In The Van, as well as her acclaimed one woman show Dragon Lady: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong originally created for the 2019 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

    A graduate of WAAPA Musical Theatre, Fiona was an original member of the Australian companies of RENT (Cameron Mackintosh) Mamma Mia! (Dainty/Littlestar) and Metamorphoses (MTC).

    Fiona then spent 15 years living in New York, where she appeared Off-Broadway in The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream & The Silken Phoenix and guest-starred on television in Homeland, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Person Of Interest, The Big C & The Newsroom. She was also involved in the development of many new musical works including Apathy: The Gen X Musical, FAMBAM360, Happy People by Matthew Lee Robinson, and The Street (MITF nominated Best Actress). Fiona also worked extensively as a casting director and resident director during her years in NYC.

    Today, Fiona is perhaps best-known for Benjamin Law’s SBS Comedy The Family Law, for which she has received an AACTA nomination (Best Performance in Television Comedy) as well as 3 Equity Ensemble Awards.  Other recent television highlights include Mustangs FC, The Letdown, Utopia, Wentworth, Get Krack!n & My Life Is Murder.

Panel

  • Wesley Enoch

    Wesley Enoch is a writer and director and the current Artistic Director at the Sydney Festival. He hails from Stradbroke Island (Minjeribah) and is a proud Noonuccal Nuugi man.

    Previously Wesley has been the Artistic Director at Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts; Artistic Director at Ilbijerri Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative and the Associate Artistic Director at Belvoir Street Theatre. Wesley’s other residencies include Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company; the 2002 Australia Council Cite Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris and the Australia Council Artistic Director for the Australian Delegation to the 2008 Festival of Pacific Arts. He was creative consultant, segment director and indigenous consultant for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. 

    Wesley has written and directed iconic Indigenous theatre productions. THE 7 STAGES OF GRIEVING which Wesley directed and co-wrote with Deborah Mailman was first produced in 1995 and continues to tour both nationally and internationally.  Others include THE SUNSHINE CLUB for Queensland Theatre Company and a new adaptation of Medea by Euripides’; BLACK MEDEA. His play THE STORY OF THE MIRACLES AT COOKIE’S TABLE won the 2005 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award. 

    In 2004 Wesley directed the original stage production of THE SAPPHIRES which won the 2005 Helpmann Award for Best Play. Other productions include STOLEN, RIVERLAND, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, HEADFUL OF LOVE, BOMBSHELLS, BLACK DIGGERS, GASP!, COUNTRY SONG, HAPPY DAYS and THE ODD COUPLE, I AM EORA, ONE NIGHT THE MOON, THE MAN FROM MUKINUPIN, YIBIYUNG, PARRAMATTA GIRLS, CAPRICORNIA, THE CHERRY PICKERS and ROMEO AND JULIET.

    His most recent production is BLACK COCKATOO, which premiered at the 2020 Sydney Festival.

  • Matt Lutton

    Matthew Lutton is Malthouse Theatre’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO. Prior to this, he was Malthouse Theatre’s Associate Director, and the Artistic Director of ThinIce in Perth.

    Directing credits for Malthouse Theatre:  Solaris (Lyric Hammersmith London, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), Cloudstreet, Melancholia, Bliss, Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man, Away, Edward II, Picnic at Hanging Rock (Barbican London, Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), I Am a Miracle, Night on Bald Mountain, The Bloody Chamber, Dance of Death, Pompeii, L.A., On the Misconception of Oedipus, Die Winterreise and Tartuffe. For Sydney Theatre Company he has directed The Trial, The Mysteries: Genesis, and The Duel. Other directing credits include: Love Me Tender for Belvoir Theatre and Don’t Say the Words for Griffin Theatre Company. His opera directing credits include: Make No Noise for the Bavarian State Opera, Strauss’ Elektra for Opera Australia and West Australian Opera, and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman for New Zealand Opera.

  • Marline Zaibak

    Marline is a dedicated arts producer specialising in community/ civic engagement and casting. Currently Marline is the Company and Casting Manager at Malthouse Theatre. 

    Marline held positions as the Director of Public Programming- Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco) Art Centre Melbourne as the Producer – Participation, Family and Youth Programs as the Coordinator of City of Melbourne’s Creative Space Program and Creative Producer of the Anti-Racism Action Band. Marline has a long history in advocacy for diversity in the arts and  held positions on the Emerging Arts Professionals Advisory Board (San Francisco), Silicon Valley Creates Advisory Board (San Jose), Storefront lab Artistic Advisory Panel (San Francisco), Platform Youth Theatre Board of Management (Melbourne) and Melbourne Workers Theatre Board of Management (Melbourne).

  • Paige Rattray

    Paige is currently Sydney Theatre Company’s Associate Director, after holding the role of Associate Artistic Director at Queensland Theatre.

    Prior to that, she was Sydney Theatre Company’s Richard Wherrett Fellow and has previously directed Triple X, The Deep Blue Sea, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, How to Rule the World, Black is the New White, Australian Graffiti, Power Plays and Boys will be boys for STC.

    Paige is co-founder of independent theatre company Arthur, was the 2011 Resident Director at Griffin Theatre Company as well as the company’s 2010 Affiliate Director.

    Other directing credits include, Queensland Theatre: Hedda, Scenes from a Marriage, Switzerland. Belvoir: Fangirls (with Queensland Theatre in association with ATYP). Arthur: Bright World (with Theatreworks), The Sea Project, Return to Earth (with Griffin Independent), The Myth Project: Twin (with MTC NEON), The Mesh (with Red Stitch) The Midlands (with Mudlark), Dirtyland (with The Spare Room), Cut Snake.Milk Crate Theatre: This House is Mine.

    Paige won Best Direction of a Mainstage Production for The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Best Production of a Mainstage Musical for Fangirls at the 2019 Sydney Theatre Awards, Best Mainstage Production at the 2016 Matilda Awards for Switzerland. She is a graduate of NIDA.

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