Creative Team

Jamila Main Playwright & Actor

Amy Sole Director & Dramaturg

Rikiah Lizarraga Stage Manager

Jacqueline Tooley Producer & Accessibility Manager

Ruby Allegra Art Exhibition Curator

Madeleine Stewart

Award-winning comedian Madeleine Stewart has been charming audiences for 10 years.

You may have seen Madeleine perform with Rove McManus, Andrew Denton, or touring with Adam Hills

Co-writer of viral sketch ‘NDIS Fails’ with ABC’s Tonightly with over 1 million views on facebook, showcased her ground-breaking exploration of disability and social norms. Practicing what she preaches, Madeleine is the Access Co-Ordinator for Sydney Fringe and in 2019 won the AMP Tomorrowmaker award for her production of accessible comedy club Crips & Creeps. With shows at the Sydney Fringe, Sydney Comedy Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival, Madeleine is rising fast as a fresh voice championing inclusivity, with no sign of slowing down. You can catch her hour special "So Brave coming up at Sydney Comedy Fest in May

Tasnim Hossain

Tasnim Hossain is a stage and screen writer & stage director. Her credits include Yellow Face at KXT and Carpark Clubbing on ABC iView.

Dan Graham

Dan is a theatre director and disability rights and LGBTQ+ activist. His directing credits include Sam I Am, an autobiographical solo show co-created with deaf actor/performer Sam Martin, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Hilary Bell’s Wolf Lullaby. Dan is a member of the Board of Arts Access Australia and is currently Co-Chair of Artists With A Disability Committee for the Media and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA). His particular passion is access to employment opportunities for artists with a disability.

Anthea Williams

Anthea is an award-winning theatre director, an emerging film maker and she develops theatre, screenplays and television series. Anthea is a Churchill Fellow. In 2018 she travelled though North America and Britain researching development models for new work.

Anthea’s short film Safety Net was part of the Sydney Film Festival, Slamdance & Whānau Mārama | The New Zealand International Film Festival. Anthea also worked in script development at Causeway Films. From 2011 to 2017 she was Associate Director – New Work at Belvoir Street Theatre.

Anthea has directed plays and musicals for companies across Australia, New Zealand and England including Griffin Theatre, National Theatre of Paramatta, Sydney Festival, Brisbane Festival, The Bush – London and The Court – New Zealand. Anthea is a disability advocate and hosts the radio show and podcast Activated Arts for 2RPH Sydney. She is a contributor to The Guardian where she writes about the impacts of disability representation and living with a chronic illness.

Bernadette Fam

Bernadette Fam is a multidisciplinary theatremaker working across Writing, Dramaturge, Directing and Creative Producing. As an artist, Bernadette is passionate about exploring the intricacies of identity, belonging and cultural connection in Australia’s current socio-economic landscape.

Her writing and spoken word poetry credits include: Mother (Commission for the Annual Youth Theatre Festival – Q Theatre), Fight or Flight (Intersection: Beat - ATYP), Float (Juxta) and she is currently in development on a multi-writer project with Co-Curious/Belvoir.

As Dramaturg Bernadette has worked with a range of companies including but not limited to: Sydney Chamber Opera, Poetry in Action, PYT Fairfield, Critical Stages Touring, Green Door Theatre Company, Rogues Projects and Antipodes Theatre. She recently directed Chewing Gum Dreams for Green Door Theatre Company/Red Line Productions. She is currently a Literary Associate for Belvoir Theatre Company/Co-Curious, part of the 2022 Griffin Studio and is a Creative Producer at Green Door Theatre Company.

Mel Ree

Mel Ree trained as an actor, identifies as a messenger, poet and fierce woman. Born in Papua New Guinea to the daughter of a chief, her ancestors sit at the base of her spine spurring her on to tell her story, hoping to spark wildfires within listeners that burn down differences, uniting us in our pain and understanding of this human condition.

Ruby Allegra

Ruby Allegra (they/them) is a white, autistic, trans queercripple who lives and works on unceded Kaurna Land in so-called Australia. Working as a multidisciplinary artist, model and writer, Ruby draws on their lived experience as a disabled trans person to inform their work, with intersectionality and accessibility being at the forefront of their practice. Ruby aims to use their platforms and privilege to support and uplift other multiply marginalised people, and to encourage conversations about ableism, transphobia, privilege and white supremacy through their art and writing. This is Ruby's first exhibition curation. You can find more of their work on Instagram: @rvbyallegra / @rvbytheartist

Demon Derriere

Demon Derriere is a body positive activist, booty manipulator and creative director of body positive festival Big Thick Energy. Demon demands society’s attention to break the stereotypes of beauty, to abolish discrimination and fatphobia and to liberate all bodies.

As a POC, Hard of hearing, queer woman she aims to display the essence of the music through the feeling vibrations create. Demon explores her experiences of “otherness” as she expresses sexual energy and blurs the lines between dance and pornography using traditional Egyptian Belly Dance, Burlesque and the art of tease.

Demon’s current achievements include being Performance Space’s Queer New programs artist, Panellist and Performer for ‘All About Women’ at Sydney Opera House 2022 speaker on ‘The Sexpert’ for Netflix X Refinary29 and staring on ABC’s ‘The Catalyst’.

You may have spotted her badonkadonk shaking it on the stages of MCA, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Opera House, Malthouse Theatre, The Imperial, Speigltent, Carriageworks and many more.

Ana Maria Belo

Ana Maria Belo is one of Australia’s most versatile performers. She is the first of her Portuguese family to be born in Australia. Ana Maria is deaf and began acting and singing at a very young age. She has continued to perform on most Australian stages and international screens – small, large, independent and mainstream. She is also gifted writer, and has directed and produced her short films that have gone on to film festivals around the world.

She has most recently performed in the Dolly Parton musical 9to5. Ana Maria just returned from Cannes where the short form series, "It's Fine, I'm Fine" that she starred in and was additional writer on, was selected to premiere at CanneSeries.

Ana Maria wears hearing aids and uses Auslan (Australian Sign Language).

Gareth Kelaart

Gareth Kelaart is a director, producer, artist, model and advocate. He was previously crowned Mr Deaf Australia, and runner up for Mr Deaf International. He has worked with Sky Sirens, MCA, Deaf Rainbow NSW and within the Deaf community at various events. Gareth is currently the Darlinghurst Theatre Company Mentee and is working on future arts events for the d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing community.

Jordyn Fulcher

Jordyn Fulcher is an emerging artist from south-west Sydney. She graduated from an Advanced Diploma in Acting from the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television in 2017, and has recently just completed a Master of Fine Arts (Writing) at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She was a resident playwright at Sydney Theatre Company from 2019 to 2021.

In 2020, she made her writing debut with Ex Utero for Sydney Theatre Company Virtual; her adaption of A Dream Play by August Strindberg, titled Drrrm Play, was featured in The Festival of Emerging Artists at the National Institute of Dramatic Art; and her play, Cat Piss, was included in Darlinghurst Theatre Company's Next In Line.

In 2021, she was co-commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company and the National Institute of Dramatic Art to write The End of Everything from the Perspective of Lawn Chairs, as part of a production titled Eat Me. Most recently, she has stepped in as a facilitative artist for Midnight Feast.

Dr Rachael Jacobs

Dr Rachael Jacobs is a lecturer in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University and a former secondary school teacher (Dance, Drama and Music). She is a community activist, aerial artist, South Asian dancer and choreographer. She was a founding member of the community activism group, Teachers for Refugees and runs her own intercultural dance company. Rachael was the Greens candidate for Grayndler in the recent Federal Election.

Susan Wood

Susan is a fierce advocate for disability equality, in her every day job she hosts Spinal Cord Injuries Australia’s (@spinalcordinjuriesaustralia) podcast Have The Nerve – A Podcast About Disability, where she talks about topics ranging from LGBTQI+ rights, Psychosexual Exploration, Sex workers and the issues that surround the NDIS. In her spare time she is an illustrator and painter (@swoodmakesart) living in Greater Sydney.

In 2021 Susan had a surreal moment when she registered Paralympian status to enter into the World Para Dance Sport Online Competition with a freestyle dance to Arch Enemy’s Revolution Begins. She came 13th. She was pretty chuffed with this result, so this May she will be doing it all over again!

Jenna Suffern

Jenna Suffern is a Sydney based comedian, producer and writer. She has an engaging presence and a flair for performance, bringing an off the cuff and kooky approach to comedy. She's a known face in the Sydney comedy scene, a regular voice for Pedestrian.TV and FBi Radio, and produces and hosts the queer comedy room, ‘Two Queers Walk Into A Bar’. Despite all of this, her biggest achievement was once being introduced as a "Prominent Sydney Lesbian".

You'd be a fool not to follow Jenna in either real life, or online: @jennasuffern

“Suffern is a particularly bright spark” Sydney Morning Herald

Jacqueline Tooley

Jacqueline Tooley is a Gadigal based interdisciplinary writer, producer, filmmaker, advocate and co-founder of 18 Maiden Lane Productions, as well as the full-time Administrator and Accessibility Manager for Darlinghurst Theatre Company (DTC). As a filmmaker, her short film “RED FUR” (18 Maiden Lane Productions) won Bronze at the Horror Movie Awards in LA for Best Short Film. In her work for DTC she has helped ensure that disabled audiences and artists have genuine access and inclusion in the theatre. She is currently the producing this amazing show called Benched!

Dr Christopher Bryant

Dr. Christopher Bryant is a Griffin Award nominated playwright (Home Invasion, 2015), performer, and NIDA graduate (Master of Fine Arts Writing for Performance, 2014). He has worked with a range of companies including fortyfivedownstairs, Malthouse Theatre, the State Library of Victoria, Wheeler Centre, ATYP, La Mama, and been published by Play Lab, Australian Plays, and Hello, Mr. Magazine. He has taught with tertiary institutions around the country, and completed his Ph.D. in playwriting & radical inclusion at Monash University (2020), under the supervision of Jane Montgomery Griffiths.

Anthony Severino (AKA Peach Fuzz)

Anthony Severino is a queer actor and drag/performance artist living with Tourette Syndrome. Together with their drag alter ego 'Peach Fuzz', Anthony creates work that exists intersectionally between their performance identity, cultural background, gender expression and disability. Drag, spoken word and theatre are their performance mediums.