Staging Stories

Nakkiah Lui is a writer/actor and Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman. She was a cowriter/star of Black Comedy on ABC and is a monthly columnist for The Australian Women’s Weekly Online. She has been an artist in residence at Griffin Theatre Company (2013) and was playwright in residence at Belvoir from 2012 - 2014. In 2012, Nakkiah was the first recipient of The Dreaming Award from The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Arts Board of the Australia Council. The same year, Nakkiah was also the inaugural recipient of the Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright award. In 2014, Nakkiah was the recipient of the Malcolm Robertson Prize and a Green Room Award for Best Independent Production. Nakkiah is also a young leader in the Australian Aboriginal community and has contributed to The Guardian and Junkee. She has appeared on Q&A and The Drum on ABC and is a regular guest  and presenter on ABC Local Radio in Sydney.

Nakkiah Lui is a writer/actor and Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman. She was a cowriter/star of Black Comedy on ABC and is a monthly columnist for The Australian Women’s Weekly Online. She has been an artist in residence at Griffin Theatre Company (2013) and was playwright in residence at Belvoir from 2012 - 2014. In 2012, Nakkiah was the first recipient of The Dreaming Award from The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Arts Board of the Australia Council. The same year, Nakkiah was also the inaugural recipient of the Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright award. In 2014, Nakkiah was the recipient of the Malcolm Robertson Prize and a Green Room Award for Best Independent Production. Nakkiah is also a young leader in the Australian Aboriginal community and has contributed to The Guardian and Junkee. She has appeared on Q&A and The Drum on ABC and is a regular guest  and presenter on ABC Local Radio in Sydney.

Courtney Sina Meredith, the 2017 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and musician. Her play Rushing Dolls (2010) won a number of awards and was published by Playmarket in 2012. She launched her first published book of poetry, Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick (Beatnik), at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, and has since published a short story collection, Tail of the Taniwha (2016) to critical acclaim. She has been selected for a number of international writers' residencies including the prestigious Fall Residency at the University of Iowa and the Island Institute Residency in Sitka, Alaska. Meredith describes her writing as an ‘ongoing discussion of contemporary urban life with an underlying Pacific politique’. She is of Samoan, Mangaian and Irish descent.

Sam Strong is one of Australia’s leading theatre directors and arts leaders and the current Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre. Sam’s previous roles include: Chair of Circa; Associate Artistic Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company; Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company; Literary Associate at Belvoir; and dramaturg in residence at Red Stitch Actors Theatre. Sam won Best Direction of a Mainstage Production for The Floating World at the Sydney Theatre Awards, and has received multiple nominations for Best Direction and Best Play/Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards, the Greenroom Awards, and the Helpmann Awards. Sam has directed many of Australia’s leading actors including Simon Burke, Justine Clarke, Lucy Durack, Colin Friels, Noni Hazlehurst, Asher Keddie, Lachy Hulme, Robyn Nevin, Josh McConville, Luke Mullins, Pamela Rabe, Kat Stewart, Erik Thomson, Hugo Weaving, and David Wenham. Sam’s directing credits include: Noises Off! (Queensland Theatre/MTC); Once in Royal David’s City (Queensland Theatre/Black Swan Theatre Company); Masquerade (Sydney Festival/Griffin/STCSA/Melbourne Festival); The Weir, Endgame, The Sublime, The Speechmaker, Private Lives, The Crucible, Other Desert Cities and Madagascar (MTC); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (STC); The Boys (Sydney Festival/Griffin); The Floating World, Between Two Waves, And No More Shall We Part and Speaking in Tongues (Griffin); The Power of Yes (Company B Belvoir); Red Sky Morning (Red Stitch).

Stephen Carleton is an award-winning Brisbane-based writer. He is the winner of the 2016 Matilda Award for Best New Australian Work for Bastard Territory, the 2015 Griffin Award for The Turquoise Elephant, and the 2004/5 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award for Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset. That play also won the New York New Dramatists’ Award, and was shortlisted for an AWGIE, and the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award.  His new musical 'Joh for PM' (written with Paul Hodge) opened this year's Brisbane Musical Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse. He is a Senior Lecturer working within the Drama major at the University of Queensland, where he teaches courses in playwriting and dramaturgy, Australian Drama, and theatre history, specialising in postcolonial and Gothic theatre.