THE ARTISTS

Fanciful Fiction Auxiliary

Daniel Evans

Daniel Evans is an award-winning writer, director, producer – and QUT graduate – who has worked across Australia in theatre, festivals, print and television. Together, with Amy Ingram, he founded The Good Room; a performance collective who draw on the experiences of ordinary people to create extraordinary theatre experiences. As well as teaching for QUT Acting, he has worked as the Co-Director of the National Young Writers’ Festival, a five day event as part of the emerging and experimental arts mecca This Is Not Art in Newcastle, as the Performance Producer at Metro Arts, as a senior writer for Frankie magazine and as a digital content producer for Southern Star Endemol, Network Nine, Ten and SBS.

Amy Ingram

Amy is a performer and Maker. In 2008 she co founded The Good Room with Daniel Evans. She has performed with Queensland Theatre ( Fat Pig, Seeding Bed, Trollop, The Seagull, The Odd Couple) , La Boite ( Cosi, The Tragedy of King Richard The third, Blackrock) , Elbow Room ( We Get It : MTC and Brisbane Powerhouse) and in Low Level Panic at The Old Fitz directed by Justine Martin. In 2021 Amy will be on tour with Magic Mike Live Australia.

THE ARTISTS

POLYTOXIC

POLYTOXIC is an Australian collective known for creating hyper-visual, pop-inspired performance work built upon foundations of diversity, collaboration and intersectionality.

The company is led by two feminist performance-makers at the top of their game: Lisa Fa’alafi & Leah Shelton. Lisa is the renowned Co-Creator of smash-hit Hot Brown Honey, which has played to over 50,000 people across five countries, garnering numerous 5-star reviews, a Helpmann, two Green Rooms and UK’s Total Theatre Award for Innovation. Leah has created two renegade feminist solo works, Terror Australis (which most recently toured throughout France); and Bitch On Heat, directed by Ursula Martinez, which toured the major Australian Festivals and Soho Theatre London to critical acclaim in 2019.

Since 2000, Polytoxic’s work has been presented in traditional huts, indie theatre seasons, dusty big-tops and major festivals including PS122’s COIL Festival New York, Harbourfront Centre Canada, WanSmolbag Vanuatu, Sydney Opera House, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Perth Fringe World, Bleach Festival, Enlighten, ArtsHouse Melbourne. 

Key works include live-art karaoke ‘The BackUp Service’, site-specific watertop projection work ‘Trade Winds’, immersive nightclub takeover ‘Dali After Dark’, mongrel tiki-circus show ‘The Rat Trap’ (co-presented with QTC), and rose-tinted travelogue ‘Teuila Postcards’.

THE ARTISTS

Lisa O’Neill & Anatoly Frusin – Directors
Katy Cotter – Performer
Amy Hauser – Performer
Darcy Jones – Performer
Peter Keavy – Performer
Thea Milburn – Performer
Rosalind Williams – Voice Coach        
Geoff Squires -Lighting Design

ROBERT THE CAT

Robert The Cat (RTC) is a theatre collective headed by Lisa O’Neill and Anatoly Frusin (directors), with Rosalind Williams (vocal coach). For the past 10 years they have had the fortune of working with apprentice actors in their program at TAFE Queensland Acting, staging work marked by an emotional intensity, physicality and theatricality. The Robert The Cat collective has been established to take the work of these young graduate actors to a broader public, and to showcase their work as emerging performers in challenging contemporary theatre. RTC debuted at Metro Arts in 2019 with their production of Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information.

NORMAN PRICE

Norman Price (1939 – 2016) was an Australian playwright, director, actor, and theatre scholar. He graduated from NIDA (Acting) in 1961. Norman worked for over 40 years in the theatre industry both in Australia and overseas. He lectured in Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne as well as the Universities of Paris 8, Frankfurt, Giessen, Bari, and the City University, New York. Norman engaged in research and workshops with Patrice Pavis, Pina Bausch, Grotowski, Arianne Mnouchkine, Tadashi Suzuki, Ushio Amagatsu – Sankai Juku and Byakko Sha. Commissioned performance texts include: The Other Mother (presented in Italy, France, and Germany), Hand Luggage, A Sweet Life, Looking Through Glass, Life With Catherine (La Boite) and The Pineapple Queen (La Boite). Published texts include: Barking Dogs (Metro Arts, Paris), Urban Dingoes (La Boite) and Kitchen Diva (La Boite). Together with his work in the theatre industry Norman was a founding member of the TAFE Queensland Acting program where he taught for over 20 years.

LISA O’NEILL

Lisa O’Neill is a dancer, performer, choreographer, performance director and educator working across mediums in dance, theatre, contemporary performance and new-media. She has developed a broad body of original performance works over the past three decades, presenting across Australia, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and United States of America. A polymath of sorts, Lisa has presented digital art installations in the Forbidden City of Beijing, performed Off-Broadway in Australia’s longest running children’s show Fluff, danced at the Sydney Opera House on numerous occasions and acted in Shakespeare and Greek Tragedies in castles and ruins across Europe. Since 2001 Lisa has directed the Acting program at TAFE Queensland, using this platform to facilitate a rigorous and informed performance culture for young actors and performers to practice and study.

ANATOLY FRUSIN

Anatoly Frusin is a Russian born writer and acting teacher. He graduated from the University of Auckland with a Masters in English Literature, and continued his studies at the University of Toronto Drama Centre. In 1996 he graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Directing, and then worked extensively at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney, at Opera Australia and other opera companies; as well as directing many independent productions.  His collaborations with Polish based Kropka Theatre have been seen at festivals all over Europe and the Middle East, and have been widely awarded. He is currently a lecturer and co-course convener for the Bachelor of Acting and Performance at TAFE Queensland. He teaches Acting, Theatre History, and directs student productions as well as working in the industry in theatre and cross-genre collaborative projects.

KATY  COTTER

Actor and writer, Katy Cotter, has been working in Brisbane for the past 11 years. Metro Arts on Edward Street was a second home to Katy, having performed in numerous shows, including Daniel Evans’ short-play marathon Awkward Conversation (2014) and the theatrical musical thriller Dust Covered Butterfly (2015) that she also co-wrote. In 2017, she was selected by PlayLab to be a part of their Alpha Processing Program that culminated in a dramatic reading of her play Dry. Last year Katy joined Robert the Cat in the company’s debut work Love and Information, and she is SUPER excited to perform on the new Metro Arts stage! Having been taught by the dearly departed Norman Price, Katy is honoured to speak his words.

AMY HAUSER

Amy Hauser is an actor and performance maker who graduated from the Bachelor of Acting and Performance at TAFE Queensland in partnership with the University of Canberra. She has a particular interest in the creation of original performance works that challenge and provoke. Her performance collective HOUSE of MILK has produced both stage and online works.  Currently in development is a new work with actor Peter Keavy titled FRANKENSTEIN AND I, first performed at the Brisbane Sci-Fi Theatre Festival in 2019. Amy’s acting credits include lead roles in MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN and THE SKRIKER (TAFE Queensland), THE MAIDS (Mad Women on the Shore, Anywhere Festival), BE LOVED AND LIVE WELL (by Jack Pacey, Adelaide Fringe Festival) and LOVE AND INFORMATION (Robert The Cat, Metro Arts).

DARCY JONES

Darcy Jones is a 2016 graduate of the Bachelor of Acting and Performance program at TAFE Queensland in partnership with the University of Canberra. During his studies Darcy performed in a variety of contemporary, classical and self-devised works including Caryl Churchill, Bertolt Brecht, Aristophanes and Janos Pilinszky. In 2017 he completed his Honors with a focus on audience role and theatre for the home. His performance works include the self-devised work “Sunny Tribe District” (Short+Sweet), which won numerous awards, “Brisbane” (Villanova Players), “Julius Caesar” (Heart Beast Theater Company), “ Tower of Babel” (Baran Theatre – creative development project), and  The “Wishing well” (Two Braids Collective).

PETER KEAVY

Peter Keavy is an actor/scenographer who studied Acting and Performance through the University of Canberra at TAFE Queensland. Peter is currently studying Technical Production at QUT Kelvin Grove. Peter has also received distinctions in musical theatre through The Trinity College of London exam. As well as performance, Peter is particularly interested in designing worlds for the theatre. Recently Peter designed and performed in a self-devised work ‘Frankenstein and I’ for the Brisbane Sci-Fi Theatre Festival with actress Amy Hauser. Throughout his studies Peter performed texts by Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare and Mike Bartlett. Peter has also worked as a stage-manager and Qlab Operator for Drama Production 5 at QUT.  He has worked with industry professionals Lisa O’Neill (performance maker), Anatoly Frusin (director), Brian Lucas (solo artist), Tony Brumpton (Sound Designer) and the late Norman Price (playwright). 

THEA MILBURN

Thea Milburn is a Brisbane based theatre actor who completed her Bachelor of Acting and Performance with University of Canberra in partnership with TAFE Queensland. With a particular interest in the political and social nature of theatre, Thea enjoys works which ask for vulnerability and offer new perspective. Thea has performed across contemporary and classical texts as well as self devised performances. Recent works include HAVE I NONE by Edward Bond, 13 by Mike Bartlett and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare.