SCWC Merrigong Playwrights Program Selected Writers
The 2022 SCWC / Merrigong Playwrights Program aims to create a space where writers are encouraged to develop their writing projects among a safe and supportive group of peers. This is a 10-month program that will run from March-December 2022.
The group will meet monthly on Saturdays at Coledale Community Hall or Wollongong’s IPAC to workshop the participants plays in development. Over the course of the program, participants will also see and discuss five Merrigong shows (either from the Main Season or Merrigong X) and will learn from guest industry teachers.
The program will conclude with an evening of readings from the works in development in January 2023. The group will be convened by Tom Peach, the president of Stanwell Park Arts Theatre and an alumni of the Merrigong Playwrights Program.
The South Coast Writers Centre is pleased to announce the eight selected writers, and we look forward to seeing their work that comes out of this program. Meet the writers below.
Diana McLaren is a 30-year-old comedian, actor, and writer operating in the Illawarra area. Having studied at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga where she earned two bachelors degrees (one in acting and one in television, both of which involved writing components) she accidentally left the arts behind and ran the Syndey branch of Australia's largest coworking space for two years. She then returned to the Illawarra area where she has been working as a comedian and room runner under the Cocoa and Butter Productions header while also running her company Dem's Designs which is a design agency that does websites, social media, photography, videography, graphics and more.
Tegan Ware is an aspiring filmmaker, theatre director and writer based in the Illawarra and Sydney regions of Australia. Tegan studied at the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television (2019-2020) where she worked on over 50 short film projects including projects that she wrote and directed: In Between (2019), Tulipa (2020) and her graduate project Crow (2020) which is still in post production. Tegan participated in the Short and Sweet Festival Sydney in 2020 where she directed the production ‘Danny Boy’ and in 2021 where she directed the production ‘The Morning After the Night Before’. She wrote and directed the piece ‘Damsel in revenge’ for Short and Sweet Illawarra in 2021. Ware’s short screenplay ‘In the Garden’ (2021) was selected as part of the official selection in the Siren Screenplay Competition (2021). She has written with and worked with production companies such as Knockout Productions and Three Quarters Productions. Tegan is excited to continue to develop her work on both stage and screen.
Raynen Bajette Amos (they/them) is a writer and artist, living and working on unceded Dharawal Country. Their work spans the peripheries of dance, film and digital media, performance, writing and community engagement. They hold a BA Arts in Film Studies (UNSW), and certificates in Screenwriting and also, Mediation. Recently, they were Creative Producer for feature film Under My Skin (2020), which was nominated for an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award. In 2018, they were an artist with PACT/Performance Space's 2018 Queer Development Program. Their writing has appeared in Red Room Poetry’s 'Writing Water', Scum Mag, EnQueer Sydney Queer Writers' Festival, The Emerging Writers’ Festival, Demos Journal, Dancehouse Diary, and more. Their visual storytelling is forthcoming in exhibition with Electronic Literature Organization's (ELO’s) The NEXT (USA).
Tonya Lee is a performer, writer, and singer with over forty years of experience. They are also a mother of three, a survivor of childhood and domestic abuse, and a proud woman of many personalities due to their Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder). Tonya was a founding member of shopfront theatre, "play building" and performing from the age of twelve, touring Adelaide for the Fringe festival, NT for the Come Out Festival, and a tour of the UK in 1986. They have been an actor on TV and stage and a singer, gigging in Covers Bands and forming their own bands. They are currently writing a showcase called "pickled stories" - a celebration of the stories and songs that marinade, shift and develop in our lives. They are a student of performance and social work at UOW and are developing their memoirs into a musical piece. They are also an exercise and nutrition trainer, writer, professional bingo caller, previous bank manager, and creator of the wellness program Babystepping to a better life.
Ines Judd has toured as a puppeteer, run mask workshops in the Blue Mountains, and studied theatre at the Jacques Lecoq school in Paris. In Sydney they have been involved in theatre projects including an adaption for stage of a Javanese shadow puppet play. In 2021 they collaborated on a musical about the plight of the Murray Darling Basin, and have joined the SCWC Merrigong Playwrights Program to workshop it with others in order to bring it to the stage, as well as an original project about migratory shorebirds stitching the world together, incorporating music and art from First Nations peoples and inhabitants of the countries the birds travel to, to display on a global scale the sorry state of our environment by viewing the world from the birds' perspective.
Dale Watts is an actor, director, writer, and Wollongong-based creative and member of the LGBTQIA+ community, currently working on an adaptation of the 1823 Ludwig Tieck novel Wake Not the Dead, often regarded as the first modern vampire story: a man brings his wife back from the dead and things go wrong. The dialogue is almost Shakespearean, and the characters are very rich.
Emily Gray is a writer and a lawyer at a community legal centre. She grew up on Dharawal country and lives in Austinmer with her wife and three sons. She was recently selected as a recipient of the South Coast Writers Centre Emerging Writers Mentor Program. She has a short story about to be published in the Legacies journal. She has a first class honours degree in English Literature, and she attended The Writers’ Voice and NYU writing workshops in New York. Emily has a long history of activism in human rights and LGBTIQ equality, having worked for Amnesty International in London and Paris, the UK House of Lord
Cicily Ponnor was selected in 2022 as part of Australia Plays transform and NTop for a plot development lab on a play about political stances. They have worked as a performer with the late Bruce Keller (Citymoon Theatre) and were part of the inaugural UTP ensemble under the direction of John Baylis (Sydney Front) and PACT and PYT ensemble. They have worked as a performer with ERTH, Gravity FEED. They were selected as part of the inaugural Spark program from Youth Arts QLD, were awarded the Young Leaders Award (now known as Kirk Robson Award) from the Australia Council for visionary leadership in tackling social justice issues through theatre particularly for their work with refugees, and were commissioned by WYD (World Youth Day) in 2008 to devise and direct a performance looking at social justice and indifference. They have written and performed two short solo pieces: Eat My Shorts (Performance Space, 2001) and Short and Sharp (UTP, 2003), have been on the Board of UTP, PYT and BYDS (now known as OUTLOUD ) and have been peer advisor for the Australia Council Literature Board and Community Partnerships Board.