Film & Web

Born in Scotland to a doctor and a theologian, I grew up in Newtown, Sydney, and started writing and putting on plays as soon as I could write! I am drawn to the immediacy of theatre and the fact that all you really need is a good story with a good performer. Being an avid expressionist painter, visual storytelling has also always drawn me in, and I guess that's where I saw all my drives combine into storytelling for the screen. It just tends to be a lot more expensive than the stage and so much easier to stuff up! While all of my plays have found a home on a stage, I spent most of my 30s in Los Angeles writing screenplays, some of which got to dizzying heights of years-long international development, only to be re-optioned then shelved by producers. A decade on and I saw the same people who had been in LA a decade longer than me going to the same coffee shop with the same laptop but with a different face, a wounded hope, a tiring belief in 'the dream', a thin veneer of being okay. 

Stuff it, I thought, I won't die on the sword of art. I sublet my apartment and took off to Hawaii to become a real estate agent. I remember the exact moment I realised I had given up one game of roulette for another. It was not lost on me either that I was pouring most of my energy into self-producing a podcast about art and culture in Hawaii, rather than selling houses. Covid conveniently hit when I was pondering the chaos of choice, and I took the last flight back to Sydney. I knew I didn't want to do real estate, and I knew I had 15 years of experience in the arts & entertainment in NYC & LA. 

So I began a small business touring Australia (between lockdowns) holding onscreen acting workshops working alongside actors who taught who I admired. The whole idea was advocating the execution of creative vision under the constraint of time using modern tools in pretty places under the guidance of passionate practitioners. I didn't want to work in old church halls and I didn't want to work with anyone bitter. I also didn't want to peddle 'the dream' - I wanted to embolden artists to embrace their own agency. 

I also began collaborating again with artists I admire and share vision with. Janneke Williamson and I created a web-series we are very proud of. TWO BLUE LINES premiered to a full house at Sydney's Randwick Ritz in late 2022. Since being released online and to film festivals, it has won best web-series in Toronto & Chicago film festivals and I won best comedic writing of a web-series at Webfest New Jersey. 

When I had my baby I refocused The Performance Workshop for just Sydney, a city saturated with acting classes. Moving to beautiful Cronulla Beach I now offer a diverse range of visual and performing arts workshops, courses & private coaching. Our main focus at the moment is teens and corporate businesses. These two groups actually have a lot in common - they both spend a lot of their time under force of punishment being productive and functional, and little time on incorporating creative problem-solving and artistic expression into their growth. As the world learns its lessons in this post-Covid post-truth time, bespoke education and the freedom of expression are on the minds of many. 

Life is short, life is long, life can be a bright sarong. Wear it proud, bring your throng, dance and paint and do it wrong. It's all about the process, therein lies the thing, find your desire, share your idea, whittle your words, listen! That's your inner ding!

On this website you will find an array of archives of my produced works for stage, screen & radio. In my garage you will find a shelf of the un-produced. The pages may gather dust, but ideas live forever. Also please don't look in my garage. Definitely not where the bodies are buried.