Mavericks of Stage & Screen

Sarah Lambert is currently writing and showrunnning the television adaptation of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland for Made Up Stories. She was the writer and showrunner of the television adaptation of Marele Day’s Lambs of God which was nominated for eighteen AACTA Awards, winning nine including Best Telefeature or Mini Series.

Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright and director. With Ursula Yovich, she co-wrote Barbara and the Camp Dogs, which was awarded a Helpmann Award for Best Musical and a Green Room Award for Best Original Score. She and Ursula are adapting the work for the screen, funded by Screen Australia.

Nina Oyama is a half Japanese, writer, actress, director and comedian. She has worked Tonightly with Tom Ballard, Squinters, YOLO Crystal Fantasy and appeared on Utopia, Spicks and Specks and Just For Laughs Sydney. In 2018, The Angus Project, a TV pilot Nina wrote, directed and starred in, debuted to acclaim earning Nina an Australian Directors Guild nomination.

Leah Purcell is a multi-award winning and self-made author, playwright, actor, director, film-maker, producer, screenwriter, showrunner. She has written and directed landmark Australian film, TV, theatrical now part of the Indigenous canon such as Box the Pony, Redfern Now, Cleverman, The Secret Daughter and The Drover’s Wife.

Candy Bowers is a screenwriter, performer, podcaster and radical mischief-maker whose career has taken her around Australia, to Hollywood, South Africa and the UK. Born of South African political refugees on the lands of the Wurundjeri People, Candy is currently working on a range of scripts for TV and Cinema.

Sardonic, unique, and downright weird – Gen Fricker has quickly become one of the nation’s brightest stars on the national comedy circuit, with her unique blend of sassy and dark stand up delivered with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile. Fricker has appeared on Have You Been Paying Attention?, The Project, and Spicks and Specks and is currently one half of the Netflix weekly movie podcast The Big Film Buffet.

Moreblessing Maturure is a multi award-winning Zimbabwean/Australian inter-disciplinary artist, TEDx Speaker and the Creative Director of FOLK Magazine. She also works across the entertainment industry, advocating for anti-racist best practices alongside considered and diverse representation in her role as Co-Chair of MEAA’s Equity Diversity Committee.

Cassie Workman is known for her heartfelt and emotive storytelling, her incisive wit, and brutal deconstructions of the status quo. There is no other voice like hers in comedy today. She won “Best Newcomer” at the 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Director’s Choice at the 2013 Sydney Comedy Festival and her 2019 show “Giantess” won the Best Show Award at Sydney Comedy Festival that year.