ALANA VALENTINE is an acclaimed dramatist and librettist working in theatre, musical theatre, opera and film. Described by Time Out as ‘an essential Australian dramatist, who writes the marginalised and oft-persecuted fringes of Australia into our dramatic canon with long-denied dignity and grace’, Alana has three plays on the NSW HSC Syllabus – Parramatta Girls (Drama), Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah (English) and Cyberbile (Design). Her play Letters to Lindy, drawn from the 20,000 letters in the National Library of Australia has had hundreds of amateur and school productions. Alana is particularly distinguished in her skills as a co-collaborator having worked in libretto and musical theatre such as Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan (co-written with Christos Tsiolkas), Wudjang: Not the Past (co-written with Stephen Page) and Barbara and the Camp Dogs (co-written with Ursula Yovich) The latter won the 2019 Helpmann Award for Best Musical and Best Original Score, as well as numerous Green Room Awards. Her most recent plays are Nucleus, Wayside Bride, The Sugar House and arc for erth physical and visual theatre. Alana has chronicled her practice as a close work/verbatim theatre maker in Bowerbird: The Art of Making Theatre Drawn From Life. Her website is www.alanavalentine.com

URSULA YOVICH grew up in the Northern Territory, in Darwin and Maningrida and is an award-winning actor, playwright, singer, songwriter and storyteller on both stage and screen. She has appeared at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. Ursula created and originated the titular role in Barbara and the Camp Dogs, which premiered at Belvoir Street Theatre. Her film credits include Top End Wedding, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, Around the Block, Goldstone and Jindabyne. Her small screen credits include: for ABC: The Gods of Wheat Street, Mystery Road, Play School, Preppers, Rake, Redfern Now, Wakefield; for Amazon: The Moth Effect; for Foxtel: The Twelve; for Netflix: Irreverent; for Nine Network: The Code, Doctor Doctor, The Gamers 2037; for SBS: Faboriginal; for Seven Network: Wanted; for Stan: Devil’s Dust. Other theatre credits include: for Belvoir: Well Behaved Women, 20 Questions, A Christmas Carol, The Dreamers, The Governor’s Family; for Sydney Theatre Company: Bloodland, The Golden Age, Love and Information, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, Power Plays, The Secret River, Seven Stages of Grieving; for Griffin: The Lewis Trilogy, Diving for Pearls, Nailed; for Darlinghurst Theatre Company: Red Carpet Cabaret. Ursula won a Best Supporting Actor Film Critic’s Circle Award in 2020 and an AACTA Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2019 for her role in the feature film Top End Wedding and a Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Musical in 2019 for Barbara and the Camp Dogs.