Over two days, TNA will be hosting a series of in-person workshops and networking events for emerging independent performing arts producers and artists at the Fringe Common Rooms. More information about ticketing and the program can be found here.

Below is a full list of speakers who will be in conversation, facilitating or running a workshop at our event.

Pauline Cady

Pauline graduated from Rusden College in 1989 and is a founding member of Snuff Puppets, working with the company as writer, dramaturg, performer and co- Artistic Director with Andy Freer until 2003. She loved every minute of her stint as funding manager at Back to Back Theatre from 2003 until 2016 and joined Melbourne Fringe in that role in 2016.

Ade Djajamihardja

Ade has held several senior positions overseas as a producer and CEO including CEO of Ten on Ten Pictures and Enfiniti Productions, Malaysia. Ade is the creator and writer/producer of TALES FROM THE CRIPS (formerly known as SIT DOWN COMEDY), a disability advocacy sketch comedy program which has received development support from Screen Australia. For his debut foray into producing for live performance, Ade produced and co-created THE WHEELHOUSE at the Royal Brighton Yacht Club as part of the 2021 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Ade currently volunteers as a board director for Diversity Arts Australia (DARTS). Ade also serves his local community (City of Bayside) as a member of their Disability Access and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DAIAC).

Jessica Iuliano

Jessica is a solictor at Media Arts Lawyers. With a background in Sydney’s independent theatre scene, Jessica’s experience and knowledge in the performing arts provides her with unique insight into the commercial realities of live performance, including all aspects of the production from cast agreements to music licensing. Listed in The Music Network’s “30 Under 30” Class of 2021, Jessica is a trusted advisor who works with both high profile and emerging clients across the entertainment industry on the creation, protection and enforcement of their intellectual property rights. Jessica also currently serves as a non-executive board member for Arts On Tour, the peak industry body for performing arts touring in NSW, as well as the Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC). She is a volunteer lawyer for the Arts Law Centre of Australia, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication/ Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Kush Kuiy

Kuichiang “Kush” Kuiy is a second generation Australian of South-Sudanese heritage. She brings her lived experience of suburban life to her producing practice, as a lifetime resident of the South-East of Melbourne- one of Australia’s most diverse, and fastest growing regions.

Fleur Kilpatrick

Fleur Kilpatrick has been the Creative Producer of Riverland Youth Theatre for almost exactly a year. She an award-winning playwright and educator and a never-awarded director. She holds a postgraduate diploma of directing and a Masters in playwriting from the VCAM and has researched and published articles on theatre of climate crisis, care and violence in opera and how we teach care and sustainability to emerging artists.

Fleur was a lecturer and producer/programmer at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance for five years. In 2020, her efforts teaching during lockdown won her the Monash Student Association’s Arts Faculty Teaching Excellence award and saw her short-listed for the university-wide Above and Beyond Award.

Fleur’s plays have won the 2019 Helen Noonan Award (Whale), 2018 Max Afford Playwrights Award (Whale), 2016 Jill Blewett Award (Blessed) and 2015 Melbourne Fringe’s Emerging Playwright Award (The City They Burned). Her writing have been produced by the State Theatre Company of South Australia (Terrestrial), Co Opera (Daphne), Attic Erratic (The City They Burned), Lab Kelpie (Rebel), and Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance (Welcome to Nowhere co-written with Daniel Keene, Angus Cerini, Zoey Dawson and Morgan Rose) and have toured venues of all shapes and sizes around Australia. She is as proud of the works performed in kindergartens, nursing homes, living rooms, up trees and in observatories as she is of the show that have been on big, important stages.

In July 2021, Fleur became the Creative Producer of Riverland Youth Theatre in order to empower her community and create safe spaces for children and families. She lives by the beautiful Murray River with a pair of chaos monsters (dogs) and is a passionate advocate for regional arts, children and families with disabilities and the safety of young queer people in her region.

Jamie Lewis

Jamie is a Singaporean-Australian artist, curator, dramaturg and facilitator. She creates experimental and contemporary intercultural work, facilitating participatory experiences on identity, place, and time, through autobiographical stories, conversation and food. Jamie is currently CEO / Executive Director at Next Wave. She has previously been on the Board of MAV, Program Manager at TNA, and was in the 2018 cohort of Australia Council for the Arts’ Future Leaders program.

Erica McCalman

Erica is a Ballardong Noongar woman with Irish Convict, Scottish and Cornish Heritage. A creative producer, facilitator and curator, she works across experimental and contemporary performing arts. Through her consultancy, Art Oracle, Erica seeks to empower independent artists, provide bespoke creative and producing solutions to organisations and nurture the next generation of producers.

Lana Nguyen

Lana Nguyen is an independent creative producer, curator and collaborator interested in experimental, site-specific and politically engaged work. Her practice often centres collective authorship and community-led practice. She recently worked with West Space, Bus Projects and Liquid Architecture on an inter-organisational project called ‘disorganising’ focused on crisis, collective solidarity and reform. She is a current curatorial fellow with Parallel Structures looking at institutional change in regional museums, a recipient of Creative Victoria’s Unlocking Capacity grant to research experimental lab structures and works on the board of SEVENTH gallery.

Efren Pamilacan

Efren Pamilacan is a dance maker and independent producer of Filipino decent living on the unceded lands of the Kulin nations. His work crosses cultural and social spheres intersecting between hip-hop culture, underground dance forms and the contemporary arts sector; and aims to create space for new dance communities to thrive.

As a dancer and dance maker, Efren is a member of Jigsaw Sneakers, director of 9DIMES, founder of City Sessions and Cofounder of Cypher Culture.

As an independent producer, he is currently supporting independent artists / collectives: Lay the Mystic, Saluhan – Filipino contemporary arts collective; and House of Dévine.

Academically, Efren is a graduate of Master of Arts (Art in Public Space) and currently assisting with the integration of Street Dance forms to VCA Dance.

John Paxinos

John Paxinos is the Managing Director of John Paxinos & Associates Pty Ltd, specialists in developing financially sustainable arts organisations. He established this firm in 1988 to provide management, consulting and financial services in the arts and cultural sector. In 1992 he co-founded Auspicious Arts Projects Inc, a not-or-profit organisation that provides a management partnership for Independent Artists. He was a co-founder of the Chartered Accounting firm, Paxinos & Habash Arts Tax in 2016. John has an MBA.

John began his career in Arts Management in 1980 when he was appointed General Manager of the Murray River Performing Group and Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury-Wodonga, a role he held for six years. In his current role clients include arts conferences, arts services organisations, community arts organisations, festivals, film and TV production companies, venues and literature, performing arts and visual arts organisations.

Eliki Reade

Eliki Reade is an Interdependent Producer, artist, and community arts facilitator of kailoma-Fijian (Fijian/European) heritage.

Eliki is intrigued by many forms of storytelling and the ways it is creatively embodied, engaging with work that centres the practice, creating critical connection. Centring relationships in the work that they do, their producing practice covers various forms across performing and visual arts including live music, parties, poetry and spoken word performance, workshops, exhibitions, experimental and digital art. Put simply, ‘they like making cool stuff with their mates’.

They wear multiple hats including co-producer with Lana Nguyen for A Climate For Arts commissioned by Diasporas, Curatorial Advisor for Science Gallery Melbourne, Co-Chair with Lana Nguyen at SEVENTH Gallery, among many other personally fun and exciting projects and loves. Eliki is a recipient of the Creative Victoria’s Unlocking Capacity grant.

Sonya Suares

Sonya Suares is a multidisciplinary performer, dramaturg, director, producer and arts activist whose work has spanned film, television and theatre since her screen debut at 16. She founded acclaimed Sondheim repertory company Watch This, realising a body of work that includes Assassins, Pacific Overtures, Company, Merrily We Roll Along, A Little Night Music and Sunday in the Park with George and has accrued a total of 27 Green Room Award nominations/ 2 wins. She’s also been nominated for her work as an actor in MTC’s Melbourne Talam and Polyglot Theatre & Papermoon Puppet Theatre’s international hit, Cerita Anak. She shares a nomination for Best Direction of a Musical with Dean Drieberg for Sunday in the Park with George (2019) and for the realisation of the digital documentary series, The Art of Making Art (2020). Recently, she co-directed Into the Woods with Melanie Hillman for Watch This (6 GRA nominations including Production of the Year); the 2022 Cybec Electric playreadings with Isabella Vadiveloo for MTC; and wrote/ produced a pilot of the fantasy adventure screen project,The Quest- a collaboration with her son, Daniel. She is currently working with composer/ lyricist Vidya Makan and Hayes Theatre Co on The Lucky Country and with Essential Theatre to realise the Australian premiere of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia.