THE MOORS ONLINE PROGRAM

Playwright

Jen Silverman is a playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Plays include: The Roommate (Broadway: The Booth Theatre; Regionally: Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Steppenwolf, South Coast Repertory Theatre, etc.); Highway Patrol (The Goodman); Spain (Second Stage Theater); Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Woolly Mammoth, MCC, Southwark Playhouse London); The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre, The Playwrights Realm) and Witch (Writer’s Theatre, The Geffen, The Huntington). Books include: the debut novel We Play Ourselves, story collection The Island Dwellers and novel There’s Going to be Trouble from Random House. Silverman also wrote the bestselling narrative podcast The Miranda Obsession for Audible, starring Rachel Brosnahan. 

Silverman is a three-time MacDowell Fellow, a member of New Dramatists and a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. They write for TV and film, including Tales of the City (Netflix) and Tokyo Vice (Max). Their OSCAR® qualifying short film Troy screened at 70 festivals internationally, including the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and is featured online in The New Yorker’s Screening Room. Honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim

Director

Born and raised in Boorloo/Perth, Joel graduated from the Acting program at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 2014.Joel made their professional stage debut in 2015 as Henry in Next to Normal for Black Swan State Theatre Company, for which they were awarded Best Supporting Actor at the Performing Arts WA Awards. More recently, Joel toured the country with Monkey Baa Theatre Company, performing a multitude of roles in Hitler’s Daughter. 

Since moving to Ngunnawal/Canberra, Joel has performed in the 2019 development of David Atfield’s Clean (The Street), Wolf Lullaby (Echo Theatre/The Q) and the development of Katie Pollock’s People Inside Me as part of First Seen 2021 (The Street). Joel’s screen credits include Dan White in Secret City for Foxtel and Len Barwick in the Logie-nominated docudrama The War That Changed Us (ABC/Electric Pictures). Earlier this year, Joel made their feature film debut in The Greenhouse (Thomas Wilson-White/Everyone We Know) which was selected for BFI Flare in London, Frameline in San Francisco and won Best Australian Feature at Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2021.

Production Designer

Aloma is a distinguished costume and set designer, actively contributing to both theatre and screen. With a foundation in fashion design, marked by a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mumbai, India, Aloma's passion for storytelling through attire and settings propelled her to pursue further education at the London College of Fashion. There, she completed her Master’s degree in Costume Design for Performance, honing her skills and artistic vision. Her career trajectory includes notable roles, such as a costume designer for various theatre productions in London and a design intern for an Amazon Prime web series in Mumbai. Aloma’s portfolio is rich and varied, with recent engagements including:

Costume Design:

• Nell Gwynn (SCEGGS, 2024)

• Not Now, Not Ever: A Parliament of Women (25A @ Belvoir and Queen Hades Production, 2024)

• Jane Eyre (JMC Academy, 2024)

• The Watsons (JMC Academy, 2024)

• Learned Ladies (JMC Academy, 2024)

• I Hate People, Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove, 2023-24)

• Songs of Sirens (Blush Opera and Bondi Festival, 2023)

• Gundog (Secret House Theatre Company, 2023)

• I'm Good (Short film, 2022)

• Kindred (Documentary, 70th Sydney Film Festival 2023)

Assistant Costume Designer:

• Albion (New Ghosts Theatre x Secret House Theatre Company, 2022)

Co-Costume Design:

• For the Grace of You Go I (New Ghosts Theatre x Secret House Theatre Company, 2022)

Costume and Set Design:

• The Dazzle (Corvus Arts Theatre, 2022)

• A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre, 2023)

Set Design:

• Short Blanket (Slanted Theatre, 2023)

Emilie

Sarah’s recent performances at The Mill Theatre include Eurydice (2024) as a Stone, Blank (2024), and Rockspeare: 1H6 (2023) as Suffolk. 

Before returning to Canberra, Sarah trained and performed in Melbourne, where she devised and performed Faceswap for Wielding Theatre Company at the Melbourne Fringe Festival (2017), appeared in an installation at the Melbourne Music Festival (2016) and played in the Madwoman Monologues (2015). As part of NIDA’s Actors Studio program, she played Cassandra in The Trojan Women (2014).

Her early theatre credits in Canberra include Our Shadows Pass Only Once (2012) at The Street Theatre, as well as Dimboola (2011) and The Popular Mechanicals (2012) with the National University Theatre Society.

Marjery

Last year, Steph played Mary Stuart in Chaika’s production of Kate Mulvany’s Mary Stuart, receiving a Canberra Critics Circle Award for her performance. She also played Jane in Canberra Rep’s Bloody Murder, for which she received an Ovation Award. Earlier in the year, she directed Five Women Wearing the Same Dress and co-directed Queers with Jarrad West, both for Everyman Theatre. 

Other recent roles include Frances Bliss in Hay Fever, Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest (both for ACT Hub), and Sarah/Sonya in Free Rain’s production of Speaking in Tongues, for which she also won an Ovation Award.

Moorhen

Originally hailing from Tassie, Petronella graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music Theatre). Her previous theatre credits include: Cordelia/Fool in King Lear (Echo Theatre Company), Sirius in Alphabetical Sydney (Critical Stages), Helen in The Hello Girls (Heartstrings Theatre Company), Hope in Urinetown: the Musical (Heartstrings Theatre Company), Tiger in Girl Running, Boy Falling (Mudlark Theatre Company), Aaron Dangerfield/Edward Ashbrook in Coram Boy (bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company), Claudia Nardi in Nine (Little Triangle) and Frau Gabor in Spring Awakening (Victorian College of the Arts).  Petronella has toured nationally with CDP Theatre Producers performing as Chloe in Mr Stink, Cat/Swing in Room on the Broom, Lucy/Swing in Magic Beach, Madame Know-It-All in The 91-Storey Treehouse, and Child in The Gruffalo's Child. She holds associate degrees in piano (AMEB) & classical voice (Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music), and participated in creative developments of Signal Makers and We Are Not Alone at the Street Theatre. Petronella hosted childrens web series Storytime @ Koorong, toured with Echelon Productions for Book Week, and is represented by Mollison Keightley Management. Most recently she’s been seen on her most creative project to date- being mum to little Rosie. 

Agatha

This is Andrea’s second production at the Mill Theatre. She featured most recently as Bridie in the revival of the Australia drama, The Shoe-Horn Sonata. Other Canberra productions include Boston Marriage, Without Prejudice, 6 Pack, The Red Shoe and MP at the Street Theatre; Love Letters, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, August: Osage County, The Memory of Water, Absolutely Fabulous and The Laramie Project. In Melbourne, she performed Shakespeare in the park in The Taming of the Shrew, and She’s Not Performing and All My Sleep and Waking at La Mama. Andrea trained at Actors Centre Australia and Screenwise.

Andrea is the recipient of the MEAA ACT Green Room Performer of the Year Award, and several Canberra Critics Circle and Canberra Area Theatre Awards.

Huldey

With a background in contemporary performance and movement theatre, Rachel has worked as a drama teacher and actor, producing plays including J.M. Synge’s ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows’ and directing Peter Shaffer’s ‘Equus’. For several years, she was involved in ‘Theatre in Education’ with Camp Quality, playing Xanthe in The Teenage Alchemist, as well as a puppeteer for their school based and hospital performances. Rachel was a founding member of the Mephisto Theatre Company in Ireland, producing Samuel Beckett works, including playing ‘Mouth’ in Not, I. She also played Williamson in an all-female production of Glengarry Glen Ross.  

Having completed a BA in Performance Studies, she went on to study the work of Sandford Meisner, which has become a significant influence in her approach to acting. She has also been in several short films, ‘Short and Sweet’ productions and TVCs, and played ‘Meg’ in Canberra Rep’s production of Hotel Sorrento in 2022 and  ‘Rufus Torrent’ in ‘The Torrents’, the first production at the Mill Theatre and the ‘Dauphin' in ‘King Henry 6th, Part 1’, also at the Mill Theatre.

Mastiff

Chris studied Drama at the ANU where he directed Reg Cribb’s The Return in his honours year. He is a Drama teacher at Gungahlin College. It has been some time since Chris trod the boards, favouring design and directing work in recent years. Some performance credits include: Marco in A View from the Bridge (REP), Bruce Niles in The Normal Heart (Everyman), Macbeth in Macbeth (REP), Grimani in Casanova (REP), Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Queanbeyan City Council), the ensemble in Home at the End (Everyman) and Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (Free Rain). He directed and designed Ordinary Days (Q the Locals), co-directed Romeo and Juliet (REP) with Kelly Roberts and The History Boys (Everyman) with Jarrad West. He has designed for Dogfight (Dramatic Production), Valley of the Molls (Tuggeranong Arts Centre), Wolf Lullaby (Echo), Belfast Girls (Echo), Heathers (Dramatic Productions), Dr Frankenstein (REP) and Spring Awakening (Phoenix Players).

Contingency Moorhen

Rachel Pengilly is an award-winning actor, director, and writer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre (UC, Chancellors Commendation). Rachel made her professional stage debut in 2021 as Lizzie in Echo Theatre’s Wolf Lullaby to critical acclaim. She was recently seen onstage in the Melbourne tour of Bare Witness Theatre Co.’s I Have No Enemies, after appearing in the initial workshop and subsequent Canberra premiere. Additional stage credits include The Chalk Pit (Lexi Sekuless Productions) and Demented (Q the Locals).  Rachel’s screen credits include the multi-award-winning and internationally acclaimed short Comments (dir. Danielle Baynes); The Melody (dir. Andrew Campbell), for which she won Best Supporting Actress (ucmcp2019); and Bullying is a Crime (dir. Rowan Muellner-Wong).  In 2021, Rachel was a Resident Artist at Belco Arts for her full-length play, Legacies, which she also directed in 2023 as part of the Q the Locals season at the Q (Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre). More recently, Rachel directed Puffs for Narrabundah College Performing Arts, which won three Combined Area Theatre awards including Best Production and Best Director of a School or Youth Play, and was nominated for a further seven. Additional directing credits include The Wolves (NCPA); Foxes: The Musical, and The Train Station, both for Ribix Productions of which she is Artistic Director. Rachel was also a Young Ambassador for the Q in 2022. Rachel is represented by Kermond Management and is a proud member of MEAA Actors Equity.

Contingency

Alana is a Canberra-based actor and voiceover artist. Her recent roles include the Eurydice in Eurydice (2024), Stenographer in Terror (2024), Joan of Arc in Rockspeare: 1H6 (2023) and Steph in Reasons to be Pretty (2023) for Lexi Sekuless Productions. 

Alana trained and performed in Melbourne with stage credits including Così (2016) and Charley’s Aunt (2018). Alana's voice acting credits include Wendy Darling in Ballarat National Theatre's audio adaptation of Peter Pan (2021) and Maria Lucas in their podcast production of Pride and Prejudice (2020). Alana is also a voice you can choose to flow or meditate to when using the Down Dog yoga app. 

Sound Designer and Composer

Damian Ashcroft is a Canberran artist specialising in music and improvised theatre, with experience in audio production. He has been part of the creative industries for over a decade in the role of composer, live musician, improvisation actor, improvisation teacher and music teacher. His training includes graduating with an Advanced Diploma in Music from CIT in 2014, winning Student of the Year; instruction on Meisner technique with Dene Kermond/Impulse Company Australia; Improvisation courses with international instructors including Nick Byrne, Patti Styles, Joe Bill and Carlo Ritchie; and attending the Dordogne Jazz Summer School, in France in 2018.

He is founder of Troubador Impro and the podcast Surrealia, currently in production for its fourth season. The podcast combines skills of improvisation and music production. Damian also performs regularly with Ruth O’Brien and collaborated on her debut EP, Invaluable, in 2018. In 2019 Damian began teaching improvised theatre and directed Adventures at Canberra Unscripted.

In 2022 Damian worked as Sound Designer and Composer on The Q’s production of Demented, written by Ruth Pielor and directed by Ali Clinch and in 2023 Damian joined the creative team for Good Works at the Mill Theatre, directed by Julian Meyrick.