CAST & CREATIVE BIOS
Melissa Reeves is a Melbourne
playwright. Her most recent
play The Zen of Table Tennis
won the Griffin Award in 2017.
Other plays include Happy
Ending, which premiered at the
Melbourne Theatre Company,
and was short-listed for three
Premier’s Awards, Furious
Mattress, The Spook, awarded
the 2005 Louis Esson prize
for drama in the Victorian
Premiers awards, and two
AWGIE Awards for best new
play, and Sweetown, awarded
the Jill Blewitt memorial
playwrights award in 1993, In
Cahoots, Storming Heaven,
Great Day, Road Movie and
Salt Creek Murders. She has
co-written a number of plays
including Magpie, (with Richard
Frankland) and Who’s Afraid of
the Working Class? and Fever
(both with Andrew Bovell,
Patricia Cornelius, Christos
Tsiolkas and Irine Vela). The
former won Best Play in the
Queensland Literary Awards,
two AWGIEs for best new play,
and the Jill Blewitt Playwright’s
Award in 1999. Melissa also co-
wrote the screenplay for the
film Blessed, based on Who’s
Afraid of the Working Class?
Susie Dee
Nicci Wilks
CREATOR & PERFORMER CREATOR & PERFORMER
Susie has worked extensively
in the theatre as a performer,
devisor and director in
Australia and overseas for the
past thirty years. She has been
the Artistic Director of three
theatre companies: Melbourne
Workers Theatre (MWT),
Union House Theatre (UHT)
and Institute Of Complex
Entertainment (ICE). ICE’s
projects went on to win various
awards and received many
accolades for their ground-
breaking site-specific work. In
2011, Susie was the recipient of
the Australia Council residency
at the Cité Internationale des
Arts in Paris. Susie has directed
works for MTC, Malthouse
Theatre, Hothouse Theatre
and many independent theatre
companies and has performed
in numerous productions over
many years, including theatre,
cabaret and circus. She has
developed a strong working
relationship over the past ten
years with her fellow Caravan
performer Nicci Wilks, and has
directed and/or performed in
the works of the four Caravan
writers: Angus Cerini, Patricia
Cornelius, Wayne Macauley
and Melissa Reeves. She has
been nominated for and won
numerous awards, including
most recently a Helpmann Best
Director nomination for SHIT.
Animal, which she directed and
co-devised, garnered four
Green Room Awards in 2016,
including Best Director. Nicci has been working in the
performing arts for over 30
years performing at festivals
and theatres around the world,
from the Pitjantjatjara lands to
42nd Street. She has created
many new works of various
art forms as a performer,
creator/devisor and director
with numerous companies and
independent artists throughout
Australia. Companies she has
worked with include: Circus Oz,
Melbourne Theatre Company,
Malthouse Theatre, KAGE,
Melbourne Workers Theatre,
CIRCA, Hothouse Theatre, The
Flying Fruit Fly Circus, The
Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe,
Dislocate, Legs On The Wall
and Dee & Cornelius. She also
works as a Clown Doctor for
The Humour Foundation. She
is a performer in the multi
award winning show SHIT by
Patricia Cornelius, Assistant
Director and performer for the
Green Room Award winning
show Taxi by Dee & Cornelius
and co-creator and performer
of the highly acclaimed show
The Long Pigs. Most recently
she was a co-creator and
performer for the Green Room
Award winning show ANIMAL.
Nicci has had a close working
relationship with Susie for
many years now, creating and
devising many new works.
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Melissa Reeves
WRITER