Krystalla Pearce is an Australian theatre maker and teaching artist. She completed her Masters in Performance Studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has been trained in teaching artistry and aesthetic education at Lincoln Center Education in New York City. She works primarily with new Australian writing; her work often has a community and social justice focus.
She is the Creative Director of the Drama Victoria Theatre Festival, has devised theatre workshops in New Delhi, been involved in community building workshops in Indigenous Australian communities, and has completed artist residencies across Melbourne and New York City.
Krystalla is the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Rat King Theatre, an experimental theatre company based in New York City that tells stories through words, bodies and food. Her performance work has been presented in Australia, and internationally in Greece, Mexico, and the USA including at Theatre Works, Red Stitch, The Brick, The Wild Project, PERFORMA15, The island_resignified, and Dixon Place.
She has been the recipient of the Dame Joan Sutherland Award and is part of this year’s Women in Theatre Program at Melbourne Theatre Company.

Links: 
Drama Victoria Theatre Festival

Rachael Jacobs is a lecturer in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University and a former secondary teacher (Dance, Drama and Music) and Arts specialist. She has a PhD in creative pedagogies and her research interests include assessment in the arts, language acquisition through the arts and embodied learning.
Rachael has facilitated arts projects in community settings all over Australia, including in refugee communities, in prisons and in women’s refuges. In 2016 contributed to the arts education component of the OECD report on the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. She is a community activist, a freelance writer, aerial artist, dancer and choreographer. She was a founding member of the community activism group, Teachers for Refugees and runs her own intercultural dance company.

Links:
WSU
Recent articles in The Conversation
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Vanessa is a playwright, theatre maker and arts educator. She trained at theEcole Philippe Gaulier and at Drama Centre in London. Vanessa toured schoolsthroughout Australia with a solo show of Shakespeare’s Women. In 2013, she took part in the International Fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Her play In Search of Owen Roe had seasons at La Mama Theatre and was selected for the 2016 VCE Drama Playlist. In 2017 Vanessa was awarded a Fellowship by the University of Melbourne for the research of a new play based upon the Germaine Greer Archives. In 2018 she received a Career Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to undertake advanced training as a TeachingArtist at Lincoln Centre Education. Vanessa has worked as the EducationManager at Malthouse Theatre and Manager, Schools Engagement at Arts Centre Melbourne. She is a Board Member of Western Edge Youth Arts (WEYA) and a Resident Writer at Theatre Works.

Links:
LinkedIn
Bundanon Trust
Western Edge Youth Arts

Georgia Wohlfiel is a graduate of the Bachelor of Communications/Theatre Media program
at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst. She is a performer, director and professional puppeteer and puppet maker, specialising in giant puppets and community arts praxis. Recent performance credits include The Red Tree (Sydney Opera House/Arts Centre Melbourne), various productions with Curious Legends (Newcastle), and the immersive theatre performance Midnight Visit (Sydney). She has engaged in puppetry training intensives with Spare Parts Puppet Theatre (Perth), Erth Visual & Physical Theatre Inc (Sydney) and has completed an industry internship at Terrapin Puppet Theatre (Hobart). She runs workshops for young people and communities using large scale puppetry, crafting ensemble performances and lantern parades.

Instagram

Christine Hatton is a Senior Lecturer in drama and creative arts education at the School of Education, University of Newcastle. She is a Life Member Drama NSW and a passionate advocate for drama learning and curriculum. Her research explores playbuilding pedagogies, applied drama, ethnodrama, and drama learning and teaching (particularly methods using digital technologies). Recent research projects have focussed on contemporary theatre for young audiences, the applications of Heathcote’s rolling role system of teaching in schools, and the impacts of artists in schools. She is a co-editor of the recent publication Drama Research Methods: Provocations of Practice (Brill, 2018).

Work links:
University of Newcastle, Australia

Lyall is an experienced teaching artist, award-winning actor and director, and founding artistic director of Lab Kelpie: An Australian New Writing Theatre Company. The recipient of four Green Room nominations, as an actor Lyall has worked across companies as varied as Melbourne Theatre Company, Victorian Opera, Red Stitch and fortyfivedownstairs. He has extensive experience in devising and developing new work across drama, comedy, cabaret and Commedia dell’Arte, and he has directed or assistant directed award-winning productions at Lab Kelpie, Theatre Works and Melbourne Theatre Company.
Lyall has been a teaching artist with Arts Centre Melbourne and theatre-in-education company Make A Scene for several years, designing and facilitating workshops, masterclasses and creative learning programs for both children and adults in playbuilding, drama and music.
Additionally Lyall instigated and oversees Lab Kelpie Education, an arm of Lab Kelpie Inc which provides top quality scripts, resources, incursions and learning opportunities to Arts and Humanities students, making tangible and meaningful connections between the company’s work and their studies.

Links to work:
labkelpie
labkelpie.com/education

Danielle is currently doing her PhD at Monash University, exploring the transformative possibilities of professional learning for engaging Drama teachers with the complexities of teaching First Nations concepts and content. Before that, she taught Drama, Dance, and English for five years at Wonthaggi Secondary College. Danielle grew up in the country and loves the outdoors almost as much as the performing arts. She is passionate about the potential of Drama for engaging with challenging and complex ideas, issues, and texts. Danielle has been part of the teaching-artist team for the Drama Victoria Theatre Festival for the past two years. She co-authored Teaching First Nations content and concepts in the Drama classroom: Advice for teachers in Victorian schools.

LinkedIn
Monash University