Flinders Drama Centre - Post Graduates

		Post Graduates
		PhD/MCA
Alex Vickery-Howe		Alex Vickery-Howe is an award winning Australian playwright. In 2008 his murder mystery *A Stab in the Dark* was launched to popular acclaim at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Later that year Once Upon a Midnight, his bilingual, bicultural rock musical toured to Okinawa, Japan, where it opened the Kijimuna Festival, Japan’s largest theatre festival for young people, before returning for a sell-out season at the Adelaide Oz Asia Festival. In 2010 he was commissioned by Southern Youth Theatre Ensemble and IMPACT to write *Retaliation* a sci-fi fantasy which earned an Adelaide Critics Circle nomination for its cast of energetic young performers. Alex is also an emerging academic focused on writing for youth culture. He currently splits his time between writing his PhD thesis, turning *Once Upon a Midnight* into a novel and rescuing kittens from the roof of the restaurant next door to his flat.

		MCA
Saumya Liyanage		Saumya is a Sri Lanka actor who completed his MCA at Flinders in 2003. He was the first recipient of MCA at Flinders and currently working as a lecturer in drama and theatre at the Department of Drama, University of the Visual & Performing Arts in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Saumya has won several Best Actor Awards and nominations at the national theatre and film festivals. Best actor awards for theatre include *The Dumb Waiter* by Harold Pinter in 1994, Mata Erehiwa Mama in 2001, and The Typist at the State Drama Festival in 1999. He won a Golden Award for Best Actor for the film *Me Mage Sandai* at the SIGNIS Film Awards in 2003. In 2005 he received a Special Jury Award for the same film at the Presidential Awards again. The films he played lead roles in won international awards. These include Woosak , awarded best film at the Jeonju International film festival S. Korea 2001/Cinefan award-best feature, Cinefan international film festival-Delhi 2001, and Young cinema award-best feature Singapore 2001 for the film *Me Mage Sandai. In 2005 his movie Forsaken Land* won the Camera D, Or at Cannes and the Best Film Award at the 3rd World Film Festival of Bangkok. He completed his PhD at LaTrobe University in Melbourne.

		PhD/MA
Anne Thompson		Anne Thompson was a founding member of Dance Works; the company established in 1983 by Nanette Hassall to develop Australian contemporary dance choreographers. She worked for the company as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and community artist. During that time she co-founded the theoretical journal, Writings On Dance, with Elizabeth Dempster and Jude Walton and taught contemporary dance in tertiary institutions in Victoria. She was thus involved in the importation of American post-modern dance ideas and techniques to Australia and in establishing a theoretical dialogue between feminist ideas, contemporary cultural theory, philosophical theories of the body and contemporary dance. She started part-time lecturing in movement for actors at the Victorian College of Arts Drama School in 1988 and became Head of Movement in 1990. She was nominated for a Green Room award for her Daughter Solo in 1990. She also completed a Graduate Diploma in Movement and Dance and was part of a pilot dance therapy program in Melbourne. In 1994 she moved to Adelaide to complete a MA in Directing at Flinders University with Professor Julie Holledge. In the theoretical component of her Masters she focused on how theories of subjectivity which locate the body at the centre of the ‘self’ were being used in contemporary dance practice. In the practical component she studied directing text based theatre. She has also worked at Flinders as a Lecturer in Theories of Performance, supervisor of student productions, coordinator of the movement course and researcher. She has worked with Garry Stewart, Artistic Director of ADT as a dramaturg on three projects and has reviewed dance in Adelaide for Real Time. She has also been on the Artistic Advisory team for Vitalstatistix and in 2001 she co-founded the Eleventh Hour Theatre project in Melbourne with William Henderson, Fiona Todd and David Tredinnick and the company has presented seven shows. In 2006 the company won two Green Room Awards (the Victorian Industry Awards) for their 2005 productions of Arthur Miller’s *The Crucible* and Shakespeare’s *King John* - Best Adaptation and Best Drama Production. In November 2005 she was awarded her Ph.D. which examines the project of Reconciliation from a white Australian perspective including how nationalism, the arts and the government’s political agenda too often intertwine to perpetuate a ‘white Australia’. In 2007 she was appointed a part-time Lecturer in directing and acting at Flinders University Drama Centre and Eleventh Hour won four Green Room Awards in the Independent Theatre category for their 2006 homage to Samuel Beckett – Best production, Best director, Best male actor (Peter Houghton) and Best design (Julie Renton).

		PhD
		Dr Sally Nimon has worked in the Higher Education sector since 1998, in both academic and professional roles. After undertaking degrees in Arts and Physiotherapy she completed a PhD in 2002 whilst lecturing in voice at The Flinders University of South Australia. She worked as the Business Analyst in Market Research at the University of South Australia and now works at the University of Canberra.

		PhD
Adele Chynoweth		Adele Chynoweth’s theatre directing credits include work for State Theatre SA, Vitalstatistix, the Adelaide College of the Arts and the Street Theatre, Canberra. In 2002 she was awarded a PhD for her research in contemporary Australian drama. In 2001, she was employed as the researcher and writer for the *Memory Museum, an official event of the celebrations for the 2001 Centenary of Federation SA. Adele was the co-curator of the National Museum of Australia’s touring exhibition Inside: Life in Children's Homes and Institutions. She was awarded a travel grant by National Museums Liverpool, UK, to speak at the 2011 Federation of International Human Rights Museums conference. Adele was employed as a curatorial advisor for the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory Project. She was a speaker for TEDxCanberra 2013 on the subject of Forgotten Australians. In 2014, she was invited by the Danish Agency for Culture to deliver a keynote address concerning museums and human rights at the Museums: Knowledge, Democracy and Transformation conference in Helsingør, Denmark. She provided research for the television documentary-drama Westbrook* (2014) by Shadow Productions. Adele is currently a is a Visitor at the Australian National University’s College of Arts and Social Science where she received a Vice-Chancellor’s Award in 2012.

		MA
James Aubrey 1947-2010		James Aubrey completed an MA in Drama at Flinders University, South Australia. Whilst studying at the Drama Centre he directed several student productions such as *Europe, Twelfth Night, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Cooking With Elvis, Mnemonic* and *Loot. He also starred as the Narrator for Der Lindberghflug* and *The Second Hurricane* for the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 2000 at Adelaide Town Hall. He was discovered by film director Peter Brook while he was living in Jamaica in 1960 and played the role of Ralph in the classic film *The Lord Of The Flies. He went on to study acting at the Drama Centre in London and has worked on numerous major UK TV dramas such as Heartbeat, The Bill, Casualty, Inspector Morse, Emmerdale* and many theatre roles. After seeing him perform in The Glass Menagerie, playwright Tennessee Williams sent a copy of his memoirs to him with the following inscription. "To James Aubrey, The Best Tom Wingfield anywhere, ever?". He was due to appear in the film, Shadows of a Stranger (2014), playing the main character David, as well as working on the casting and coaching of other actors. However, he died before filming had begun. Jimmy was loved by all at the Drama Centre and he will be missed dearly.

		MA
Finola Stokes		After completing a Masters degree in acting Finola moved to the UK and studied at the Bristol University Acting Academy.