FORGE

Based in Perth, Western Australia, Cezera is a proud Nyoongar and Greek theatre maker whose passion for theatre started when she was a kid. As a teenager, she branched out into writing her own work, participating in Yirra Yaakin Writers’ Group. She completed the Aboriginal Performance Course at WAAPA in 2018. Since, she has worked with a number of companies in both acting, writing and directing positions. Most recently she co-directed Seven Sisters with WAYTco for Perth Festival 2023, and wrote and starred in her debut play Salted Pretzels at The Blue Room Theatre with APK Productions. For her performance in Hecate (2020) she was awarded Best Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress at the PAWA awards.

Izzy McDonald is a WA writer, director and political activist. Izzy graduated from UWA with a degree in English and Cultural Studies in 2015, the same year she co-founded the award winning independent theatre company Rorschach Beast and directed the company’s premiere show Girl in the Wood. GITW won Fringe World’s Best Emerging Artist and the Melbourne Fringe Ready to Tour Award. That year she also participated in the Australian Theatre for Young People’s National Studio for young writers. Her piece Dive was performed in Sydney and published by Currency Press. The following year she wrote, produced and performed in Bus Boy, which went on to win Fringe World’s coveted Martin Sims award, the Theatre award, the Best Emerging Artist award and went on to tour internationally to Brighton Fringe. In 2020 Izzy wrote and co-directed French Over in the State Theatre courtyard, being nominated for the Theatre Award that year. Most recently she directed SIT! Or I'll Make You Sit as a part of the Blue Rooms 2022 program winning TBLT Members Choice and PAWA Outstanding Direction of an Independent Production. In 2022 she completed her Honours in Performance Making at WAAPA. Izzy just finished her artistic residency at PICA for her new project in development, Diving for Dust.

Laura Liu is a Christian Chinese-Australian emerging performance maker, playwright, and figuring-it-out director. Graduating with a Bachelor of Performing Arts (Performance Making) from WAAPA in 2019, she went back in 2022 to complete her Honours degree, focusing on the possibilities of formatting and (omitting) translation in a new multi-lingual play text. Laura has this terrible habit of collecting drinks in her fridge, followed by two stressful days of downing said drinks when she needs to move houses. She says she’ll stop, but there are currently five miscellaneous cans, four UP&GOs, two juices, and a 1.25L bottle in the fridge. Yummy.

Rachel McMurray is a director, theatre maker, writer and applied theatre practitioner who recently emigrated to Boorloo/Perth from the UK. She has a BA in Performing Arts from The University of Salford and an MA in Applied Theatre from The University of Manchester. In the UK, Rachel worked The Lowry Theatre, The Royal Exchange Theatre, Theatre in Prison and Probation, Oldham Coliseum Theatre and more. She was co-founder and Artistic Director of Fine Comb Theatre, a UK based new writing company, from 2013-2022. Rachel is passionate about socially engaged practice having delivered arts programs with a variety of communities including within prisons, hard-to-reach young people and adults, schools, theatres, community venues and more. Website: www.rachelmcmurray.com