LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL

Lanie Robertson

Lanie’s first plays The Insanity of Mary Girard and Back County Crimes are frequently performed by schools and community theatres. His play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill was produced on Broadway and in London’s West End with Audra McDonald.

Many of his works are about iconic artists and the societal issues they faced: Nasty Little Secrets (Joe Orton), Woman Before a Glass (Peggy Guggenheim), Alfred Stieglitz Loves O’Keeffe (Georgia O’Keeffe), Nobody Lonesome for Me (Hank Williams), The Gardener (Claude Monet) and Blythe Coward (Noël Coward).

His works have been produced at the Alley Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Annenberg Centre, Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, the Edinburgh Festival, Festival d’Avignon, George St. Playhouse, Kennedy Centre, Old Globe, Primary Stages, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre de la Huchette, Theatre Petit Montparnasse, Theatre Silvia Montfort, Vineyard Theatre, Virginia Stage, the Walnut Street Theatre, Westside Arts Theatre and Williamstown Theatre Festival.

His first novel is to be published in 2024.

He is a member of the Dramatist Guild, the Society des Auteur et Compositeurs Dramatiques and the Writers Guild, East.

Danny Holgate

With a career spanning almost 50 years, the late Broadway musical director/arranger Danny Holgate was well known as the music orchestrator and arranger of an all-Black revival cast of Guys & Dolls.

He also worked as musical director and arranger on Bubbling Brown Sugar and Eubie! He worked as the music arranger on the 2007 off-Broadway production of Three Mo’ Tenors.

Holgate’s additional credits include dance arranger and conductor for Odyssey, starring Yul Brynner, Jerry Butler, Alexis Smith, Lena Horne and Cab Calloway; associate producer/orchestrator for It’s So Nice to be Civilized; musical arrangements for Daddy Goodness and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope; musical director/orchestrator for Rainbow Jones and orchestrator/arranger for Storyville.

Mitchell Butel

Mitchell holds four Helpmann, three Sydney Theatre and two Green Room Awards for his work as a director and actor.

His directing credits include The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Girls & Boys, Hibernation, Ripcord and Decameron 2.0 (State Theatre Company South Australia); The Loves of Apollo & Dafne (Pinchgut Opera); Caroline, or Change (Hayes Theatre); Violet (Blue Saint/Hayes Theatre); Spring Awakening (ATYP); The Bernstein Songbook and Porgy and Bess (Sydney Symphony Orchestra); Marjorie Prime (Ensemble Theatre); Candide (Sydney Opera House); An Act of God (co- director, Darlinghurst Theatre Company); Dead Cat Bounce (Griffin Theatre) Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala (2022 and 2023) and Moments in the Woods: Songs and Stories of Stephen Sondheim for the 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Performing highlights include The Normal Heart, Dance Nation, Mr Burns, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love (STCSA); Rumpelstiltskin (London), Pinocchio (New York) (STCSA/Windmill Theatre Co); The Venetian Twins and Stones in his Pockets (Queensland Theatre); The Merchant of Venice and Othello (Bell Shakespeare); The Government Inspector, Angels in America, Strange Interlude and A View from the Bridge (Belvoir); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Arms and the Man, Face to Face, Mourning Becomes Electra, Tartuffe and Six Degrees of Separation (STC); Disgraced, Urinetown and Piaf (MTC); Meow Meow’s Little Match Girl and Woyzeck (Malthouse); South Pacific and The Mikado (Opera Australia) and commercial musicals such as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Assassins, Avenue Q, The Producers, Little Me, Hair and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.

Film/TV credits include A Sunburnt Christmas, Stateless, Deep Water, Hiding, Rake, Holding the Man, Gettin’ Square, The Bank, Strange Fits of Passion, Two Hands, Bordertown and Dark City.

Mitchell is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Music and the Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia.

Zahra Newman

A graduate of VCA, Zahra has built an extensive list of theatre, television and film credits.

In 2016 she was awarded an AACTA for Best New Talent and received a 2017 Sydney Theatre Award for her performance as Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon. Other industry recognitions include a Green Room Award, CGA Award and multiple Helpmann nominations.

Theatre credits include Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, Julius Caesar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Love and Information (Sydney Theatre Company); Random, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov, The Government Inspector, Private Lives (Belvoir); Miss Julie, The Effect, The Mountain Top, The Cherry Orchard, Menagerie, Clybourne Park, The Drowsy Chaperone and Richard III (Melbourne Theatre Company); Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre Company); Girl from the North Country (GWB) and the critically acclaimed Wake in Fright for Malthouse/Sydney Opera House, which she also co-created.

Zahra’s film credits include Truth, I Met A Girl, Long Story Short and Thirteen Lives. Her television credits include Netflix’s Pieces of Her, Spreadsheet, Diary of an Uber Driver, Sisters, Foxtel’s Wentworth, Neighbours, Rosehaven, Childhood’s End and Rush.

Zahra Newman

A graduate of VCA, Zahra has built an extensive list of theatre, television and film credits.

In 2016 she was awarded an AACTA for Best New Talent and received a 2017 Sydney Theatre Award for her performance as Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon. Other industry recognitions include a Green Room Award, CGA Award and multiple Helpmann nominations.

Theatre credits include Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, Julius Caesar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Love and Information (Sydney Theatre Company); Random, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov, The Government Inspector, Private Lives (Belvoir); Miss Julie, The Effect, The Mountain Top, The Cherry Orchard, Menagerie, Clybourne Park, The Drowsy Chaperone and Richard III (Melbourne Theatre Company); Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre Company); Girl from the North Country (GWB) and the critically acclaimed Wake in Fright for Malthouse/Sydney Opera House, which she also co-created.

Zahra’s film credits include Truth, I Met A Girl, Long Story Short and Thirteen Lives. Her television credits include Netflix’s Pieces of Her, Spreadsheet, Diary of an Uber Driver, Sisters, Foxtel’s Wentworth, Neighbours, Rosehaven, Childhood’s End and Rush.

Kym Purling

Kym has recently returned home to Australia and continues to enjoy an active and diverse international career spanning three decades. Previously based in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Paris, Kym has made significant contributions in the worlds of jazz and musical theatre. He has enjoyed a dual career as a musical director and conductor and is an internationally recognised pianist and entertainer and has performed in more than 140 countries worldwide.

While in New York, Kym conducted several Broadway shows such as 42nd Street and Miss Saigon, working alongside producer Cameron Mackintosh and writers Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (Miss Saigon, Les Misérables). He has conducted Broadway shows around Japan, Canada and 50 U.S. states.

Kym has performed in most of the showrooms along the famed Las Vegas Strip, musical directing and conducting for some of the biggest names in show business such as David Cassidy, Kaye Starr, The Mills Brothers, The Pied Pipers, Buddy Greco, Joe Williams, Clint Holmes and Frank Sinatra Jr. He has toured all over the world as pianist and conductor for singer Engelbert Humperdinck and has made national television performances across the United States with vocalist Natalie Cole. 

Kym was found orphaned at two days old during the Vietnam War, later becoming the first international adoption of any nationality in Australia at the age of seven months. He is also an avid world traveller and humanitarian and has performed concerts worldwide to fund projects that support the development of children in Vietnam and Nepal.

Elenoa Rokobaro

At the age of 16 Elenoa was plucked from the Australian International Performing Arts High School (AIPAH) to star in Respect: The Musical in 2007.

Elenoa’s credits includeJoanne in Rent (Sydney Opera House); Susan in Tick, Tick…BOOM! (Storeyboard Entertainment); Fay Apple in Anyone Can Whistle and Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre); The Wife in The Things I Could Never Tell Steven (NToP); Betty Blokk-Buster Follies Reimagined (Redline Productions); The Book of Mormon (GFO); Reno in Dusty (TPC); The Fortune Teller in Side Show (One Eyed Man Productions); Ghost (ATG); Violet (Blue Saint Productions); Legally Blonde (GFO); Hairspray (DCE/David Atkins); Fame (GFO); Taylor in High School Musical Onstage (Disney) and Chanteuse (Adelaide Cabaret Festival). Elenoa was also featured in the Baz Luhrmann film The Great Gatsby.

In 2019 Elenoa was seen as Caroline Thibodeaux in the acclaimed Caroline, Or Change (Hayes Theatre Company) for which she was awarded Best Female Actor in a Leading Role for both the Sydney Theatre Awards and the GLUG Awards.

Victor Rounds

Victor is one of Australia’s most sought-after musicians and has appeared on albums for some of the music industry’s most legendary artists including Tommy Emmanuel, James Morrison, Jenny Morris, Renee Geyer, Marcia Hines, Andrew Fariss (INXS), Margaret Urlich, Mark Williams, Gina Jefferiesplus many more. He has been accredited on over 150 albums to date, as well as numerous tours nationally and worldwide with the biggest names in the Australian and international music industry.

Support tours have included Tears for Fears, Prince and Paul McCartney. He has played the bass and was musical director for David Garibaldi and Larry Braggs (Tower of Power). Other tours include Elvin Bishop (Paul Butterfield Blues Band), Glen Frey (The Eagles), Brian Ferry, Martha Davis (The Motels), Tina Arena, The Monkees and UK artists Lulu, Leo Sayer, Rick Astley and a stint with Boy George as musical director.

Stage productions include Rent, Oh What A Night!, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The Blues Brothers (Russell Crowe, Simon Westaway, George Washing Machine), Fame (Asia), Thriller Live (2014/2015 London West End Productions, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia) and My Leonard Cohen (2017-2019 UK and Australia Sydney Opera House seasons, Adelaide Fringe festivals).

Victor is currently an independent producer for his own label V Music and is greatly admired not only for his Bass playing style but also for his dynamic vocal accompaniment and arrangements.

Calvin Welch

Calvin Welch is a drummer, percussionist, songwriter and performer originally from Michigan, USA. He started playing professionally while still in high school and cut his teeth touring the US and Europe with the likes of jazz keyboardist Eddie Russ and legendary jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt. His musical journey has since taken him around the world and across many genres – from funk and soul to rock and roll.

Since moving to Australia in 1988, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with numerous local and international artists as a live performer, songwriter, recording artist and band leader. Currently he is resident drummer and curator of jazz music at Restaurant Hubert in Sydney. Calvin’s natural performing style has also gained him stage and screen roles over the years. Recently he has been delighting young viewers as ‘Poppa Calvin’ in ABC TV’s The Nanas and The Poppas.

Ailsa Paterson

Ailsa completed the Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design (NIDA) in 2003. Recent design credits include The Marriage of Figaro (State Opera of SA), Tracker (ADT), A Christmas Carol and Boxing Day BBQ (Ensemble Theatre) and Watershed (Adelaide Festival).

Set and costume design credits for State Theatre Company South Australia include Single Asian Female, Chalkface (with Sydney Theatre Company), Girls & Boys, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Ripcord, Gaslight, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Creditors, Sense and Sensibility, Switzerland, The 39 Steps, Romeo and Juliet, Mendelssohn’s Dream (with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra), Beckett Triptych (Footfalls, Eh Joe, Krapp’s Last Tape), The Importance of Being Earnest, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, War Mother, The Ham Funeral, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Price and The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Costume design credits include The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Hibernation (Associate Costume Designer), The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (with Slingsby), Betrayal, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, Things I Know To Be True, Little Bird, The Seagull and Three Sisters (State Theatre Company South Australia). Other design credits include Myth – The Go Between, Yo Diddle Diddle and Cranky Bear (Patch Theatre); Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas, Emil and the Detectives, The Mouse, The Bird & The Sausage and Ode to Nonsense (Slingsby); Vigil (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); Debut 5 and Naturally (Restless); Cloudstreet! and Dido and Aeneas (State Opera South Australia); The Streets (OzAsia Festival); Other Desert Cities, Seminar and Skylight (Ensemble Theatre) and You, Me and the Bloody Sea (Adelaide Cabaret Festival).

Ailsa worked in costume on The Straits, LAID, Underbelly – A Tale of Two Cities, Underbelly – The Golden Mile, Blue Water High, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, Ten Empty, The Boy from Oz Arena Spectacular, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert The Musical and High School Musical. Ailsa was the recipient of the 2011 Mike Walsh Fellowship.

Govin Ruben

Govin is a performance maker, designer and director based in Melbourne. He is also the director of TerryandTheCuz, a Malaysian/Australian company which has created an array of interdisciplinary arts projects in Australia and around the world.

In recent years, he has led multiple international collaborations across various artforms such as theatre work Klue,Doh!, dance adaptation Flatland, experiential public art installation Welcome2Flatland, SK!N (a contemporary work based on true stories about human trafficking), Thicker Than Water and the Off-Broadway season of Made in America (both presented at The Public Theatre in NYC), LIGHT -a work about the shared colonial past of Penang and Adelaide (2019 OzAsia Festival) and HuRU-hARa, a hybrid performance/space at AsiaTOPA 2020.

As a designer, he’s worked on critically-acclaimed projects such as VsMacbeth (Sydney Theatre Company); Black Box Theatre (2007 Prague Quadrennial); Avast (Malthouse Theatre); Act 3 and Room 222 (Oz Pavilion, 2010 World Expo); Bali Agung (Taman Safari Indonesia); Mr Glamour and Thyestes (Belvoir); Kissy Kissy and Doku Rai (Black Lung); Rainbow Vomit (Dance North); Song, Intimacy, Come Away and Believe System (Ranters Theatre); 2020 Keir Choreographic Awards (Dancehouse/Carriageworks); Sky Blue Mythic (Sydney Opera House); Wherever She Wanders (Griffin Theatre); The Durga Chronicles (ArtsHouse) and Odjeci Vremena (Ansambl LADO).

Govin is a Board Director for the International Society of the Performing Arts (ISPA). He has been nominated for a New York City Innovative Theatre Award, 11 Melbourne Greenroom Awards and a Royal Welsh Theatre Award. He is a multiple Greenroom Award winner for his works SK!N and HuRU-hARa and is a five-time winner of the National Arts Award in Malaysia for Klue,Doh! and Flatland.

Kym Purling

Kym has recently returned home to Australia and continues to enjoy an active and diverse international career spanning three decades. Previously based in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Paris, Kym has made significant contributions in the worlds of jazz and musical theatre. He has enjoyed a dual career as a musical director and conductor and is an internationally recognised pianist and entertainer and has performed in more than 140 countries worldwide.

While in New York, Kym conducted several Broadway shows such as 42nd Street and Miss Saigon, working alongside producer Cameron Mackintosh and writers Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil (Miss Saigon, Les Misérables). He has conducted Broadway shows around Japan, Canada and 50 U.S. states.

Kym has performed in most of the showrooms along the famed Las Vegas Strip, musical directing and conducting for some of the biggest names in show business such as David Cassidy, Kaye Starr, The Mills Brothers, The Pied Pipers, Buddy Greco, Joe Williams, Clint Holmes and Frank Sinatra Jr. He has toured all over the world as pianist and conductor for singer Engelbert Humperdinck and has made national television performances across the United States with vocalist Natalie Cole. 

Kym was found orphaned at two days old during the Vietnam War, later becoming the first international adoption of any nationality in Australia at the age of seven months. He is also an avid world traveller and humanitarian and has performed concerts worldwide to fund projects that support the development of children in Vietnam and Nepal.

Andrew Howard

Andrew is Resident Sound Designer for State Theatre Company South Australia.

His sound design credits for State Theatre Company South Australia include Prima Facie, Every Brilliant Thing, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Single Asian Female, The Normal Heart, Cathedral, Girls & Boys, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hibernation, The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race, Euphoria, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (with Slingsby Theatre), Ripcord, Gaslight, Dance Nation, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Animal Farm, The Gods Of Strangers, That Eye, The Sky, Terrestrial, After Dinner, In The Club, Vale, Macbeth, A Doll’s House, 1984 (Australian Associate Sound Designer), Sista Girl, Machu Picchu, This Is Where We Live, Kryptonite, Maggie Stone, Babyteeth, Random, The Kreutzer Sonata, Romeo and Juliet, Knives in Hens and Attempts On Her Life.

His other theatre credits as Sound Designer and/or Composer include Helly’s Magic Cup, Grug, Nyuntu Ngali, Fugitive, School Dance, The Story Thieves and Girl Asleep (Windmill Theatre Co), Rumpelstiltskin and Pinocchio (State Theatre Company South Australia/Windmill Theatre Co), Despoiled Shore, Medeamaterial, Landscape with Argonauts, The War, Please Go Hop!, Highway Rock ‘n’ Roll Disaster, Trouble On Planet Earth and Disappearance (The Border Project), One Long Night in The Land of Nod and The Homecoming (Floogle), The Birthday Party and Blackbird (Flying Penguin Productions), Boxing Day Test (Junglebean) and Little Green Tractor (Patch Theatre).

Geraldine Cook-Dafner

Geraldine has worked for SBS, ABC, Malthouse, Hit Productions, Melbourne Theatre Company, Red Stitch and recently as language coach on Chopin’s Piano for Musica Viva and for the Michael Cassel Group on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and &Juliet. She has worked on Melbourne Theatre Company shows I Wanna Be Yours, Escaped Alone and What If If Only, Bernhard/Hamlet, Sunday, Boys and Girls, The Lifespan of a Fact, Home I’m Darling, The Golden Shield, Wild, The Children, Hay Fever, Di and Viv and Rose, Melbourne Talam, John, The Odd Couple, Straight White Men, The Distance, Birdland, The Waiting Room, Top Girls, The Heretic, The Swimming Club, The 39 Steps, The History Boys, All My Sons, The Clean House, Boy Gets Girl, Take Me Out and The Glass Menagerie.

She trained at Middlesex University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has a doctorate from the University of Melbourne. Geraldine is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where previously she held positions as Head of Voice, Head of School of Performing Arts and Associate Dean, Equity.

Lady Day is Geraldine’s first production with State Theatre Company South Australia.

Jennifer Innes

Jennifer works as a voice and dialect coach for film, television and theatre productions in Melbourne and Adelaide. She currently teaches at Flinders Drama Centre and works with private voice and dialect clients from all walks of life. 

She studied acting and classical theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Later, Jennifer studied voice and dialect at the VCA and MCM, where she went on to lecture in Voice and Acting.

Jennifer has coached for companies including Red Stitch Actors Theatre, The Honeytrap, Mischief Theatre, State Opera South Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia. She has performed with such companies as Essential Theatre, Theatreworks, Opera Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia.  A former board member and current professional member of the Australian Voice Association and the (international) Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Jennifer is keenly engaged with global voice research and advancements. She is a proud MEAA member

Bridget Samuel

Bridget graduated from Adelaide College of the Arts in 2008.

Her Stage Management credits for State Theatre Company South Australia include Every Brilliant Thing, Chalkface, Cathedral, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hibernation, Euphoria, After Dinner, The Comedy Of Errors, In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Top Girls, The Glass Menagerie, The Ham Funeral and The Misanthrope, and Assistant Stage Manager for Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and Maestro. Bridget was also the props buyer for State Theatre Company South Australia’s The Memory of Water, Entertaining Mr Sloane and Girl from the North Country.

Bridget toured nationally with Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and Much Ado about Nothing (Bell Shakespeare). She has also been part of the stage management team for Hans & Gret (Windmill Theatre); Moby Dick, La Sonnambula, Carmen, Hansel and Gretel, Pearl Fishers, Aida, Tales of Hoffman, Flying Dutchman, Girl of the Golden West and Rigoletto (State Opera South Australia); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mozart’s Requiem, Breaking the Waves, Two Feet, Zizanie, Le Grand Macabre and Mahler 8 (Adelaide Festival); How Not to Make It in America (Theatre Republic) and Thursday (Brink Productions).

Sean Proude

Sean is originally from Port Lincoln, South Australia and graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2014.

Based in Sydney, his credits include Stage Manager of Triple X, Deputy Stage Manager of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Assistant Stage Manager for The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, The Tempest, RBG, How to Rule the World and Still Point Turning (Sydney Theatre Company).

His other Assistant Stage Management roles include Madama Butterfly, Aida, Turandot (Opera on the Harbour, Opera Australia), the national tour of My Fair Lady, Mortido (Belvoir Street Theatre) and the national tours of Julius Caesar and Much Ado About Nothing (Bell Shakespeare). He has also worked in Production Coordinator roles for Big Brother Series 3, Tennis Australia, City of Sydney and Sydney Festival.