Transmission - Playlab Theatre

Transmission is Playlab Theatre’s new remote playwriting program that provides emerging, regional Queensland playwrights the opportunity to develop their craft in the comfort of their own homes.

Across six months, participants will be led through a series of online workshops over Zoom by award-winning playwright Kathryn Marquet. Participants will emerge from the program having unlocked their imaginations and expanded their craft, ready to write the play they have always wanted to.

MEET THE PROGRAM FACILITATOR – KATHRYN MARQUET

Kathryn Marquet is an actor and a playwright. Her published/performed works include: The Secret Garden (QT Young Artist Ensemble/Dead Puppet Society); The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek (Playlab/La Boite); The Owl and the Pussycat (Little Match); Furious Creatures (QPDA Finalist/Playwriting Australia workshop participant); and Pale Blue Dot (La Boite). In 2017, Kathryn was Playwright In Residence at Playlab, and, in 2013, Kathryn held the position of Playwright in Residence at La Boite Theatre Company. Kathryn sat on the board of Associate Artists at Queensland Theatre from 2011 until 2013. Kathryn has recently completed her Masters of Philosophy in Playwriting from UQ.

Kathryn’s theatre performances include Magpie (Playlab), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Glass Menagerie, As You Like It, Ruben Guthrie and The White Earth (La Boite), Faustus (Bell Shakespeare/QT), The Crucible, Maxine Mellor’s Mystery Project, and 25 Down (Queensland Theatre), Bastard Territory (JUTE/Brown’s Mart), Prehistoric and After All This (Elbow Room), April’s Fool (Empire), Tender (…and Moor), Risk (Umber), Catholic School Girls (ThreeSisters/Mad Cat), Brontë (ThreeSisters), Cinderella, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Two Weeks with the Queen, Into the Woods, and The Taming of the Shrew (HRTC).

Her film and television credits include the feature film Don’t Tell (Tori Garrett), and series’ Secrets & Lies (Hoodlum/Network Ten), and Sisters of War (ABC). Kathryn was engaged in the Emerging Artist program for QT in 2009. She won the 2009 Matilda Award for Best Emerging Artist, was nominated for the 2010 Matilda for Best Supporting Actress and won Best Ensemble at the 2015 Melbourne Green Room Awards for Prehistoric. She is a graduate of the acting program at the University of Southern Queensland.

2022 Transmission Participants

Christopher Paton

Christoph Payton is an emerging Playwright, Actor and Youth Arts instructor. His writing finds itself constantly drifting into the utter depths of absurd and surrealist nothingness, where he tries to make comedy out of the nihilism required to navigate the modern world. As a Writer, he has written various short and long form works, in 2014 he was the recipient of the ‘Queensland Theatre Young Playwright of the Year Award’ for his play Happens to Be which is about men who live in alleyways and talk about bins, so those interested can rest assured that the next generation of artistry in Queensland is in safe hands, with Christoph.

David Searston

David Searston is a Toowoomba based playwright, actor, director, producer. His writing credits include The Friendzone, Bananas, and Love is Hell. He has also presented his works to independent theatres in New York City.

David has also graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Modern History at the University of Southern Queensland. He has a passion in the performing arts and is excited to be participating in Playlab’s Transmission Program.

Gemma Betros

Gemma Betros is an award-winning historian, literary critic, and emerging playwright. She has a Bachelor of Arts in History and French from the University of Queensland, an M.Phil and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and has held academic posts in the UK, the USA, and Australia. She reviews for the Australian Book Review and the Sydney Review of Books, where she was a 2021 Emerging Critic. Her work explores the nexus between women, their beliefs, and the political and social structures that shape their lives. She also writes about Paris and its history, most recently on the monument of the Chapelle expiatoire

Ryanna Clayton

Ryanna Clayton is an educator and artist living and working on Yolngu Country in North-East Arnhem land. Ryanna has previously worked as a Performing Arts teacher in Meanjin. Currently she is coordinating an after-school creative arts program for neuro-diverse young people in Nhulunbuy.

In 2021, Ryanna was a featured writer in La Boite Theatre’s Assembly, a skills development program for emerging artists. She participated in Queensland Theatre’s 2019 Scene Project as Assistant Director and wrote and directed Limbus in 2008 for Vena Cava and travelled to Latrobe University in Melbourne. While studying Creative Industries (Drama) at QUT, Ryanna received a highly commended from Queensland Theatre’s Young Playwrights Program for her play The Lost Sock.

Ryanna grew up in regional and remote Queensland, from Cloncurry to Dalby, and her work is grounded in red dirt, immense heat and wild storms. She is passionate about exploring matrescence in her work, through humour and contemporary storytelling.