The Judges
VIVIENNE GARRETT, ACTRESS
An award-winning stage and screen actor, theatre director, voice and acting coach, Vivienne has worked with most of the major theatre companies in Australia.
Her TV career spans four decades, from playing 'Rose' in the ground-breaking series Number 96 to iconic TV series such as Matlock Police, Division Four, Homicide, The Norman Gunston Show, Mother and Son, Bodyline, Haydaze, Ship to Shore, Streetsmartz and the ABC/Scottish TV award-winning series, Minty. She was a company member of the celebrated Rex Cramphorns Performance Syndicate for five years, devising original physical theatre in the 1970s and working with internationally acclaimed Jerzy Grotowski and his company.
A NIDA graduate with a BA in Dramatic Arts and Post Graduate studies in Voice, she has won WA’s Award for Best Female Actor for Dead Funny, was nominated for Live Acts on Stage, Equus and The Clean House and won Best Female Supporting Actor in 2014 for Other Desert Cities.
Vivienne’s theatre performances include The Dybuk, Lady Nijo, Girls, Extremities, Servant of Two Masters, On our Selection, Waiting For Godot, The Crucible, The Vagina Monologues, Necessary Targets, Checklist for an Armed Robber, Europe, the musical Lonely Hearts, When the Rain Stops Falling, An Oak Tree, Lebensraum, Biddies and the Maj Monologues, along with many Shakespearean productions, including A Midsummers Night’s Dream, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, Loves Labours Lost, The Tempest, Measure for Measure and Hamlet.
She has also starred in and produced two one-woman shows, Death of Minnie and Witchplay. Her directing credentials include Breast Stroke, Ursula's Ecstasy, The Spook, Magritte, Tartuffe and 26 short stories for ABC Radio national.
She studied Voice and Shakespearean text at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC Canada and has taught Stage and Screen Acting, Voice and Theatre studies at WAAPA, ECU and Notre Dame universities, the Australian Film and Television Academy, Fremantle Television Institute and NIDA’s open program.
KIMBERLEY SHAW, INDEPENDENT THEATRE ASSOCIATION
Kimberley Shaw has been involved with theatre all of her life, and has been an actor, director, teacher, writer, reviewer and administrator.
Currently President of the Independent Theatre Association, an umbrella organisation for community theatre in WA, she is also the Western Australian writer and reviewer for Stage Whispers Magazine. Between those two responsibilities, Kimberley saw 197 plays in 2019, giving her a unique perspective on theatre in this state.
As a director, Kimberley has received many accolades including directing the winning musical in the Finley Awards twice, and winning DramaFest and YouthFest multiple times. As the Performing Arts Specialist at Sawyers Valley Primary, she is committed to bringing the love of performing to a new generation, and in the past has taught at secondary level and taught children, teens and adults outside the school system.
DR SUZANNE INGELBRECHT, PLAYWRIGHT
Dr Suzanne Ingelbrecht is a published and performed award-winning Western Australian playwright and director of Fragmented Artists (performance, ability, community). Her plays include Fragmented, Blusher (a Maj Monologues Finalist), Breathe Out and I Breathe You In and the memoir play P R E S E N T E S! which she has so far performed in WA and New Zealand for the UNESCO Cities of Literature Short Play Festival.
Her particular passion is to engage artists with disability in writing and theatre-making activities. To that end, she has facilitated a number of masterclasses and workshops nationally and internationally, including with internationally renowned inclusive theatre company Back to Back Theatre in Geelong, Victoria, and Lung Ha Theatre Company, Edinburgh, Scotland.
She has written essays on disability and creative practice for Westerly (UWA) and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Disability: Looking Towards the Future (Routledge). Suzanne is a highly experienced writing mentor and educator, and currently teaches into the Creative Writing program at Curtin University.