Vidya Rajan
Vidya Rajan (Naarm/Boorloo) (she/her) is an artist who makes work for live, screen and digital space. A graduate of the VCA, she has a background in contemporary performance, screenwriting, and interactive media. Her practice is often interested in play, speculative narrative, colonial legacies, game design and emergent technology. Her work has been programmed by orgs like Arts House, Darwin Festival, The Blue Room, Griffin, Malthouse and Belvoir; and she’s variously acted in & written for shows on ABC, Netflix, SBS, Amazon among others. Recently, her digital projects have been shortlisted for the International New Media Prize, The Freeplay game awards, and acquired by ACMI.

Sam Mcgilp
Dr Sam Mcgilp (he/him) is a new media artist based on Wurundjeri country in Naarm. He creates collaborative modes of making with performers through playful tech experiments that create new dramaturgies for performance. Sam’s body of work includes contemporary performance, dance, hybrid digital/performance works and films. His work has been presented at ACMI, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne International Film Festival, the Substation, Arts House, ACC (Gwangju), DAC (Taipei), CTM Festival (Berlin), Det Norske Teatret (Oslo), Zerospace (New York). Sam has worked extensively in collaborative contexts including with Harrison Hall, Alisdair MacIndoe, Yuiko Masukawa, Alexander Powers, NAXS Future (Taiwan), Lu Yang (China), and Kazuhiko Hiwa and Makoto Uemura (Japan).

Andrew Sutherland
Andrew Sutherland (he/they) is a Queer Poz (PLHIV) writer and performance-maker currently based on the unceded lands of the Kulin nation. He has worked as performer, director, dramaturg, playwright, devised theatre-maker and mentor across the creation of dozens of new works in the independent sector in Western Australia and Singapore. He is a current PhD candidate at the Victorian College of the Arts. He is the author of two poetry collections, Paradise (point of transmission) and Act Cute, published in 2022 and 2025 respectively with Fremantle Press.

Henry Lai Pyne
Henry Lai-Pyne (he/him) aka Eek is a Naarm/Melbourne based new-media artist working across moving image, live multi-media performance, game design, and broadcasting. His work centres relations between the human and screen-focused technology and media.Henry’s individual and collaborative work has been presented at MoNA, Soft Centre, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, ACMI, Liquid Architecture, Arts House, AsiaTOPA, and AIDLAB Hong Kong.

Ruby Quail
Ruby Quail (she/her) is an industrial and interactive designer, artist, and technologist. Her art practice explores digital phenomena and their interactions with identity, digital communities, and the social and technical systems that govern us She draws on her experiences as a trans woman, examining how we define identities and how technology affects those definitions. Her work includes interactive installations, projection art, generative visuals, and interactive web-based games. She has exhibited at Off the Kerb Gallery, with Platform Exhibitions, and at Brunswick Street Gallery, and her work has been shown at Midsumma Festival, the Digital Writers Festival, and Melbourne International Games Week.

Jess Nyanda Moyle
Jess Nyanda Moyle (they/he) is a musician, theatre-maker and emerging writer based in Naarm. A Theatre Arts graduate from Curtin University, the lead creative of eclectic rock act Jocelyn’s Baby, who also performs emo-folk under their solo project Deadname Girlwonder. Performance credits: Little Women (Mel & Sal Productions), Cephalopod (Squid Vicious), Two Canaries (alexa taylor productions), Medusa (Bow & Dagger/Renegade Production Company), Let Me Finish (Charlotte Otton) and Tissue (Static Drive Co.) Sound design credits: A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Red Ryder Productions) ALL BOYS (every other theatre) Salted Pretzels (APK Productions) small & cute oh no! (Squid Vicious).

Jean Bachoura
Jean Bachoura (he/him) is an actor and writer working across screen, stage, and experimental performance. Born in Damascus and raised between Syria, Lebanon, and Australia, his practice reflects a life shaped by hyper normalisation, exploring its impacts on belonging, memory, and the narratives we inherit. In 2023, Jean co created and performed in Zaffè, an immersive theatre work directed by Stéphanie Ghajar. On screen, he has appeared in Goran Stolevski’s You Deserve Everything, Vanessa Gazy’s Shiloh, and Taika Waititi’s Time Bandits. As a writer, Jean has been published in Liminal Magazine and Kill Your Darlings.

Joe Paradise Lui
Joe Paradise Lui (it/its) is a submerging artist and undisputed winner of the 2013 Spirit of the Fringe award. Joe has won no awards since. Joe is a founding member of Renegade Productions. Within its aegis Joe creates experimental theatre and performance works. Joe is also a freelance director, writer, and a sound and lighting designer. Joe’s most recent professional directing work was Unsung Heroes, with Black Swan State Theatre. Joe’s most recent independent directing work was The Ugly and Salome Delta, presented at The Blue Room Theatre. Joe’s latest work LEGENDS (Of The Golden Arches) was Co-Created, Co-Written, Co-Directed and Performed with Merlynn Tong.

Romanie Harper
Romanie Harper (she/her) is a designer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Recent design credits include Meet Me at Dawn, Sunshine Super Girl, Girls & Boys and The Violent Outburst That Drew Me To You (Melbourne Theatre Company); 8/8/8: WORK (Rising Festival); The Cherry Orchard and Packer and Sons (Belvoir); What Am I Supposed to Do? and Equinox (Deep Soulful Sweats); Australian Realness, Trustees, Good Muslim Boy, Little Emperors and Turbine (Malthouse Theatre); Hercules, Die! Die! Die! Old People Die!,We All Know What’s Happening and Never Trust A Creative City (Arts House); Contest and Moral Panic (Darebin Speakeasy); Runt, This Is Eden, Resident Alien and Triumph (fortyfivedownstairs); and M+M (Daniel Schlusser Ensemble).

Quinn Franks
Quinn Franks (he/they) is a Narrm based animator and game developer experienced in 3D animation, new media and installation. Quinn is interested in using new technologies for film and interactive media to develop surreal character driven work. He works in the performance space as a collaborative maker, contributing his experiences as a game developer in support of interactive live performances.

"The term Crisis Actor traditionally refers to an actor hired to play-act a victim for simulated disaster training. Of late, this meaning has been co-opted by the alt-right to accuse real victims of systemic and state violence of faking their distress.

In Crisis Actor we begin to imagine how the seeds of this term might mutate further. In a world of escalating disaster and technology-fuelled reality collapse, how will we watch and feel for others? In some ways, this future already blinks into our strange present in the culture of spectacle that requires minoritised bodies to compete for our attention amidst crisis. Meanwhile, most of us live in societies where memory, empathy and belief are increasingly digital playthings of the powerful.

In our show, we enter into this schism with speculative, playful critique. As the aesthetics of authenticity and entertainment consume each other, and distraction politics reigns supreme…. can we sit with some of this surreal overwhelm in a space together? And can we act?"

- Andrew Sutherland and Vidya Rajan

Lead Artists: Vidya Rajan, Andrew Sutherland, Sam Mcgilp
Director and Creator: Vidya Rajan
Visual and Technical Designer: Sam Mcgilp
Dramaturgy and Assistant Director: Andrew Sutherland
Creative Technologists: Henry Lai Pyne, Ruby Quail, Quinn Franks
Performers: Jess Nyanda Moyle, Jean Bachoura
Lighting and Sound Designer: Joe Paradise Lui
Production Designer: Romanie Harper
Production Manager: Harry Dowling
Producer: Performing Lines