Tessa Leong
Tessa makes theatre and performance to pose questions about how we see the world and interact with each other. She plans one day to be a neuroscientist. Tessa has worked with many companies as Director, Dramaturg, Researcher and Assistant Director including STC, STCSA, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, Playwriting Australia, Ontroerend Goed, Force Majeure, Vitalstatistix, Drop Bear Theatre and Restless Dance. She works with Emma Beech and James Dodd as The Australian Bureau of Worthiness and with Mutiel Imbach and Cedric Leproust in Switzerland on a project Blue is the Distance. Tessa has been part of the Griffin Studio, was selected and participated in the Seminaire d'Avignon at Avignon Festival, and in TPS: Nomad, attended IETM: Campus in Italy, was resident at PYT Fairfield and is currently the Associate Artist at Belvoir. She is developing a new work Swimming Pool with PYT Fairfield and continues to work on many new writing and devised works across the country. isthisyours? has become an essential part of her expression as an artist and is the place she feels most challenged and inspired.
Louisa Mignone
Louisa loves action, mystery, medical conditions, women who change history, unnecessary commando rolls and high kicks. This is why she tries to incorporate all these things into isthisyours? theatre shows. When she isn’t making her mind explode and being completely inspired with these women, she is a regular sort of actor. Sort of. Louisa has worked on the stage for Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir St Theatre, Bell Shakespeare Company, Tamarama Rock Surfers, Sport for Jove and Windmill Theatre. For the small screen she has appeared in; Rake 2, 3 & 4, Fat Tony and Co, East West 101, Miss Fishers Murder Mystery, My Place & Wonderland. Films include; Infini, Trust Fund, Two Fists One Heart, Spike Up, Nocturn, She Loves Me She Loves Me Not, & Latte e Miele, which Louisa wrote, directed and starred in. She just finished working crew on short film Souls of Totality, which made cinematic history as the first film to successfully shoot the total solar eclipse in one take. No high kicks were involved... this time.
Nadia Rossi
Nadia dreads writing bios, mainly because she finds it weird talking in the third person (hello it’s me! Nadia!). Ellen has had to remind her several times to do this for the website. Nadia also has a terrible memory. Moments in her life she will never forget; the conversation with Tessa when she proposed we form isthisyours?. The first show we developed, Make Me Honest, Make Me Wedding Cake and the Adelaide Fringe Award that followed it. Taking our first show on tour, Best We Forget. Realising that she works from a closely personal level and sometimes shares embarrassing secrets with the audience and she’s ok with that. Realising the reason she is ok with that is because isthisyours? is the most exciting, terrifying and inspiring world Nadia has had a hand in creating. Nadia has also been welcomed into the creatively amazing worlds of Windmill Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia and The Border Project.
Ellen Steele
Ellen’s theatre debut came when she was five and decided to ditch prearranged choreography and instead freestyled to “All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth”. This disreputable beginning has led down a path of largely devised (read: freestyle) work and seen her perform all around Australia, Asia and North America with companies including the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Windmill Theatre Company, Vitalstatistix, Slingsby, The Border Project and Patch Theatre Company. As an independent maker she has developed work with TerryandTheCuz, Spilt Second and Zoe Meagher (Next Wave), Aphids, Little Black Box (Adhocracy), Misery Children (FOLA) and Sanctum Theatre. Closest to her heart is the work she has made with isthisyours? which constantly makes her question the big stuff, delve into the small issues, laugh so hard it sometimes hurts to breathe whilst all the time pondering the small miracles that can occur after 3pm when everyone in the room is wearing tracksuit pants.
Lydia Nicholson
Associate Artist
At a young age Lydia found herself having to choose between being a performer, a writer or a scientist. Later in life she was relieved to find there was a secret option where she could moonlight as all three. Lydia studied at Flinders Drama Centre and has performed widely in Sydney and Adelaide as well as devising and performing with isthisyours? for many wonderful high-kicking, scratchie-losing years. Lydia was part of ATYP’s Fresh Ink playwriting ensemble and has written shows for the Powerhouse Museum, the Rock Surfers, Urban Myth Theatre Company and received the Minter Ellison Fringe & Beyond award for her solo show I’m not pale, I’m dead which she has toured extensively. Whilst not being a scientist per se Lydia enjoys playing with liquid nitrogen and gushing about steam engines and has written science and history programs for young people at the Powerhouse Museum, the Australian Museum and the British Museum, helped along by her Masters of Museum Studies where she learnt how to use words like qualitative and quantitative in a sentence. Lydia’s theatre-making work is inspired by her attempts to unpack very tricky concepts into small parcels, her love of fantasy and science fiction worlds and her own very mediocre knitting skills.
