Hide The Dog Digital Program

HIDE THE DOG

TEN DAYS ON

2023

Co-written by Nathan Maynard (Trawlwoolway/Pakana) & Jamie McCaskill

ABOUT THE SHOW

When Niarra (pakana) and Te Umuroa (Māori) come across the last remaining Tasmanian Tiger, their only option is to hide it in Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Keen conservationists and best friends, Niarra and Te Umuroa are checking their bush cams one weekend and spot a Tasmanian Tiger. He reveals himself to the duo and leads them to a cave filled with ancient pakana art.

A world of magic opens for them as they quickly escape the clutches of some determined hunters to set sail for Aotearoa. But the journey has its challenges when they are visited by Māori Gods and pakana spirits who become obstacles for the two voyagers, opening them up to a surreal display of culture and belonging. Forced to face their own culture’s differences and similarities, the voyagers, with Tigs the Tassie Tiger at the helm, arrive in Aotearoa where their lives are changed forever.

This brand new First Nations collaboration for kids will have its world premiere in 2023.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Performing Lines has close to 40 years’ experience in developing, producing, and touring contemporary Australian work nationally and internationally. It has delivered more than 500 productions to 12,000 locations worldwide. We have a long and proud history of creating connections to presenters and audiences, leading national engagement, and pioneering new ways of working.

For over 15 years Performing Lines TAS has championed the work of our island artists touring them nationally and internationally. In 2017 we produced pakana man Nathan Maynard’s first play, THE SEASON, which was directed by celebrated Noongar man, Isaac Drandic. THE SEASON was commissioned by three major festivals, opened at the Sydney Opera House and went on to tour across Australia. The show was nominated for 8 Green rooms awards and won Best Writer, Director and Production. It's this winning team that have collaborated with some of Aotearoa’s leading artists, including award winning writer Jamie McCaskill (Ngāti Tamaterā, Te Ati Haunui a Pāpārangi, Ngā Puhi), Set Designer Jane Hakaraia (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga) and Sound Designer Maaka McGregor (Māori) to bring you HIDE THE DOG.

(Ngāti Tamaterā, Te Ati Haunui a Pāpārangi, Ngā Puhi)

Image: Matthew Sharah, Jillian Mundy & Big River Creative

BIOGRAPHIES

NATHAN MAYNARD (PAKANA): CO-WRITER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR & PAKANA CULTURAL ADVISOR

Nathan is a Trawlwoolway man from lutruwita/Tasmania. He also belongs to lutruwita’s Furneaux Island Aboriginal community. Nathan’s play The Season was featured in the 2015 Yellamundie Festival (Moogahlin). This Performing Lines TAS production received MFI funding and premiered in 2017 at the Sydney Festival, Ten Days on the Island and Melbourne Festival followed by an 11-venue national tour in 2018. Nathan’s play for children A Not So Traditional Story produced by Terrapin Puppet Theatre company, toured to primary schools across Tasmania in 2018 and in 2019 and was presented at Arts Centre Melbourne and Brisbane Festival. Nathan was named Tasmanian Aboriginal Artist of the Year Award in 2006 and 2013, and Tasmanian Aboriginal of the Year at the 2017 NAIDOC awards. In 2019 he was awarded the Balnaves Foundation Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship at Belvoir and a Churchill Fellowship. Nathan balances his life between family, community, culture and writing and resides on the East Coast of Tasmania.

JAMIE MCCASKILL (NGĀTI TAMATERĀ, TE ATI HAUNUI A PĀPĀRANGI, NGĀ PUHI): CO-WRITER

Jamie is a writer, director, actor and producer based in Wellington. After graduating from UCOL Theatre School in 2000, Jamie has gone on to maintain a successful career in the performing arts, touring nationally and internationally as an actor and singer, most recently as a member of Modern Māori Quartet. An award-winning playwright, Jamie was awarded the prestigious Bruce Mason Award in 2013 for his dynamic play Manawa. Not In Our Neighbourhood was awarded Best new New Zealand Play at the Wellington Theatre Awards in 2015. An up and coming Māori screenwriter, Jamie has written for Awa Films’ Colonial Combat and, Whatta Beauty and is head writer for Hari with The Māori Sidesteps. Jamie is Director of Wellington-based independent theatre company Tikapa Productions and The Māori Sidesteps Collective.

ISAAC DRANDIC (NOONGAR): DIRECTOR

Isaac Drandic is a Noongar man from the south west of Western Australia. He is a Director, Dramaturg, Actor and Writer. As Director/ Dramaturg, Isaac specialises in new First Nations work and has ushered many exciting first-time playwrights to the main stages including Meyne Wyatt (City of Gold) Nathan Maynard (The Season) and Jacob Boehme (Blood on the Dance Floor). His work has been seen at theatre companies such as ILBIJERRI, La Boite Theatre, JUTE, Belvoir and Queensland Theatre, as well as every major arts festival in Australia. His productions have toured nationally and internationally and received several prestigious theatre awards. Green Room Awards include an individual accolade for direction of a mainstage production for The Season, which also won best new Australian writing and the coveted award for best production. His highly acclaimed production, City of Gold took out two Sydney Theatre Awards including a nomination for best new Australian work. Isaac has held the positions of Associate Director of ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Resident Artist at Playwriting Australia and Resident Dramaturg at Queensland Theatre among others.

TIBIAN WYLES: PERFORMER

Tibian is Girramay, Warragamay & Kalkadoon man from Far North Queensland. Tibian appeared in several ACPA productions including: Oedipus the King, The Robbers, Cyrano Deberjerac, Romeo & Juliet and

Spirit of the Lore. He has also worked with Digi Youth Arts (DYA) Glad Tomorrow, Anthropology and Indig-in-us. Tibian’s first professional work was with Queensland Theatre’s Black Diggers and Country Song directed by Wesley Enoch. Other credits include Legs on the Wall’s The Man with the Iron Neck written by Ursula Yovick. The Sapphires directed by Tony Briggs and Queens City directed/written by Alethea Beetson (Blak Social). Tibian also toured all over the world and all over Australia with the dance group DJUKI MALA aka (Chooky Dancers) directed by Joshua Bond.

NAJWA ADAMS-EBEL: PERFORMER

Najwa is a young Biri-Guba woman from the small indigenous community of Woorabinda in Central Queensland. She discovered performing as a 5-year-old when enrolled in her first dance class at the Moura School of Ballet. Ten years of training and performing resulted in teaming up with dance studios from Sydney and touring to California’s Disneyland, Adventure Park, Universal Studio and Orland Florida’s Disney World and Universal Studios in an international dance tour with the Australian Dance Ensemble.

To progress her training, her parents drove her two hours every Saturday to Rockhampton to attend the Dance and Musical Theatre Academy. Najwa extended her skills into musical theatre, cabaret, hiphop, contemporary and lyrical, with roles in the local musicals.

In 2017, Najwa was cast as Kupi, the sole survivor of the Myall Creek Massacre in Brad Diebert’s Myall Creek: Day at Justice film and was also cast in a Brisbane Tourism advertisement in 2019. Najwa studied drama as a senior subject and completed her final year 12 exam the day before she flew to Hobart to begin rehearsals for Hide The Dog, her professional theatre debut.

ELAINE CROMBIE: PERFORMER

Elaine is a proud Yunkuntjatjarra, Warrigmay, South See Islander Performing Artist. Theatre credits include: Barbara and the Camp Dogs, Conversations with the Dead (Belvoir) Astroman (Melbourne Theatre Company) Blaque Showgirls (Malthouse Theatre), An Octoroon, Country Song, The Sunshine Club (Queensland Theatre), This Fella My Memory (Moogahlin Performing Arts), I am Eora (Sydney Festival), Wudjang, Bloodland (Sydney Theatre Company/Bangarra Dance Theatre) Cherry Pickers and The Sunshine Club (Sydney Theatre Company)

TYLER WILSON: PERFORMER

Tyler is a Māori actor who studied at the prestigious Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. His screen credits include short films Jet Morse and The Usher, as well as hospital drama series Shortland Street and feature film Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses.

POROAKI MERRITT-MCDONALD: PERFORMER

Poroaki, a young māori actor, is being hotly tipped as the next big Kiwi actor to take flight, having starred in notable New Zealand films Muru (2022) and Savage (2020), as well as the theatre play Little Black Bitch (2020). His performance as the lead role in a short film called My Brother Mitchell, which screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival back in 2018, is what got him noticed. In 2020, he was invited to perform in the critically acclaimed feature film Savage, a movie no less than The Guardian described as “a moving New Zealand streetgang saga” and a “touching character study.” With Muru under his belt, he’s now signed with a big UK talent agency and has already had a couple of overseas auditions, although he’s under strict instructions not to reveal any of the details about what these may be just yet.

JANE HAKARAIA (NGĀTI RAUKAWA KI TE TONGA): SET DESIGNER

Jane Hakaraia is a freelance Theatre and TV designer. She has a degree in Product design from Unitec and undertook an honours degree in Sustainable furniture design at AUT in 2009. In 2014 she received the Excellence In Theatre award at the Auckland Theatre awards. Jane was Production Designer and Technical Manager for the play Daffodils by Bullet Heart Club which toured extensively for four years and is now a feature film. She also regularly works with Blue Bach Productions as Art Director on their TV offerings and is currently working with Māoriland Film Festival on the ongoing design of their indoor and outdoor spaces at the Māoriland Hub in Otaki. Jane was LX designer for Black Ties which premiered at the Sydney Festival 2020 and played festivals around Australasia including the New Zealand and Auckland Festivals. This show was a collaboration between Te Rehia Theatre Company from Aotearoa and ILBIJERRI Theatre Company from Melbourne Australia. Her next projects after Hide the Dog are Sing to Me for Taki Rua Theatre Co which will premiere at Auckland Festival in 2021 and The Hall, a new work by Bullet Heart Club which will premiere at the Festival of Colour 2021.

MAAKA MCGREGOR (MĀORI): SOUND DESIGNER & MĀORI CULTURAL ADVISOR

Maaka (Phat) McGregor is a Māori and English bilingual speaker, a multiple award-winning composer, musician, engineer and producer. He specialises in creating new and original musical works and soundscapes that combine the Māori language and traditional Māori instruments with electronics and modern technology. In 2018, Maaka was inducted into the NZ music hall of fame for his work with pioneer NZ hip hop group, Upper Hutt Posse. Maaka is one half of the groundbreaking Māori electronica band WAI and is also a winner of NZ theatre sound designer of the year.

BEN HUGHES: LIGHTING DESIGNER

Ben Hughes is a lighting designer for theatre, dance and opera. Ben’s designs include: for Opera Queensland, Don Giovanni, Mozart Airborne (with Expressions Dance Company and Natalie Weir), Snow White; for Queensland Theatre, Mouthpiece, Antigone, L’appartement, Twelfth Night, An Octaroon, Scenes From A Marriage, Switzerland, Good Muslim Boy (with Malthouse Theatre), Black Diggers (with Sydney Festival), Mother Courage And Her Children, The Seagull, Happy Days, Grounded, Home, The Button Event, Much Ado About Nothing, Constellations, Switzerland, Design For Living, 1001 Nights, The Lost Property Rules, Orbit, The Moutaintop, The Pitch & The China Incident, Kelly, Head Full Of Love; for Sydney Theatre Company, Black Is The New White directed by Paige Rattray (and national tour), The Effect (with Queensland Theatre); for La Boite, The Neighbourhood, From Darkness, The Mathematics Of Longing, A Streetcar Named Desire; for Meryl Tankard, Two Feet (Adelaide Festival); for Expressions Dance Company, The Dinner Party (The Host), Converge, Propel, Carmen Sweet; for Queensland Ballet, Masters Series, Flourish, Giselle. Ben is Associate Artistic Director of The Danger Ensemble, and lectures in lighting design at Queensland University of Technology.

SABIO EVANS: COSTUME DESIGNER

Sabio is an established freelance costume designer and maker, seamstress, and emerging contemporary artist based in Hobart, Tasmania. Her practice encompasses the design and construction of fashion garments, costumes, and soft furnishings. Most recently Sabio designed and produced costumes for Terrapin Theatre company’s production Ubu (Mona Foma, 2020) and Fabien Giraud & Raphael Siboni’s The Unmanned: Part Two (Mona, 2018). Sabio’s most recent art works have been exhibited as part of Kirsha Keachele’s Eat the Problem 2019 MONA exhibition. Her emerging art practice is a mixture of textiles, soft furnishings, experimental performance, video, sitespecific sculptural installations and sculptural costumes, which are shaped by ritualistic and esoteric processes and informed by surrealist traditions and sensibilities and Tasmanian folklore

DENNI PROCTOR: ASSOCIATE DESIGNER & DESIGN PAKANA GUIDE

Denni Proctor performs as Denni, crafting songs that combine acoustic and electronic elements to tell captivating stories of transformation, social rights and a hunger for change. As a pakana/pakana (Tasmanian Aboriginal) woman….“My heritage has played a big role in my development as a songwriter it has allowed me to contribute to the universal language of many stories”.

Denni has played at festivals across Australia including Falls Festival, Party in the Paddock, Woodford Folk Festival, Junction Arts Festival, Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Taste of Tasmania, Garma Festival, Spirit Festival, Putalina Festival and more. Most recently, Denni performed in Terrapin’s Ubu for Mona Foma, was a key creative and performer in Journey of the Free Words in collaboration with Junction Festival, and Designer/Puppeteer on The Line produced by Blackhole Theatre.

SINSA MANSELL: PRODUCER

Sinsa is a proud Trawoolaway women from larapuna the Northern region of lutruwita Tasmania. She is a program producer and project officer, as well a co-founder, performer, and choreographer with the successful pakana kanaplila a traditional/contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginal dance troupe. Working nationally and internationally, Sinsa has been pioneering ways to reclaim ancient cultural traditions, as well as being involved in broad range educational experiences. Sinsa’s work generates critical awareness of the rich cultural heritage and continuing practices of her ancestors. She is committed to opening opportunities for the broader community to engage with the local First Nations peoples. In 2021 Sinsa created and performed in BACK (co-directed with Kate Champion) and produced by Performing Lines TAS for the Ten Days on the Island Festival. In the same year she was one of 15 artists selected nationally for the Hobart Current Exhibition curated by Rosie Dennis for the City of Hobart and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

SIMON RUSH: PRODUCTION MANAGER

Simon is a multi-skilled event professional with over 20-years experience in the industry. Having spent over 15 years working across corporate events, festivals, concerts and theatre, he brings a hands-on approach to roles as Production Manager, Stage Manager and Technical Operator for various Theatre Companies throughout Australia.

CREATIVE CREDITS

Co-Writers: Nathan Maynard (trawlwoolway pakana) & Jamie McCaskill (Ngāti Tamaterā, Te Ati Haunui a Pāpārangi, Ngā Puhi)

Director: Isaac Drandic (Noongar)

Assistant Director and pakana Cultural Advisor: Nathan Maynard (pakana)

Set Designer: Jane Hakaraia (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga)

Sound Designer: Maaka McGregor (Māori)

Lighting Designer: Ben Hughes

AV Designer: Keith Deverell

Costume Designer: Sabio Evans

Associate Designer and Design pakana Guide: Denni Proctor (pakana)

Boat Technical Design: Greg Methe

Additional Cultural Advisor: Maakarita Paku

Producer: Sinsa Mansell

Original Producer: Annette Downs

Production Manager: Simon Rush

Stage Manager: Adam ‘Gus’ Powers

Assistant Stage Manager: Scout McDonald

Marketing Materials: Jillian Mundy (pakana—photography)

Technical Operator: Marty Shlansky

Construction Team: Sabio Evans, Jen Goodluck, Petra Lagewaard, Greg Methe, Denni Proctor, Jake Sanger, Édith la Sauvage

moinee Song Lyric Contributor: Kaninna Langford (Aboriginal), Jordy Gregg (Murrie)

moinee Song Performer: Dewayne Everett Smith (palawa, Gunai/Kurnai)

pakana Cultural Advisor: Nathan Maynard (pakana)

Additional Māori Advice: Maaka McGregor (Māori)

Pakana Visual Advisor: Denni Proctor (pakana)

Additional Cultural Advice: Maakarita Paku

Education Kit: Dr Meg Upton with Theresa Sainty (pakana) and Kimo Winiata (Māori)

Special thanks to Julie Waddington, Rob Gebert, Dewayne Everett-Smith, the staff of Performing Lines and to Marianne Taylor who, in 2016, had the wisdom to suggest that Nathan and Jamie should meet.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory board, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc., Brisbane Festival, RISING Melbourne, Ten Days on the Island, Perth Festival and Sydney Festival.

This project has also been supported by Arts Tasmania, Tim Minchin, Terrapin, Theatre Royal Hobart, Taki Rua, Creative NZ, Illibijerri Theatre Company, Capital E Children’s Theatre NZ, Bryony Anderson, Museum of New Zealand te Papa Tongarewa, Arts Centre Melbourne, Queensland Performing Arts Centre Tikapa Productions, and anonymous PAC conference 2017 delegates.

CAST

Tibian Wyles (Girramay, Kalkadoon)

Najwa Adams Ebel (Birri-Gubba)

Elaine Crombie (Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara)

Tyler Wilson Kokiri (Māori)

Poroaki Merritt-McDonald (Māori)

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Performing Lines is a national organisation that produces provocative contemporary performance by Australia’s most audacious independent artists. Our purpose is to champion risk and to ensure that the breadth and plurality of Australia’s creative potential is represented and celebrated.

Performing Lines is led by Executive Producer Marion Potts, and manages teams in Sydney, Hobart, Perth and Melbourne, with a network of producers and presenters around the country and the world.

Over the past 15 years, Performing Lines TAS has become a critical force in the Tasmanian ecology, using our credibility and knowledge to support independent artists. With a focus on producing the work of First Nation artists, we work state-wide empowering people to tell their stories. Our work is always artist-led.

In everything we do, we acknowledge that we live on Aboriginal land and constantly learn from the wisdom of First Peoples. Where we are and the history that precedes us informs how we work and how we move forward.

performinglines.org.au: facebook.com/performinglinestas: @performinglinestas

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

Every part of Australia is, always was and always will be, Aboriginal land. As a community gathering-place, a festival of arts, cultural exchange and celebration and as a site for the sharing of ideas and stories, Ten Days on the Island pays respect to the Palawa/Tasmanian Aborigines – The original owners and cultural custodians – of all the lands and waters across Lutruwita/Tasmania upon which our Festival takes place.