Announcing the TAS Regional Artist Residency Mentors and Participants 2026

The Lutruwita (Tasmanian) Regional Artist Residency is a core part of the annual program of Performing Lines TAS, creating a space for artists each year to share ideas and develop their professional practice.

This year the Artist Residency will take place in Queenstown on Tasmania’s wild west coast and consists of an intensive three-day, two-night program. Through project presentations, tailored mentorship, workshops, and networking, the Residency fosters creative growth, professional development, skills sharing, and strong engagement, encouraging creative connections and ensuring the growth of a skilled and supportive artistic community.

Performing Lines is proud to announce the 2026 Tasmanian Artist Residency mentors, participants and observers.

More about the residency can be found here.

Mentors

Mirabelle Wouters

Mirabelle Wouters is a Belgian/Australian performance maker, set and lighting designer and Co-Artistic Director of Branch Nebula, known for bold, physically driven works presented nationally and internationally. Her practice challenges social hierarchies, foregrounding marginal perspectives and grassroots culture through collaborative processes. Focused on bodies, spaces and audience relationships, her work spans stages, streets and public sites

A two-time Helpmann Award winner and Green Room Award recipient, Mirabelle brings a wealth of experience across performance making, design and collaborative creation. We’re thrilled for our selected artists at this year’s Performing Lines Tas Artist Residency to work with Mirabelle, drawing on her insight, generosity and expertise as they develop and explore their project ideas.

Leah Purcell

Leah Purcell is an internationally acclaimed actor, writer, director and one of this country’s leading polymaths. She has starred, written, produced, and directed landmark Australia films, TV, theatre and opera such as Lantana and Jindabyne, Wentworth and High Country, Radiance, and The Drover’s Wife.

Leah’s own work is also a pillar of the First Nations canon with landmark work such as Box the Pony, Black Chicks Talking, The Drover’s Wife as well as classic Blak works as Bran Nue Dae, The Story of the Miracle’s at Cookies Table, Don’t Take Your Love to Town, Brothers Wreck, All My Friends Are Racist, Redfern Now and Cleverman.

Leah is a proud Koa–Gunggari–Wakka Wakka Murri woman from Queensland. We’re excited for our selected artists at this year’s Performing Lines Tas Artist Residency to work with Leah, drawing on her extraordinary career and bold creative practice across acting, writing, directing and producing, alongside her deep knowledge of First Nations storytelling and culture.

Participants

Carrie McLean

Carrie McLean is a theatre-maker based in Nipaluna, Hobart. She’s spent her creative career collaborating on new works and is a founding member of Mudlark Theatre and Radio Gothic. She likes to delve into the deep recesses of the human psyche, juggling darkness and joy, and the personal and political.

Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson is an actor, director and producer with more than 30 years’ experience in Tasmania’s professional arts sector. A founding member and current Artistic Director of Mudlark Theatre, she has led major youth and independent theatre initiatives and worked extensively across theatre, television and new work development. Selected performance credits include ENOUGH, Bay of Fires, The Bleeding Tree and The Mares.

Nicole Simms-Farrow

Nicole Simms-Farrow is a Tasmanian singer, songwriter, theatre-maker and community arts practitioner whose work spans performance, music, storytelling, creative development and participatory arts practice. Across more than three decades Nicole has worked as a performer, collaborator, producer and facilitator, creating work that brings people together through story, music and shared experience.

John O’Hara

John O’Hara is a Tasmanian-based performer, broadcaster, director and cabaret artist. A familiar voice on ABC Radio Hobart and ABC Northern Tasmania, his acclaimed career spans Jesus Christ Superstar, TINA – The Tina Turner Musical and The Rocky Horror Show, alongside award-winning original cabaret and directing work featured at festivals across Australia.

Amy Baillie

Amy Baillie (she/her) is a queer emerging artist recently graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts – majoring in Sculpture & Time-based Media. Amy’s practice traverses disciplines of performance art, dance, participatory performances and sculpture. World-building and space making, Amy is passionate about creating environments – transporting audiences elsewhere.

Donovan Miller

Donovan Miller, known artistically as Hosting, is a Lutruwita/Tasmania-based multimedia artist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and audio engineer. His practice misuses physical and digital tools to build richly textured sonic and visual works from found objects, archival material and live systems. He is developing the new performance project CRASH RIDE.

Bernadette Lewis

Bernadette Lewis is a contemporary dance artist working across performance, choreography, improvisation, education, and community engagement. She creates textural, imagined worlds, built from collaged references to pop culture, high art, and myth. Her practice is driven by works of transformation, adaptation, reciprocity, and the interconnectivity of individual and collective.

Natalie Allen

Natalie Allen, based in Boorloo (Perth), is an acclaimed dancer recognised for her artistry & collaborative spirit. She has performed nationally & internationally with leading choreographers & companies. Her practice centres on dynamic physical storytelling, site-responsive performance, amplifying intimacy & audience exchange. Natalie is amongst the ride of motherhood & balancing artistic ambition.

Andy Barnes

Andy Barnes is a performance artist, dancer, and professional idiot, currently based in Nipaluna/Hobart. Since graduating from WAAPA in 2017, he has established a curious and meandering life of dance, exploration and performance making. His work and interests are often focused around unknown futures, technological change, surrealism and transhumanism.

Dr K Ella Verell

Dr K Ella Verell is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher based in Nipaluna/Hobart, working across film, sound, performance, and installation. Her practice explores place, posthumanism, and speculative futures. Recent works include Cryosphere, A Confluence of Uncertainty, with a current ASOC commission for COP31 exploring Antarctica’s significance through local Tasmanian voices.

Observers

Steve Mayhew
Program Manager, Theatre Royal

Steve is a multi-arts Producer, Programmer, Manager and Director and has worked across many facets of the creative arts and cultural sector continuously for 30 years. He is currently Program Manager, Theatre Royal Hobart.

He continues to pay particular attention to the creation of new work from new and original voices, the importance of developing contemporary artists’ professional pathways and audiences, and the regional/local access/supply concerns that often form within the arts and culture ecology.

Steve’s festival, event and program experience include Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Adelaide Fringe, arTour, Country Arts SA, Hong Kong Fringe Club, Performance and Art Development Agency, Regional Arts Australia, Melbourne City Council, Mt Alexander Shire Council and Theatre Network Australia.

Bain Stewart
Executive Director, Oombarra Productions

Bain Stewart is a Ngugi-Goenpul-Noonuccal man and a Traditional Owner of Quandamooka, that include Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) Queensland. Bain Stewart is the Executive Producer of Oombarra Productions and a leading producer of creative content across film, TV, theatre and a mentor to First Nation artists across the creative industries.

His producing credits include the IF Award winning documentary Black Chicks Talking, the Helpmann Award winning play The Drover’s Wife, the play Box the Pony, and the award-winning short films She. Say as well as Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun. In 2022 he was Executive Producer for the AACTA award winning comedy, All My Friends Are Racist and Producer for the award winning feature film The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.