WORTHY of DeligHT
A theatre project for 2027 and beyond
Creative Directors
Siobhan Lawless and Kate Bookallil - co-creators of Worthy of Delight, co-artistic directors of Flight Path Theatre and co-founders of Inner West Drama
Siobhan Lawless - Siobhan graduated from QUT with a Diploma in Acting, she also has a Graduate Diploma in Media Arts from UTS. Siobhan has spent the last three decades working in theatre and television. Witnessing the way drama unites and provides a space for bravery, experimentation and play, fuels Siobhan’s love of teaching, producing and creating theatre. Siobhan is furthering her interest in the transformational power of theatre by currently undertaking a Master of Creative Arts Therapies.
Kate Bookallil - Kate graduated with a Bachelor of Performing Arts from the University of Western Sydney and has had a career in theatre and television for almost three decades. Kate’s most recent theatre credits include: People Inside Me, by Katie Pollock, First, Do No Harm, by Grace Malouf, Various Characters by Šime Knežević, Son of Byblos by James Elazzi and playig Frida Kahlo in Viva la Vida by Humberto Robles.
Kate directs plays through Inner West Drama and has co-produced and contributed to the creative development of several new Australian plays.
Key creatives:
Dean Nash – current facilitator and sound designer of Worthy 2026
Dean is a multidisciplinary creative (musician, writer, actor, speaker, teacher) and Access Coordinator. Dean has created his own solo work, as well as being a collaborator on many new works, including Criptonite, a show created by Deb Roach.
Dean is about to tour his one person show Dean Don’t Dance!
Dean, Don’t Dance! uses a slate of original songs, bad clipart, and stories about huffing nose beers in the accessible bathrooms, to have a wider conversation about “otherness” and the journey to discerning the difference between how you feel about yourself, and how you’ve been choreographed to.
Winner of the “Commitment & Innovation in Access Award” at the 2025 Sydney Fringe festival, Dean, Don’t Dance! intertwines Audio Description and Auslan into the storytelling, creating a shared, universal - and for most audiences an entirely new - theatre experience.
Emma Van Veen – multidisciplinary writer/director/ puppet maker.
Creator of Lost & Finding at Flight Path Theatre 2025
Review by Grace Swadling: “From the brainchild of Emma Van Veen, whose own personal experiences have informed and shaped this production, Liminal Productions presents ‘Lost and Finding’, promising an “immersive, fantasy-comedy adventure (with puppets)”...and boy, does it deliver on all of those fronts. This production is a perfect example of inventive, independent theatre that deserves to be championed and celebrated.”
Emma Monk
Emma Monk is an Australian-born actor, producer and creative renowned for her vibrant personality and impressive international career. As a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community and an ambulatory wheelchair and cane user, she is committed to utilizing film and television to tell untold stories and address significant social issues.
Emma is widely recognized for her roles as Susie Kramer on Grey's Anatomy, Jessica on Nickelodeon's Hopefuls, and Louise in the LGBTQIA+ film Let's Go Below the Rainbow - which she was nominated for Best Actress at the Sepitimius awards. Her compelling performance in the music video Better Days, which tackles the issue of domestic violence, has earned her multiple International Best Actress awards.
Emma has recently received funding to develop a T.V. series inspired by her experience with Functional Neurological Disorder.
Tinashe Mangwana
From Gweru, Zimbabwe Tinashe has always found joy, community and empathy through
the performing arts. In 2022 he has the privilege of working in Theatre180’s production of
‘Blue/Orange’ by Joe Penhall and as well as Black Swan’s production of ‘Oil’ by Ella
Hickson. That same year he also graduated from the Western Australian Academy of
Performing Arts where he has been involved in the Academy’s productions of ‘A
Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Human Cannon’ by Edward Bond and ‘Summer Rain’ Nick
Enright.
Before making the journey to Perth he was part of the ensemble of ‘Coram Boy’ by
Helen Edmundson playing at the Kings Cross Theatre in 2019.
His introduction to actor training came through the Academy of Film Theatre and Television where he completed his advanced diploma in 2018 whilst being involved in the play ‘image of an unknown young woman’ by Elinor Cook and Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’.
Tinashe has also worked in the disability sector, through the Access Ensemble at The Joan 2023-2024. He was a teaching artist, delivering a weekly workshop program for people living with a disability ages 18+
Grace Malouf
Grace Malouf is an AACTA-nominated and award-winning screenwriter, trained playwright and entertainment lawyer who writes twisted, darkly funny stories about agency, control and collapse. She holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from NIDA, a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the College of Law and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Law (Hons) from the University of Queensland, with exchange stints in Paris, Seoul and Dublin.
Grace is a 2026 Griffin Studio Artist. She’s been shortlisted for the Griffin Award, a finalist for the Silver Gull Award, longlisted for the Queensland Premier's Drama Award, runner-up in ATYP's Blake Beckett Commission and awarded the Katie Lees Fellowship for Playwriting. Her plays have appeared at Storytellers Festival, Bondi Feast, NIDA's Festival of Emerging Artists and Anywhere Festival. This year, her play First Do No Harm premiered at KXT on Broadway in NIDA's New Writers, New Works season.
Katie Pollock
An award-winning playwright and writer for screen. Katie’s plays for theatre include: People Inside Me, Human Activity, Rough Trade (a solo show which she also performed), Normal, The Becoming, The Hansard Monologues (Age of Entitlement), Blue Italian/Nil by Sea, The Hansard Monologues (A Matter of Public Importance), The Blue Angel Hotel, A Quiet Night In Rangoon, A Girl Called Red.
Katie was on board our 2025 programme of Worthy and assisted Doug in writing his monologue to perform. Douglas Kelly told the group a personal story and through a few more sessions workshopping the script, Katie helped Doug shaope the story into the following monolgue.
Dougs full monlougue is below:
ALPHA IN THE HOUSE
Empty stage. We hear music – DJ Alpha’s “Demons” –
Doug is on stage, headphones on, immersed in the music, happy in his own world. He takes off his headphones, and the music cuts out. Doug talks to us:
G’day. I’m Alpha.
Some of you probably know me as Doug. But DJ Alpha is the real me. That was my song you just heard – it’s called Demons.
I love all sorts of music – rock, EDM, pop, hip hop. And I love DJing.
I love how DJs can control the crowd and what they’re feeling. They make them happy. Make them dance, you know? It’s really awesome. It’s like a superpower, controlling the beat, and the build-up.
I got my DJ name from a TV show called Teen Wolf. The main character is a true Alpha. And I wanted to be like him. To be someone who’s brave, who’s loyal, who protects others, and doesn’t think about himself. He only thinks about others. He was like my alter-ego.
That’s why I like the Karate Kid movies too, because of how the character can overcome his challenges and be brave.
I went to see the new one recently, Karate Kid Legends.
I was on my way there and I really needed to go to the toilet. I was busNng. But it was at Broadway shopping centre. You know that place? To get to the toilet you have to go up two levels. And I couldn’t hold it in.
There’s a pub at the boPom of the shopping centre, the Broadway Hotel. It’s a very bad pub, by the way. Like, it’s for old people, basically.
But I wanted to use the toilet. As I walked to the door, the security guard stopped me and he was like:
You can’t come in. I go:
Why? And he goes:
Cause you had too much to drink.
I wasn’t drunk. I had no alcohol whatsoever. So I said to him:
I’m not drunk, I’m disabled. And he goes:
No you’re not!
I tried everything to convince him that I was disabled. I tried to show him my companion card. But he wouldn’t even look at it. I tried to show him my ankle foot orthoNcs.
He didn’t care. He said:
Alpha in the House v2 – 6/10/25
Go to the toilet upstairs. And I’m like:
It’s too far. And I’m busNng here. I’m about to piss my pants. Sorry for swearing ... But, I’m prePy desperate by this point.
And then he switches the reason on me. He goes:
You’re too young.
And I’m thinking, but you told me that I was drunk, which I’m not. And now you’re changing the subject? I went to show him my ID, and I dropped it. He picked it up, but he didn’t look at it. He didn’t WANT to look at it.
And in my head, I’m like:
Isn’t that illegal? To not check an ID?
By this Nme, I’m really about to piss my pants, but I’m also pissed off, scared, sad and angry. Because do you know how old this security guard is? Twenty.
I’m 22. He’s younger than me, and he’s treaNng me like this? And I’m like, really? Is this how your parents teach you to treat people like me?
Finally he said:
Okay. But you’re only going to the toilet and not to the bar.
So he lets me in. But the worst part is that he followed me all the way to the toilet. I mean, at least I didn’t piss myself, but that’s an invasion of privacy.
AYerwards, I wanted to go to the bar – not to get a drink, because I don’t like to drink alone. I wanted to report the security guy. But he pulled me away from the bar. Just slowly, not very hard, but puZng his arm around me, he slowly pulls me away from the bar, walks me to the door, and he says to my face:
Don’t come back again.
There was nobody else there. Nobody saw. Nobody did anything. It’s like it never happened. The thing is, this is not new for me.
The whole Nme I was in primary school I got bullied.
I was the only kid that had a walker, before I started walking by myself. This one kid started making fun of me, saying what a cripple, what a retard, and all that stuff. He was nine years old. Where did he get those words from?
One day I was playing handball with my friends. Without me looking, the bully Ned a rope from my walker to the pole. When the bell rang, I started running to class. The walker jerked back and I face-planted on the floor. My face started bleeding, and what is he doing behind me? Laughing.
I came home, bleeding. And my brother – he’s so protecNve of me. He’s older. Bigger. Stronger. He wanted to know what happened.
I go:
I’ve been being bullied for the last three months at school.
Alpha in the House v2 – 6/10/25
I looked at him. And I have never seen so much rage.
That’s why we could never go to the same school, because if I got bullied, my brother would get angry and then start geZng into fights for me. ProtecNng me, like a wolf and his pack.
High school was bePer. But it’s since high school, that I have felt real, real discriminaNon. In the adult world is when I first started experiencing it.
See, I don’t have an intellectual disability. I have a physical disability. So I can think for myself, I can express myself. I can do all that stuff. But there are some things I can’t do.
I have this disability that’s part of my cerebral palsy which is called dystonia. The dystonia is like involuntary movements in my muscles. It’s my whole body. I can’t control it. And it reacts based on my emoNons. So if I’m anxious, I get dystonic.
That day at the pub, I was dystonic.
That security guard, he saw my physical movements and he judged me. He just judged the book by its cover.
And that made me more anxious, more angry, more scared. It made it so much worse.
I just wish someone out in the public could understand that. If they had heard what was going on and could see that was discriminaNon, and tried to help me. Back me up, you know?
It makes me scared to go out.
Ever since it happened, every Nme my friends invite me to go to the pub, I lie and say I’m busy, but really I’m just scared. Cause I get discriminated against prePy much everywhere.
That night, aYer the security guard, I went and watched the movie and then I went home. I started crying and geZng angry. But then I started DJing.
Because I realised what helps me is music. It helps a lot with my anxiety. If I put on music, I just stay calm. And it’s always that bumpy, upbeat dance music that keeps me calm. My dystonia calms down. So DJing makes me happy.
The character on Teen Wolf, the Alpha, I like him because he’s funny and tough, and because he was born a werewolf. He wasn’t biPen by one. He was born that way. That means he can’t change who he is.
And I was born with my disability. I can’t change that. But I can help others get through it. I just wish people could understand that disability discriminaNon is real.
I know it’s not going to stop, but I want people to understand how I felt when it happened to me. Because they don’t talk about it on the news. There’s a load of racism awareness. There’s a lot of homophobic awareness, there’s a lot of transphobic awareness. But there is no disability discriminaNon awareness. There are no songs about disability discriminaNon.
That’s why I’m DJ Alpha.
Someone who’s brave, someone who’s loyal and protects others. He doesn’t think about himself, he only thinks about others.
A demon.
Alpha in the House v2 – 6/10/25
Impact report overview from Worthy 2026
The Worthy Creative Living Programme has demonstrated significant impact by creating opportunities for adults living with disability to:
· Develop confidence and self-expression
· Build meaningful social connections
· Participate in creative and performance-based activities
· Experience joy, belonging and achievement
· Contribute their ideas and strengths within an inclusive community
The strong alignment between participant and support worker feedback provides clear evidence that Worthy is delivering meaningful, person-centred creative experiences that enhance wellbeing, inclusion and community participation.
100% of support workers rated the Worthy Creative Living Programme 5 Stars.
Program Outcomes 2025
Worthy Feedback
Key Highlights
● 100% of participants love attending Worthy
● 100% want to bring their friends
● 100% would recommend the workshops
● Support workers rated the program 4.6 / 5 stars overall
Strongest reported impacts:
● Joyful creative expression
● Self-expression and confidence in performing
● Social engagement and belonging
● Ownership and pride in performance
Please contact Kate on 0405399931 or Siobhan on 0419405659 for more information.