LITTLE BLUE DOT

CAST

DAD. James Saunders is an actor and writer with a 20+ year career in Australian TV, film and theatres throughout Australia, Europe, North & South America. He graduated from the VCA in 2000 and has won multiple Green Room Awards as an actor, a Goethe Institute Fellowship to Berlin as an actor/theatre maker and a creative fellowship with the State Library of Victoria as a writer. Film credits include the feature films The Turning, and Animal Kingdom. TV credits include Prosper for Stan, The Newsreader, Utopia, The InBestigators, Five Bedrooms, True Story with Hamish and Andy, Back in Very Small Business, It’s a Date, Offspring, House Husbands, Party Tricks, Dr. Blake Mysteries, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Winners and Losers, Utopia Girls, City Homicide, Neighbours, Wilfred, Blue Heelers and Stingers. Theatre work includes shows with Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre, Company B Belvoir, Bell Shakespeare, Malthouse and La Mama, and numerous national and international festivals throughout Europe and USA.

He has produced and written for the stage and radio and is developing multiple screen projects with his company Ambidextrous Content. James is on the Vic Screen Key Talents Register, has spoken at the Wheeler Centre and the NSW Writer’s Festival.

KID. Cian Morgan (the,/they) has always been a performer. During their time at university, Cian had the opportunity to write a short satirical play with 4 peers called The Grind which was a part of devised show Exquisite Corpse. Cian has a passion for writing and performing poetry and looks forward to expanding on this and playwriting in the future. Since university, Cian has performed in an original LGBT+ verbatim theatre production Thrive, a coming of age short film Down to Earth, and a Melbourne Fringe Festival season of a new play Cloverlea. Cian is also a core member of children’s theatre troupe The Story Keepers. Cian has always been politically minded and wants to use their involvement in the arts to influence and challenge public discourse.

PUPPETEER. Paris Balla is a queer theatre maker, drama teacher with Full Spectrum Theatre and PhD candidate at Monash university. They create work with and for young people and are passionate about storytelling as a means of making the world seem less scary. Paris’s experience in puppeteering includes Shakespeare Aliens (Theatre Works January 2022), MOTIF (A Blanck Canvas, Shepparton Arts Festival, Moomba 2023) and as writer, co-director and puppet maker in Owl and the Albatross (Theatre Works, June 2022, included in the VCE drama playlist). They have performed in/designed work in all the major festivals in Melbourne. Paris is an alum of the John Bolton Theatre School (2019), Lemony S Puppet Lab (2022) and student of Giovanni Fusetti (Bouffon 2019, Clown 2022) with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours, Theatre and Performance) from Monash university. Paris also happened to do an elective in undergrad in astrophysics and was part of the National Youth Science Forum (2015) and is a big nerd for stars and stuff and knew just enough big science ideas to help translate astrophysicist to theatre maker during the development of Little Blue Dot in 2023.

PUPPETEER. Olivia O’Brien (she/they) is an actor, singer, instrumentalist, stilt walker/street performer and puppeteer. They graduated from the University of Melbourne with honours in voice and has since pursued further education and a career in a diverse range of performance practices. Olivia has studied film and television with NIDA and has performed internationally at the United Nations in Geneva and New York City and in Central Park and Lincoln Center, singing alongside Sister Sledge and Ricky Kej. In 2023 Olivia co-created and performed in “By Jane’s Hand” which after a sell out season at La Mama was added to the 2024 VCE playlist for a return season.

CREATIVES.

Writers; Ben Grant and Sarah Kriegler

Directors; Sarah Kriegler and Jacob Williams

Designer; Christina Smith

Lighting Designer; Richard Vabre

Sound Designer/Composer; Ben Grant

Stage Management; Blaze Bryans

Production Management; Dave Farmer (O2 Design and Management)

Producer; Dans Sheehan for Parrot Ox