Great Expectations
The University of Melbourne Acting Company 2026
Dir. Georgina Naidu
Photographer Drew Echberg
Publications
‘Invigoration, Transformation, Revolution’
(Forthcoming – Routledge, 2027) Edited by Dr Robert Lewis and Dr Soseh Yekanians.
This volume combines articles from the 2024 and 2025 AusAct conferences, with an additional reach-out to previous contributors who may wish to submit an expression of interest.
Actor training in Australasia is at a critical juncture, shaped by the evolving demands of the industry, cultural shifts, and an increasing emphasis on identity, authenticity, and safety. Invigoration, Transformation, Revolution explores how acting pedagogies can adapt to these shifting paradigms, ensuring that training remains relevant, inclusive, and artistically rigorous.
This volume interrogates the evolution of acting methodologies, moving beyond conventional systems to embrace diverse, contemporary approaches that reflect the identities and lived experiences of today’s performers. It examines the intersection of transformation, once seen as the actor’s highest goal, and the current movement toward authenticity in performance. How does this shift redefine the role of training? Can transformation and authenticity coexist, or are they in fundamental conflict? Through critical analysis and practical insights, the book navigates themes of inclusion, decolonisation, and the redefinition of artistic risk. It considers the complexities of maintaining rigorous training while ensuring agency and psychological safety for all actors, particularly in institutional settings. Key discussions include the adaptation of training for neurodivergent performers, the evolving language of acting pedagogy, and strategies for navigating issues of gender identity, touch, and embodied practice.
By engaging with both theoretical and practice-based perspectives, Invigoration, Transformation, Revolution offers a roadmap for the future of actor training in Australasia and beyond. It challenges educators, practitioners, and scholars to reconsider what it means to train, perform, and connect in an industry where the boundaries between discomfort and harm, discipline and agency, tradition and progress are constantly renegotiated.
CRISIS AND CREATIVITY IN PERFORMING ARTS TRAINING
This book comprises of key articles from the 2023 AusAct: The Australian Actor Training Conference that addresses innovative and fresh discussions post-COVID on how the Performing Arts can come out of these times of crisis and maintain their survival. Each chapter looks at a different aspect
of the performing arts and discusses our programs and the unique and significant role acting and performance teachers have in our education sector, and their clear contribution to the international creative economies.