In Conversation: Eco-theatre and Art-making on Climate Issues

David Finnigan is an Australian writer at the forefront of climate change research and writing. David works with leading government, business and research institutions including the World Bank, Chatham House, Nesta UK, the Australian National University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) leading teams to synthesise stories and science into research and for problem-solving.

In 2024, David performed in a season of his one person show Deep History at the Public Theatre in New York City (NYC). In 2023, David’s play Scenes from the Climate Era had its world premiere at Belvoir in Sydney; 44 Sex Acts In One Week was produced by Clubhouse Productions and has toured Australia and most recently went to Edinburgh Fringe; and David performed climate piece, solo show Deep History, at the Edinburgh Festival, the Barbican in London, the Sydney Opera House and at the Canberra Theatre.

In 2018 his breakout work, Kill Climate Deniers, won the Griffin Award and was staged at the Griffin Theatre. Following this, David’s plays have appeared in major festivals and venues including FutureFest London (CrimeForce, 2018), AsiaTOPA (Are You Ready, 2022) and the Sydney Festival (44 Sex Acts In One Week, 2022).

In 2009, David co-founded the Crack Theatre Festival in Newcastle, and in 2011 he co-founded the You Are Here Festival in Canberra. Both have grown into significant national events for experimental artists and are still thriving today.

In the late 2000s, David was writer-in-residence for Tanghalang Pilipino, the key government-funded theatre company in the Philippines. This led to an ongoing and fruitful creative relationship with the region, including an Asialink Fellowship in 2015 to develop a Philippines-Australian artist exchange programme. David co-founded science theatre company Boho to create work in collaboration with scientists. Boho has toured to venues including the Battersea Arts Centre, the London Science Museum, ArtScience Museum Singapore and CAMP Shanghai.

He began his practice as a playwright in Canberra in the 2000s, first attracting national attention with the 2011 production of his 22 Short Plays. Since then, he has received a Green Room Award for Best New Writing, the Griffin Playwrights Award, and his scripts have been nominated for every major playwriting award in the country. David was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2012 to research the interplay between science and the performing arts internationally. In 2014, this was followed by an Australia Council Early Career Fellowship for his cross-disciplinary performance work.

Ellison is a Singaporean-Chinese performer, playwright and educator. Her background is in puppetry, playwriting, the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Viewpoints. She was Co-Artistic Director of The Finger Players from 2020 – 2023, and remains a member of its Core Team. She is Co-Founder of The Wanderlings, the first Singaporean collective to create baby theatre.

Notable acting credits: Dive (Wild Rice), Transplant《移心》(The Finger Players), Off Centre (The Necessary Stage), Art Studio (Nine Years Theatre and Singapore International Festival of Arts), I Am Trying to Say Something True (Esplanade: The Studios 2018). Notable writing credits: The Bench (The Finger Players), All The World is One’s Stage 《一个人的舞台》 (Toy Factory and Esplanade: Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts), The Dragon’s Dentist (Esplanade: PLAYtime!).

Ellison was conferred the National Arts Council Arts Scholarship in 2020, and graduated from Rose Bruford College in the UK with a Masters in Theatre for Young Audiences (Distinction).

Dr Tanja Beer is an award-winning ecological designer and community artist who is passionate about co-creating social gathering spaces that accentuate the interconnectedness of the more-than-human world. Originally trained as a performance designer and theatre maker, Tanja’s work increasingly crosses many disciplines, often collaborating with landscape architects and urban ecologists to inspire communication and action on environmental issues. Tanja’s extensive career as a designer, educator and researcher builds on more than 20 years of practice. Her pioneering concept of eco-scenography has been featured in numerous programs, exhibitions, articles and platforms around the world. Tanja is Co-director of the new Performance + Ecology Research Lab (P+ERL) and Senior Lecturer in Design at Griffith University (Brisbane). She is the author of Ecoscenography: An introduction to Ecological Design for Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Xiao Ting (angxiaoting.com) is a freelance hyphenated theatre practitioner (actor, director, dramaturg). She is an Associate Artist with The Theatre Practice and Programmer for Practice Tuckshop. As an actor, she was last seen in All The World's A Sea (The Theatre Practice, 2024) and The Heart of Jun: Memoirs of Zhaojun (Siong Leng Musical Association, 2025).

Her practice in eco-theatre prioritises the various degrees of an integrated ecological practice, with a focus on Southeast Asian foodways, such as Recess Time, which toured to World Stage Design 2022 (Calgary). It received an Honourable Mention at #CreateCOP27, a global open call for art in conjunction with COP27. Other works include Poppy, Extinction Feast and Pickle Party.

In 2023 and 2024, she was the staging director for both renditions of Ding Yi Music Company's inaugural ecologically-themed concert series, ECOncert 《声态不息》.

Xiao Ting graduated from Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts (UK) where she received the LICA prize for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. She is now doing her Masters degree in London at Goldsmiths University.

Sindhura Kalidas is a Singaporean theatre practitioner and educator. She is an Associate Artist with The Necessary Stage (TNS) and a core team member of The Finger Players (TFP).

Sindhu’s recent performance credits include Wild Rice’s Psychobitch (2023), Deonn Yang’s Why Be Good When You Can Be The Best? (2023), presented as part of the M1 Fringe Festival, and TNS’ Off Centre (2019).

Her recent dramaturgical credits include the Singapore Youth Theatre’s double bill Every Student Is A Good Student/In My Head (2023), TFP’s Puppet Origin Stories (2022), and TNS’s Acting Mad (2022). She was also the series dramaturg for Esplanade’s PLAYtime! series in 2023 and 2024.

She made her writing debut with TNS’s Happy Indian Women (2023), a verbatim theatre piece challenging assumptions about Singapore's diverse South Asian diaspora, co-directed with Haresh Sharma.

Sindhu is a recipient of the NAC Postgraduate Arts Scholarship and holds an MA (Distinction) in Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London. She hopes to continue exploring themes of race, gender, and community in future works. She is especially interested in how sustainable practices (both ecological and emotional) can shape more caring and resilient forms of performance-making.