ECHOES IN DRAFT - PROGRAMME
Creative Development Showcase
Friday, 8th August 2025 // 6:30PM
Fremantle Town Hall
blue joy theatre company was created and continues to operate on stolen land. We acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which we live, create, and perform. We pay our deepest respects to Elders past and present, and to the ongoing strength, resistance, and creativity of First Nations communities.
We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land. As a company committed to diverse storytelling, we understand that meaningful representation and cultural respect begin with truth-telling and accountability.
Echoes in Draft is a table-read-driven creative development program designed to amplify emerging voices and in-progress works across performance and theatre. Built on the belief that storytelling begins long before the spotlight, this program offers writers, performers, and creatives a space to breathe life into scripts by hearing them aloud—raw, evolving, and full of potential.
This is where dialogue finds its rhythm, characters start to pulse, and narratives echo with the truth of collaboration.
Here For You
by Jean Riki
The Pitch
by Patrick Kankanange Gunasekera
The Stranger
by Oliver Hughes
Valiant Dust
by Anna Quercia-Thomas
we are blooming.
by Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’
Director
Rachel Adams
Performers / Readers
Jean Riki
Oliver Hughes
Patrick Gunasekera
Rali Maynard
Sean Mudariki
Taonga Sendama
Creative Producer & Curator
Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’
Producer
Briannah Davis
Writing Mentor
Donna Hughes
The running time for this production is approximately 90 minutes (including a short Q&A)
Echoes in Draft is proudly presented in 10 Nights in Port: Walyalup Fremantle Festival and supported by the City of Fremantle.
Here For You
xxxx
xxxxx
The Pitch
xx
xxxx
The Stranger
xxx
xxx
Valiant Dust
xxx
xxx
we are blooming.
xxxx
xxx
Artistic Director & Creative Producer’s Note
New Beginnings was born from questions I’ve carried with me for years: What would it feel like to have more time to create and develop work? What happens when we stop striving for perfection on the first try—and instead allow space to fail, reflect, and grow?
As a Nigerian-born, Boorloo-based multidisciplinary artist, I move between many creative and cultural identities—music, visual arts, poetry, community storytelling, theatre; Black, Muslim, African, Person of Colour, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse, Yoruba. But I’ve also lived in the in-between—where I’ve felt visible and invisible, understood and misunderstood. Boxed in. This program is my response to that experience. A refusal. A reclamation. A quiet dream in motion. And it’s only the beginning.
I created New Beginnings for emerging artists—especially BIPOC creatives and our allies—who deserve the space to grow, experiment, and be messy. To be seen in their fullness, not just when the work is polished, but in the raw, unfinished, and deeply human. This program isn’t about presenting a final product. It’s about daring to begin. Showing up—imperfect, in progress, and powerful.
The works you’ll experience today—better late than never and till we meet again—come from a deeply personal place, shaped with immense heart by the brilliant creative team behind them. These are stories of timing, silence, connection, memory, and love. Stories of holding on and letting go, of the space between friendship and romance, grief and growth.
We invite you to treat this as a preview before the preview. With limited rehearsal time and script rewrites happening on the floor, you might notice the occasional missed line or cue—but that’s exactly what New Beginnings stands for: process, risk, discovery. Much of the magic you’ll witness today was forged in quiet writing hours, collaborative workshops, and spontaneous moments during rehearsals. We’re still learning from these works—and they’re still teaching us.
As Artistic Director and Creative Producer of blue joy theatre company, I’m committed to collaboration over competition—building spaces that centre care, truth-telling, and joy, especially for artists of colour. We know the barriers. We’ve lived them. This is one way we begin to break them.
To my phenomenal collaborators—Bri, Zoe & Sim—thank you for holding this process with generosity, clarity, and care. To Stella, Lilian, and Nathan, our extraordinary cast: thank you for trusting these stories and embodying them with such courage and heart. And to Mararo and Gita, your mentorship has been a gift to both Zoe and me—thank you for reminding us that our voices and visions matter.
And to you, our audience: thank you for being here, and for choosing to witness something still becoming. You’re not just watching a show—you’re helping shape a future. Our future.
With love, gratitude, and hope for what’s still to come, Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’.
Creative Team
-
Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’
Creative Producer, Curator & Playwright
Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’ (he/him) is a Nigerian-born, award-winning Creative Producer, Curator, and Interdisplinary Artist based in Boorloo (Perth). He creates immersive, poetic, interdisciplinary theatre works blending theatre, spoken word, music, and movement. Ayo is the founder of blue joy theatre co and co-founder of The Outsiders, known for An Evening of African Poetry & Storytelling and Our Stories, Our Motherland. He is also co-frontman of TAB Family, winners of the 2025 FRINGE WORLD Music & Musicals Award. Ayo works as Communications & Marketing Coordinator at The Blue Room Theatre and serves on the boards of WAYTCo and Regional Arts WA.
-
Briannah Davis
Producer
Briannah is a producer, dancer and choreographer currently based in Boorloo. Since graduating WAAPA (Bachelor of Arts Dance Honours, 2018), she has been a self-producing contemporary dance artist and theatre producer for independent productions working with Co3 Contemporary Dance Company (Co3), The Blue Room Theatre (TBRT), Propel Youth Arts, STRUT Dance, Benjamin Quirk, blue joy theatre co, Georgi Ivers, Noemie Huttner-Koros, stop drop + roll theatre, Squid Vicious & Renegade Productions.
-
Rachel Adams
Director
Rachel is a 2025 ThisGen Directing Fellow with Encounter Theatre. Through this program she has interned with Black Swan Theatre Company, working under Kate Champion on Never Have I Ever. She is a graduate of the Bachelor of Performing Arts (Performance Making - First Class Honours) at WAAPA. During her time there, Rachel has devised/directed the TILT shows Imelda (**4-time PAWAA 2025 nominee), was assistant director on the productions The Arsonists (dir. Melissa Cantwell) and The Day the Sky Fell Down (dir. Renee Newman). Rachel also travelled to Singapore in 2023 to study NOH Theatre at the Intercultural Theatre Institute.
-
Anna Quercia-Thomas
Playwright
Anna Quercia-Thomas is an award-winning Hispanic American writer and academic based in Boorloo. Their poetry and speculative fiction has appeared widely national and international publications. Anna’s play “Still here, still talking,” produced by the Writers Collective, was part of the 2025 Summer Nights season at the Blue Room Theatre. They work as a dramaturg, most recently for an ongoing development of “A Magical Guide to Fighting Fascism” by Asha Cluer, which had a showing at the Blue Room Theatre in 2024, and on the 2024 Sydney-based production of “All Boys” by Xavier Hazard.
-
Oliver Hughes
Playwright & Performer
Oliver Hughes is a proud Ballardong Noongar award-winning actor and writer from Perth. Having just graduated from WAAPA in the Bachelor of Performing Arts, Oliver is an energetic and in demand emerging talent. His training began at John Curtin College of the Arts in the specialist drama program then furthered in the Aboriginal Performance course at WAAPA (graduating in 2021), before completing his Bachelors in WAAPA’s Performance Making (graduating in 2024). His performance credits include work with Yirra Yaakin, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, WAYTCO and has recently premiered his own work Out for the Count at The BlueRoom Theatre.
-
Patrick Kankanange Gunasekera
Playwright & Performer
Patrick Kankanange Gunasekera (he/him) is a Sri Lankan-Australian independent artist, producer, and cultural safety mentor, based on Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar. He practices in theatre, dance, music and writing, and his work often subverts western art canons with queer, disabled, and brown contexts of community care, collaboration and resilience. As an actor, dancer, pianist, and singer his performance practices revel in the dynamic embodiments of marginalised people. His collaborative, creative leadership and teaching practices are drawn from his background in peer education, and centres bodily autonomy, emotional safety, and non-hierarchical facilitation.
-
Jean Riki
Playwright & Performer
Jean has a background in short fiction and poetry publication. She started writing theatre and screenplays over 10 years ago as a hobby. She has worked in so-called Australia and London on independent productions. In 2024 when she lived in Gadigal / Sydney she produced and directed independent theatre. She staged a two night run in Surry Hills at the Tom Mann Theatre of a series of monologues. As a teenager to the present day she has been an avid theatre lover who enjoys the magic of the dark transformed to light by story, acting and stage design.
-
Rali Maynard
Performer
xxxx
-
Sean Mudariki
Performer
xxxx
-
Taonga Sendama
Performer
xxxx
-
Donna Hughes
Writing Mentor
xxxx
