HART has two sessions: 11am & 7:30pm
As part of our Equity Program, get FREE tickets to this performance. Simply click on the Book Now link and book your free tickets.

“I was always like, like a magnet with my Dad, like everywhere he went I was right next to him… He never got rid of me…”

Throughout Australia’s history, an unknown number of Indigenous children have been forcibly removed from their families. Parents driven mad, grandparents heartbroken, siblings torn apart, language lost, and culture stripped away.

Using testimonials from the Stolen Generations, Noongar man Ian Michael invites you to listen in on the silenced stories of his country.

Winner of Best Emerging Artist (Adelaide Fringe 2016)
Winner of Best Emerging Indigenous Artist (Melbourne Fringe 2015)
Winner of SA Tour Ready Award (Melbourne Fringe 2015)
Winner of Tiki Tour Ready Award (Melbourne Fringe 2015)

Warnings: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences are warned that this production contains images of deceased persons.

Please be advised that there will be a LOCKOUT period for the show. You will be unable to enter or leave the theatre after the show has commenced. If people leave mid-performance they are not permitted back in. This is due to the sensitive nature of the show and we make no exceptions.

Apologies that Bellbird can’t be open for the evening’s performance of HART. The small but enthusiastic team (of two Chefs!) behind Bellbird are open 7 days a week for Breakfast, Brunch and Lunch and we try to add on dinners when they can, but that isn’t always possible. We are hoping to create an Apprentice Chef position in the not-too-distant future that should mean we can add more dinners to more events… but we’re just not there yet!

Thanks for your understanding – Federico & Steven

Theatre/ Film Credits:

Concept & Performed by Ian Michael
Text by Ian Michael and Seanna van Helten
Directed by Penny Harpham
Composition & Sound Design by Raya Slavin
Set & Costume Design by Chloe Greaves
AV Design by Michael Carmody
Photography by Gabi Briggs

HART Educational Resources

She Said Theatre

She Said Theatre uses performance to explore alternative histories, re-imagine forgotten stories, and encourage a theatrical dialogue with the unheard voices in Australian society. Founded as a direct response to the lack of women in theatre, we aim to create more active roles for women and other under-represented artists in the performing arts, and provide opportunities for such artists to realise their skills in acting, directing, writing and design. We have developed a process of working that focuses on emotional truth and the power of live performance, creating text-based theatre from the “ground up” that is dynamic, immediate, and experientially engaging, that activates young, culturally and geographically diverse audiences outside the usual theatre-going demographic. Currently based in Melbourne, Australia, She Said Theatre was founded in 2006 by co-Artistic Directors Penny Harpham and Seanna van Helten.

Ian Michael (Performer/Co-Writer)

Ian Michael graduated from WAAPA in 2008. His theatre credits include HART (Melbourne Fringe, Basement Theatre, New Zealand Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Desert Fringe, Blue Room Theatre, Brisbane Festival), Flashblacks, Northwest of Nowhere, Big Day Out, Black Writers Lab (Ilbijerri Theatre Company); Blak Cabaret (Malthouse Theatre); The Kid (MTC/ Melbourne Ring Cycle); Laika and Wills (She Said Theatre/Melbourne Fringe); The New Black (The Arts Centre-Carnegie 18 series); Jandamarra (Bunuba Films). Film credits include Where are the Warriors (Wirrim Films); Needle (Nexus 6 Films). Ian was the Assistant Director of Casting Doubts at WAAPA in 2010. At WAAPA, Ian played the lead roles in Blackrock, Gunjies and In Our Town, as well as the short film Project Petey DNA which had success at the Toronto imagineNATIVE Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival and Dungog Film Festival. He is a proud Noongar man from Western Australia. In 2013 and 2015 Ian was awarded the Outstanding Indigenous Artist/Best Emerging Indigenous Artist award for Laika and Wills and HART respectively.

Penny Harpham (Director)

Penny Harpham is the co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of She Said Theatre. She is a recent Directing graduate from the VCA where she was awarded the Barbara Manning Scholarship for Excellence and the Global Atelier Scholarship for Overseas Travel. She won a Green Room Award for The Stream/ The Boat/ The Shore/ The Bridge (Next Wave Festival 2012) and received an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Award (2015) to complete residencies at the ZK/U in Berlin, Mullae Arts Space in Seoul, and intern with TheaterRampe in Stuttgart. Her directing credits include The Way Out (Red Stitch Actors Ensemble), Salt (La Mama Theatre andShe Said Theatre), Fallen (She Said Theatre and Sport for Jove Theatre at the Seymour Centre), Bock Kills Her Father (She Said Theatre at La Mama), Laika and Wills, Breaking (She Said Theatre at Melbourne Fringe) and Slut (VCA). She has performed with theatre companies and artists across Australia, Germany and South Korea, including Red Stitch Actors Ensemble, Elbow Room, Plathoon Kunsthalle, Brisbane Powerhouse and Motherboard Productions. Penny is a teaching artist for Western Edge Youth Arts and a youth workshop facilitator with Footscray Community Arts Centre.

Seanna van Helten (Co-Writer/Dramaturg)

Seanna van Helten is a writer and co-Artistic Director of She Said Theatre. Other works include: Salt (She Said Theatre/La Mama Theatre 2017), Fallen (She Said Theatre/Sport for Jove Theatre Company 2017); Laika and Wills (She Said Theatre/Melbourne Fringe 2013); and Breaking (co-authored and co-directed with Penny Harpham, Melbourne Fringe 2012). Seanna has also published writing in Griffith REVIEW, Voiceworks, Milk Bar Mag, and is the former Arts Editor of Brisbane’s Rave Magazine. She is a graduate of the University of Queensland and of the University of Melbourne, where she received the Percival Serle Prize. In 2014, Seanna completed the Master of Writing for Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2016, she was selected by Playwriting Australia for the National Script Workshop, invited to be a writer-in-resident with Lonely Company, and was a recipient of the Australia Council ArtStart grant.

Raya Slavin (Sound Designer & Composer)

Raya Slavin is a Melbourne-based composer and sound designer working across multidisciplinary art practices, a resident artist with She Said Theatre, and a member of synth-punk outfit Primitive Calculators. Raya’s credits for She Said Theatre include Fallen (She Said Theatre/Sport For Jove, 2017), The Quiet Bite (Melbourne Fringe, 2016), HART (Melbourne Fringe, 2015), Bock Kills Her Father (Melbourne Fringe, 2015) and Laika and Wills (Melbourne Fringe, 2013). Other recent work includes Wild Bore (Malthouse Theatre, 2017), F. (Riot Stage Youth Theatre/Poppy Seed Theatre Festival, 2016), The Messenger Podcast – theme music (Behind The Wire/The Wheeler Centre, 2016), Akai Ito and the Forest (Melbourne Fringe, 2016), Redemption (La Mama Courthouse, 2015), Ryan (La Mama Courthouse, 2015), Birdcage Thursdays (La Mama/Big West Festival, 2015), Myth Project – Twin (with Kelly Ryall, Arthur/MTC Neon, 2014), Angry SEXX (Melbourne Fringe, 2014), Savages (sound associate with Kelly Ryall, fortyfivedownstairs, 2013) and MKA Group Show (Northcote Town Hall, 2013). In 2015, Raya was nominated for a Green Room award for her sound design for Ryan.

Chloe Greaves (Set & Costume Designer)

Recent costume designs include Fallen (She Said Theatre/Sport for Jove Theatre Company),The Bacchae (Fraught Outfit/Melbourne Festival), The Grumpiest Boy in the World (Victorian Opera), They Saw A Thylacine (Malthouse Theatre), The Waiting Room (Melbourne Theatre Company), Blak Cabaret (Sydney Festival/ Malthouse Theatre), The Magic Pudding (Victorian Opera), On the bodily Education... (Fraught Outfit / MTC Neon), Le Donna Curiose (The Juliard School, New York), Project Hysteria (Poppy Seed festival) Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Nights Dream (Essential Theatre), and Pacific Overtures (Watch This Productions). Chloe also works in film and television, and has designed music videos for artists including Guy Sebastian, San Cisco, Montaigne, Dz Deathrays and Alison Wonderland. Chloe received the 2014 Independent Theatre Green Room Award for her body of work, and has been nominated for five others.

Katie Sfetkidis (Lighting Designer)

Katie Sfetkidis is a Melbourne-based lighting designer and member of Little Ones Theatre. She won a Green Room Award for Best Lighting Design - Companies in 2015 and has 5 other nominations. HART is her first show with She Said Theatre. Credits include: Malthouse Theatre: Meme Girls, Calpurnia Descending (Sisters Grimm /Sydney Theatre Company), Tame; Belvoir Theatre: Kill the Messenger; Little Ones Theatre: Dracula; Dangerous Liaisons; The House of Yes; Salomé; Pyscho Beach Party, Home Economics; Aphids: A Singular Phenomenon; Field Theory: Mass (Zoe Scoglio); Sisters Grimm: Summertime in the Garden of Eden, The Sovereign Wife, Little Mercy; Dirty Pretty Theatre: The Lonely Wolf, Thérèse Raquin, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Acts of Deceit, Something Natural but Very Childish; Sydney Chamber Opera: O Mensch!; Exil; Fraught Outfit: Elektra; Melbourne Theatre Company: Happy Ending. As an installation artist she has presented work at FOLA, Underbelly Arts Festival, Brisbane Festival, Lab 14 - Carlton Connect Initiative, Newport Substation, and Blindside Gallery. Katie is currently undertaking a Master in Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Art School.

Michael Carmody (Video Designer)

Michael Carmody (www.vimeo/carmody) has designed video for productions that include Bare Witness (Mari Lourey/Nadja Kostich), I Call My Brothers (MTC), The Waiting Room (MTC), I Saw The Second One Hit (St Martins) Detroit (Red Stitch) and Chapters From The Pandemic (Angus Cerini) for which he received a Green Room nomination. His short films include Debutantes which screened at MIFF 2005 and Carpark which was a finalist at the 2000 National Student Film and Video Festival. In 2013 and 2014 he was filmmaker and video artist on the public art installations Spinning Yarns and The Locker Room, both for the City of Knox. He was also a collaborating artist with Nadja Kostich on the Monash University - Bachelor of Performing Arts: Third Year Production Raid. In 2015 his collaboration with Elissa Goodrich Dusk To Dawn: Devolving screened at the 18^th Traverse Video Festival in Toulouse, France and his short film Drowning World screened as part of La Trobe University’s Centre for Creative Arts Nature in the Dark II project.

Kate Brennan (Stage & Production Manager)

Kate Brennan is a Brisbane-based stage manager and production manager. Most recently she joined She Said Theatre as the touring stage manager for their award-winning production HART, and prior to that was venue manager for "The Black Flamingo" at Perth's Fringe World Festival. She holds a Bachelor of Performing Arts and a Masters of Arts Management. Stage management credits include: F. (Poppyseed Festival, 2016), Conviction (Darebin Speakeasy, 2016), Triumph (fortyfive downstairs, 2016), The Motion of Light in Water (La Boite, 2015), Richard II (Brisbane Festival, 2015), Virgins and Cowboys (Theatreworks, 2015), MKA's Double Feature (MTC, 2015).

Gabi Briggs (Promotional Photography)

Gabi Briggs is a Koori woman from the sovereign Anaiwan and Gumbangier peoples and has been raised on country in Armidale. NSW. She relocated to the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people where she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT. Gabi works primarily with photography but also works within different mediums such as video and performance, and is a co-editor of the Sovereign.