From our ancient past to the frantic now
Who are the women of the Riverina? Sit by the ancient Wollundry Lagoon with Aunty Cheryl, have a drink with Wagga Wagga licensee Selina O’Hara in the 1870s, grab a bargain at Best and Less with refugee Roz, dance with Immi’s high school ghosts in Tarcutta Memorial Hall, and remember to bottle your fruit during the war for the national larder.
Gathered from stories written by women across the region, this powerful new work celebrates heartfelt moments, connection, beauty and comedy. Through stories, dance and original music, the show takes the audience in a leap from ancient times, through the war years, to the frantic now, against a moving backdrop of the mighty Murrumbidgee River.
Photographs: Karen Watson
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Women of the Riverina is a powerful collaborative script of 10 stories, with enigmatic music by Australian composer Elizabeth Jigalin.
It was written for solo actors and movement artists. The script was developed from a series of storytelling workshops, readings and live shows on Wiradjuri Country. It has been written in collaboration with groups and women from diverse communities.
YOUR FLIGHT IS NOT DISEMBARKING by Aunty Cheryl Penrith
WOLLUNDRY LAGOON I by Aunty Cheryl Penrith, Claudia Haines, Melanie Reeves
THE GHOSTS OF TARCUTTA MEMORIAL HALL by Imogen Rubi
BEST AND LESS by Roz Hasan
I NEVER WORRY ABOUT FALLING by Arvis Casanova
BOTTLING FRUIT and QUEEN BEE by Lliane Clarke, from The Agricultural Gazette of NSW, April 1944.
SELINA by Lliane Clarke, from HerStory, Museum of the Riverina
WALKING THE TIGHTROPE by Marie Clear
DEAREST MA by Haya Arzidin
I AM A RIVER by Gabrielle Tozer
WOLLUNDRY LAGOON II by Aunty Cheryl Penrith, Claudia Haines, Melanie Reeves
Credits
Presented by Voices of Women with:
Tumut Montreal Community Theatre at the Falling Leaf Festival, Sun 3 May
Junee Atheneum Theatre, Weds 6 May
The Pumphouse, Albury, Fri 8 May.
Director: Lliane Clarke
Devised by Lliane Clarke, Written by Aunty Cheryl Penrith, Arvis Casanova, Claudia Haines, Gabrielle Tozer, Haya Arzidin, Imogen Rubi, Jody Roberts, Lliane Clarke, Marie Clear, Melanie Reeves, Roz Hasan.
Performers: Aunty Cheryl Penrith, Amelia Harding, Haya Arzidin, Sandra Collins, Katie Simpson.
Composer and Sound Design: Elizabeth Jigalin
Wollundry Choreography: Ella Havelka
Movement Direction: Lana Filies, Lliane Clarke
Lighting Designer and Stage Manager: Rey Baird
Sponsored by: Create NSW Regional Touring Program, Albury City Council, Junee Council, The Carla Zampatti Foundation.
ABOUT THE CAST
Cultural Advisor, Co-Writer, Performer: Aunty Cheryl Penrith OAM is a Wiradjuri Elder, mentor and performer with a passion for fashion. Her focus is community development and capacity building, business and strategic planning, cultural empowerment, community health and wellbeing, involvement in decision making and the revival and reinvigoration of cultural practices such as language, possum skin cloak making workshops and women’s cultural business. Cheryl appeared in the Voices of Women feature film Entanglement, was a writer and performer in Amplify in 2022 and writer, performer in Embellishment at KXT Broadway in 2023 and co-writer for Women of the Riverina. As co-writer she won the 2026 AWGIE (Australian Writers Guild) Award for Community Theatre for ‘Women of the Riverina‘.
Director and Co-Writer: Lliane Clarke is the Artistic Director of Voices of Women which she founded in 2018, and a writer, producer, director, and author mentor. With a passion for diversity in written and spoken stories, she has directed community-based storymaking workshops across regional and metropolitan NSW and internationally and has devised collaborative community-based productions for live performance and film. She directed CLEARWAY (CORONA) in 2020, co-directed ‘Entanglement‘ feature film in 2021, which won the London Story Prize and several international film awards, and directed the award-winning short films Our Mob, Invisibility, The Dress and Sun in My Bones. She directed ‘Amplify‘ in 2022, ‘Entanglement Live‘ in 2023, ‘Embellishment‘ in 2023 at KXT Broadway Sydney, and ‘Women of the Riverina‘ at KXT Broadway and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery in 2024.
She won the Arts and Culture Medal NSW for ‘Entanglement‘ and as co-writer won the 2026 AWGIE Award for Community Theatre for ‘Women of the Riverina‘. She is a judge on the highly prestigious Nib Moran Literary Prize. She is a Member of Institute of Community Directors Australia (ICDA), Compact Alliance Multicultural NSW, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and National Council of Women of New South Wales.
Composer and Sound Designer: Elizabeth Jigalin’s music has been premiered at festivals around the world including Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Extended Play, Darmstadt, BIFEM, Rouse Hills Psychedelia, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Women of Noise and Australia’s Silent Film Festival. She is Composer-in-Residence for Voices of Women, including composing the film score for the award-winning Entanglement film, and in the Moorambilla Voices program in 2023 and 2024. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Sydney Youth Orchestras, Bundanon Trust, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Bondi Pavillion. Previously, her music and ideas have been brought to life by a variety of performers and commissioners including Biennale of Sydney, Inner West Voices, Vanessa Tomlinson, Will Hansen, Jane Aubourg, Ensemble Offspring, Soundstream, Screen Dive, Lost in Books and FBI’s All the Best.
Elizabeth is the founder of creative music collective the music box project who were awarded Excellence for Experimental Music at the 2020 APRA AMCOS/AMC Art Music Awards for shallow listening. Elizabeth was the co-festival director of the music box project’s inaugural festival CUT PASTE PLAY – featuring over 25 artists from across Australia and abroad. She is the recipient of several awards including 2023 APRA/AMCOS Art Music Fund, Ars Musica Australis Scholarship, AAO Mentorship, 1st Prize Centenary of Canberra Composition Competition and 1st Prize Unbound Flute Festival competition. In 2022, Elizabeth was a finalist in the APRA Professional Development awards.
Lighting Designer and Stage Manager: Rey Baird is a Wagga Wagga-based designer and has a strong arts and design background, with a Bachelor Degree in Design for Stage and Screen at Charles Sturt University and Costume Design at AFTRS. They are a freelance designer for Reyconstructs, and have been Production Designer for the short films: “INSENTIENT” Directed by Brooke Joyner and Jordan Johnston “RUN” Directed by Brooke Joyner and Geraldine Cutler “Bookclub” Directed by Nathan Morris and Annie Cartwright “Our Dad” Directed by Nathan Morris and Keeden Hendriks and “A Singular Wave” Directed by Nathan Morris. Rey was the lighting designer for “Women of the Riverina” at KXT on Broadway and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery.
Video Artist: Noni Carroll grew up on a farm near Wagga Wagga and is a Sydney based photographer specialising in theatre, portraiture, landscape artworks and documentary photography and videography. She has photographed Voices of Women productions since 2019. A finalist in the 2018, 2020 & SEMI FINALIST 2021 HEAD ON Landscape photographic prize, semi-finalist in the 2014 and 2015 Moran Photographic Prize, Noni was runner up in the 2015 Art Gallery of NSW Instagram Australian Landscape competition. Since 2012 she has been photographic and video artist for Moorambilla Voices as well as mentoring regional youth across the 17 communities involved with Moorambilla in western NSW. She has photographed major theatrical productions and independent theatre and music concerts in Sydney and regional NSW. She relishes the opportunity to be able to capture Australia’s beautiful, diverse landscapes and people – showcasing them to a broader audience.
Performers
Amelia Harding graduated from the University of Wollongong with a Bachelor in Performance and Theatre (Acting Intensive) and studied screen acting with Screenwise. She has performed in both scripted and devised pieces including Blind Naive Faith, The Golden Turtle, Scorched and Chekhov In Hell. In 2022 Amelia was a participant of the New Columbo Plan short course in Vietnam where she studied alongside students at the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema. Amelia’s recent credits include Kate Gaul’s modern adaptation of A Flea in Her Ear and Shopfront and Milk Crate Theatre’s Hello, Are You Still There? Amelia is very proud of her First Nations cultural background and her Wiradjuri grandmother. Amelia was a performer in “Women of the Riverina” at KXT on Broadway and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery.
Haya Arzidin is a writer and performer, appearing in TOME, a fully improvised show with four actors which toured to Brisbane in 2021. Working closely with the refugee community in Wagga Wagga, she co-developed Sharing Stories Sharing Place at the Wagga Civic Theatre in 2021. Haya was a writer and performer in Voices of Women’s Embellishment on tour to Wagga Wagga and Dubbo in 2023, writer and performer in Women of the Riverina in 2024, and has facilitated Voices of Women storymaking workshops in Dubbo and Wagga Wagga and Albury. Haya was a performer in “Women of the Riverina” at KXT on Broadway and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery.
Sandra Collins is an Albury/Wodonga based Wiradjuri/Celtic woman with a multi-disciplinary approach to creating. She draws on a background of many decades in Community Arts, Education and Wellbeing. Her longtime passion is Story and how it shapes us. She has over 30 years experience with Playback Theatre (improvisational and personal story based community theatre) in Melbourne and Brisbane and on stage experience with acting, percussive music and conducting. She created the 2024 Borders Collective Mildura & Swan Hill ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’, a self devised, choreographed piece around identity and was a collaborator and performer with PonyCam’s ‘Anything you can do’ at HotHouse Theatre in 2025.
Katie Simpson is based in Albury, and began full-time vocational dance training at 15 under Tim Podesta, studying classical ballet, contemporary dance, and partnering, with a strong focus on performance and creative practice. She was selected for the Arts NSW Horizons Program, collaborating with leading artists who shaped her development as both a dancer and emerging choreographer. Her choreographic debut, ANSA, premiered at Southbank Theatre in Melbourne as part of ECHOES IN EIGHT, featuring Mara Galeazzi. Katie was later handpicked alongside professional contemporary dancers from across the country to perform in FORTE, choreographed by Tim Podesta, where she also contributed to the restaging and development of the work, leading to a co-director role with Tim Podesta Creative.
Building on her artistic and leadership experience, Katie founded Modern Body, an independent dance company dedicated to creativity, collaboration, inclusivity, and self-
expression. As a regional female leader, she is passionate about nurturing authentic artistic voices.
HOW THE SCRIPT WAS BUILT
Women of the Riverina is a collaborative script written by artists, writers and performers in the Riverina, derived from mentorships, workshops and callouts. It developed from a series of storytelling workshops, readings and live shows on Wiradjuri Country across the region in rural halls and in Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. Through that process we encouraged women to develop confidence in writing, developing short monologues and investigating performance techniques. We collaborated with diverse groups and individual women from all communities. Listening, talking, learning, creating, recording, writing … incredible storytelling and making! We are blessed to work alongside Aunty Cheryl Penrith as our cultural guide.
| ABOUT THE WRITERS Aunty Cheryl Penrith OAM is a Wiradjuri Elder, mentor and performer with a passion for fashion. Her focus is community development and capacity building, business and strategic planning, cultural empowerment, community health and wellbeing, involvement in decision making and the revival and reinvigoration of cultural practices such as language, possum skin cloak making workshops and women’s cultural business. Cheryl appeared in the Voices of Women feature film Entanglement, was a writer and performer in Amplify in 2022 and in Embellishment at KXT Broadway in 2023 and Women of the Riverina in 2024 and 2025. Arvis Casanova is a non binary 18 year old writer from Wagga Wagga. Growing up in Wiradjuri county at The Rock, they were fairly isolated, and as a result spent their free time climbing trees, exploring dirt roads and the local creek, which were some of the few places that felt safe. Arvis attended the song makers workshop in January 2024, collaborating with other young local artists to create songs with a variety of topics and styles. They performed at Great Southern Nights, showing original songs played on their guitar. Claudia Haines is a proud Gamilaroi woman from Moree living on Wiradjuri Country. “I enjoy fishing, camping, painting, weaving and spending time with my family. I am a Disability Support Worker and I love helping people with their goals and ambitions. I am kind, gracious, caring, resilient, respectful and funny. I love the opportunity to paint or weave when I’m not busy with work. When I go out camping and fishing, I always acknowledge the Country I’m on and connect to Country.” Gabrielle Tozer is an award-winning author, freelance writer and editor based in Wagga Wagga in regional New South Wales. She is the author of eight books, including The Unexpected Mess of it All, Before We Met, Can’t Say It Went to Plan, Remind Me How This Ends and The Intern, which won the 2015 State Library of Victoria’s Gold Inky Award. Her work has been featured in anthologies including Teacher, Teacher (edited by Megan Daley) and Begin, End, Begin (edited by Danielle Binks). She has appeared at numerous literary events, including the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Somerset Festival of Literature, StoryFest Out West, Riverina Readers Festival and the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s national conference. Haya Arzidin is a writer and performer, appearing in TOME, a fully improvised show with four actors which toured to Brisbane in 2021. Working closely with the refugee community in Wagga Wagga, she co-developed Sharing Stories Sharing Place at the Wagga Civic Theatre in 2021. Haya was a writer and performer in Embellishment on tour to Wagga Wagga and Dubbo in 2023, and Women of the Riverina in 2024 and 2025. Imogen Rubi is a performer and writer who was born and raised in Wagga Wagga. She has written for the stage, touching on gender and the fluidity of identity, with her debut short play ‘The Study of Rueben March’ in the 2024 Tenx10 Play Festival. Jody Roberts is a Widjabul woman of the Bundjalung nation who draws inspiration from her Ancestors, Mother Earth, Father Sky, and the vast realms of the natural and cosmic worlds. Through her writing, Jody aims to foster a deeper understanding of humanity’s relationship with the natural and cosmic realms, celebrating the profound beauty and complexity of existence. Marie Clear is a Wiradjuri woman who lives, loves and writes poetry, prose and short stories in Wagga Wagga. She is a mother, grandmother and foster mum. Marie has been commended in the Sutherland Shire Literary Competition (2020), published in, The Fabian journal (2022) and the Mona magazine (2022) Booranga Anthology Four W 29,(2019) Booranga Anthology Four W 30, (2020) Booranga Anthology Four W 31, (2021) Booranga Anthology Four W 32, (2022) and Finding My Feet (Melbourne Poets Union’s Anthology 2024). Melanie Reeves is a proud Wiradjuri woman who is a catalyst for positive change in the Murrumbidgee health landscape with over ten years’ experience in strategic planning and management. She is passionate about advancing patient centred care in regional and remote communities. Roz Hasan came to Wagga Wagga in November 2016 as a refugee, and has embraced the opportunities available in this welcoming community. A student of Wagga Wagga High School, she is inspired by the transformative power of education and the supportive environment of the community. As co-writers of the script, these writers won the 2026 AWGIE (Australian Writers Guild) Award for Community Theatre for ‘Women of the Riverina‘. |