The 7 Stages of Grieving

Deborah Mailman

An accomplished actor today, Deborah Mailman was more likely to be found around rodeos when she was growing up in Mt Isa watching her father, a rodeo champion. It was only in high school that she discovered acting to be a great way for her to express herself. Fortuitously, Mailman chose drama to avoid a business subject and began her love affair with acting. She moved from Mt Isa to Brisbane to study drama at university and graduated in 1992.

Mailman has worked on numerous theatre productions as an actor, co-director and co-writer. She has appeared on television as a presenter and as an actress in the series The Secret Life of Us. Her film credits include The Monkey’s Mask, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, Radiance, Dear Claudia, and The Third Note. She co-wrote The 7 Stages of Grieving in 1996, and in 2012 won the female actor of the year at the Deadly Awards, being inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame. In 2017, Deborah Mailman was the recipient of the Order of Australia for service in performing arts.

Enoch Wesley

Enoch Wesley is the current Artistic Director at the Queensland Theatre Company and a well known writer and director. Among his notable works are I Am Eora, The 7 Stages of Grieving (co-written with Deborah Mailman), Little White Dress, A Life of Grace and Piety, Black Medea, The Sunshine Club, Grace and The Story of the Miracle at Cookie’s Table for which he won the 2005 Patrick White Playwright’s Award, being short listed for both the New South Wales and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.

Wesley became Associate Artist for Queensland Theatre Company in 1998, the Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company in 2000 and the Resident Director at Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative in 2003. He also directed the Indigenous section of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony in 2006. Wesley worked with Tom Wright in the development of a play about Indigenous soldiers of World War I, Black Diggers, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2014.

The Longest Memory

Fred D’Aguiar

Fred D-Aguiar is an author and poet who was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents. He lived in Guyana until aged 12 and returned to England in 1972 where he trained as a psychiatric nurse before reading African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. An avid writer, he started with poetry then turned his hand to novels. He also wrote plays which were performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London and broadcasted on BBC Radio. He continues to write and currently teaches at Miami University in Florida, USA.