NICKY PEELGRANE is a mother, writer, actor, director and Drama educator who is drawn to a wide variety of storytelling projects. She has written and directed plays, including Whatever Gets You Through the Night, Prospero’s Dukedom, Ghosts of Down Under (with Kellie Lazarus), which toured Queensland, as well as a suite of plays written for primary school students, which will be published in 2025 by Playlab. As Drama educator, she co-authored Commedia Oz with Steve Gration (2008) by Currency Press. She has also written chapters in Drama Queensland’s book, Dramatic Encounters in 2020, and Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century (2022), by Routledge. Nicky also writes prose. She has been shortlisted for the Glendower Award at the Queensland Literary Awards and has had stories published in literary anthologies, including: the Furphy Literary Award, the Sydney Hammond Memorial Prize, Bjelke Blues, Our Inside Voices and has won a Creative Writing Fellowship through University of Queensland.

STEVEN GRATION is an actor, theatre director, author, playwright, teacher, researcher and community activist. He has a B.Ed. - Drama/Media Studies/Music (Melbourne 1980) and a PhD (Griffith 2011), examining The Praxis of the Solo Performer (2011). Steve was Artistic Director of Corrugated Iron Youth Theatre, Darwin (1989–1990) and Magpie Theatre - State Theatre SA (1991–1993). He received a Victorian Green Room - Best Director nomination for his Magpie production of Roger Bennett and Paul Kelly’s Funerals and Circuses (Currency Press 1994). This production enjoyed sell-out seasons at the Adelaide Festival (1992); Melbourne International Festival (1993) and Australian Theatre Festival, Canberra (1993). His children’s play Chutney (Playlab Press 2001) has been performed throughout Australia and international festivals in Singapore and Japan. Steven is co-author of Commedia Oz—Playing Commedia in Contemporary Australia with Nicky Peelgrane (Currency Press 2008). As the creative outcome of his PhD research, Steven wrote and performed his one-person play, Fairweather Island, at festivals and venues in Melbourne, Darwin, South-East Queensland and South Australia. His short-story, The Cabins, won the IA national writing award for “Most Enthralling Creative Work” (2023). In 2025, Steven published a full-length version, The Cabins—Keith Kelly’s Unforgettable Holiday (Solo Performance Press).