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Class of 1979


Teresa Crea
Teresa is a consultant with extensive background as a researcher, writer, and director across diverse industry platforms. She combines her extensive industry linkages and knowledge of the media, simulation and entertainments sectors, with a range of award winning credits as a writer/director in theatre, radio, film, immersive media and serious game. Her focus is on developing engaging, immersive, user experiences and compelling narrative design, both for entertainment and education sectors. This involves a "bottom up" approach, which starts with the user experience, and leads back to the story and learning outcomes. She has received several awards, including a New Media Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. As part of this Fellowship she worked with the SA Film Corporation on Digital Media Strategy and the Australian Centre for Moving Image. She has also lectured for the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Centre, working with cross-disciplinary teams training in narrative and visual story.
   

Susan Mitchell
  Susan has a BA from Adelaide University, an MA in Drama and Film from Flinders University and has just completed a PhD in Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney. She is a former senior lecturer in Communications and Creative Writing at The University of South Australia. She is an Emeritus Professor at Flinders University where was recently a Writer-in-Residence and gave the prestigious Elford Lecture on 'The Essential Australian Voice'. Susan is an accomplished radio broadcaster, having presented the morning program on the ABC in Adelaide (where she won The Better Hearing Award for clear speech) and the morning program in Brisbane, the early evening and the midnight to dawn program on 2GB in Sydney and the morning program with Maggie Tabberer on 2UE in Sydney. She was the first television critic on television in Australia on the ABC's Program Today at One and has hosted her own series of interview programs including Tall Poppies and In Conversation with Susan Mitchell on the ABC and Vote 1 for Women on Foxtel. She has also been a cocktail waitress at the Hindhead Country Club in Surrey and a film extra in Crocodile Dundee. As a journalist she has had a regular column in the Opinion section of The Australian dealing with political and social issues. She is also well known for her robust sense of humour and had a regular humour column in TheWry Side in The Australian. She has written feature articles in major newspapers and magazines in Australia and the USA. She has been a Director on the Literature Board of The Australia Council, on the Board of Film Australia and the Board of The South Australian Tourism Commission.
 

John Saunders
  John is a theatre director, actor and writer and has worked in professional stage, film and television industries for over twenty years. He began his career as a Company Actor with the State Theatre Company of South Australia and then later the Q Theatre in Sydney where he acted in numerous classical and contemporary plays. John also performed in and toured nationally with the original Australian musical theatre productions of Barnum and the Little Shop Of Horrors. John Saunders has been the Artistic Director of three theatre companies Acting Out (now Barking Gecko W.A.), the Western Australian Theatre Company and the Riverina Theatre Company. During that time he directed over fifty productions of classical and contemporary dramas and comedies, new Australian works, cabaret, musicals and large-scale community events. John is the director of The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare Abridged, which is performed frequently throughout Australia and Asia. In recent years John has performed in productions of Diving For Pearls, Hamlet , Wall-Flowering and three one-man shows, The Christian Brothers, Such Is Life and Mars: Planet Of Desire (a Black Swan/ Theatre West Co-Production). John directed the Australian swing musical Jive Junkys, which extensively toured Australia and featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2000. John Saunders has directed two productions of Wendy Harmer's Pearlie in The Park (2005 & 2007), The Fairy's Wings (Gillian Rubenstein 2003), and The Bugalugs Bum Thief (Tim Winton 2004) for Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People. Currently undertaking a national touring is another Monkey Baa production he has directed of Stephen Michael King's Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat , which completes its tour in November at the Victorian Arts Centre. John was the inaugural Head of Performance Studies at N.I.C.A. (the National Institute of Circus Arts) where he directed My Secret Circus, Inferno, and the graduating students 2006 and 2007 Showcases. John has recently returned to Wagga Wagga to take up a position at Charles Sturt University's School of Visual and Performing Arts, lecturing the BA degree in Acting for Screen and Stage.