The Spinster and the Whippet is a Sydney based theatre collective committed to the production of new Australian work and the promotion of emerging artists.
Who we are:
Creative Directors:
Jenna Martin
Jenna Martin is an actor, writer and drama teacher. She spent three years in London studying at East 15 Acting school where she played roles as diverse as Nina in “The Seagull” and Joyce, a Texan Nymphomaniac in an adaptation of Charles Bukowski’s “Post Office”. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Theatre and Performance and only occasionally wonders how much more money she’d be making if she’d gotten further than six months into that law degree.
Jenna has performed extensively on stage and has dabbled in film and television. When not acting, she spends her time writing screenplays, teaching kids drama classes and imagining the conversations she’d have with many of her favourite actresses if ever she got to meet and work with them. Based on the way her daydreams pan out, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Judy Davis and Emma Thompson have a lot to live up to.
Jenna is currently undertaking graduate study in Media Arts and Production at UTS.
Carolyn Burns
Carolyn Burns graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MSc in Literature and Modernity in 2009. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Sydney, where she is currently a PhD candidate conducting research in adaptation and twentieth century lyric theatre. She has had two plays produced at the Sydney Fringe festival: Careers for Attractive Ladies, performed to sold out audiences at Petersham Town Hall Space One in 2010; and Mongrel (Newtown Theatre, 2011), starring Helpmann Award-winner Terry Serio.
In 2011, Carolyn was selected to take part in the Australian Theatre for Young People’s Fresh Ink writer development program, and had her monologue ‘Stick’ performed as part of The One Sure Thing in early 2012, simultaneously published by Currency Press in The Voices Project. Also in 2012 her screenplay Detroit was selected as a finalist in the Australian Film Festival’s FutureFilm Screenplay Competition.
Carolyn once accidentally winded Alan Rickman with a copy of the collected works of Arthur Miller.
Collaborators:
Alana Hicks (Director, Mongrel)
Alana has worked in theatre for the past six years, mostly as ticket seller and complaint handler, but also as writer and performer. This is Alana’s first foray into directing for the stage, having recently written and directed Boxed the Web Series, about repressed creative types working in a theatre box office, and had writing featured as part of the 2011 National Play Festival.
Anna Yates (Production Design, Careers for Attractive Ladies)
Anna graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Liberal Studies (Advanced) in 2009. Anna worked as an assistant stage director at the Newtown Theatre for Short + Sweet (2008) and has worked in the art departments of short films including ‘Family Man’ (2007), ‘Cupid’ (2008), ‘Desert Rain’ (2009), ‘Almost’ (2009), ‘Facade of Fear’ (2009) and the feature film ‘Coffee’ (2008). She is currently studying production design at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.
Brian Gray (Script Editor, Careers for Attractive Ladies)
Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts (Languages) (Hons) from the University of Sydney and a MSc in Psycholinguistics from the University of Edinburgh. Brian is a teacher, poet, intellectual, and wearer of awesome sneakers. He is currently writing a play about penguins.
