Image courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company
My theatre credits run the gamut from Pinter to Puccini, with a healthy dose of Sondheim and new Australian work in the mix. Feature film credits include Wil, Knowing, My Year Without Sex and The Last Ride and television highlights are Rush, Very Small Business, East West 101, Lowdown, It's A Date, Legally Brown, Five Bedrooms and Riptide.
In recent years, alongside my work at Watch This, I’ve toured around the world with Polyglot/ Papermoon Puppet Theatre's Helpmann and GRA-nominated Cerita Anak and premiered the following new works: We Get It (MTC Neon & Brisbane Powerhouse); Melbourne Talam (MTC, GRA nomination - Best Ensemble), Contest (Emilie Collyer, Darebin Arts Speakeasy), Whale (Fleur Kilpatrick, Darebin Arts Speakeasy) and Hearth (Fleur Murphy, La Mama).
Last year, in collaboration with Essential Theatre and Arts Centre Melbourne/ Canberra Theatre Centre, I produced and performed in the Australian premiere of Emilia by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, directed by Petra Kalive.
Testimonials.
"Sonya has an intuitive sense as a performer about how work functions and is able to sensitively contribute to conversations in a workshop and rehearsal environment. She is clearly able to articulate what her experience is from in ‘the inside’ and how that might be perceived from the outside. She is not afraid to ask the difficult questions. I strongly believe that we do not have enough dramaturgical perspectives which are non Anglo- centric. It is imperative that if we are moving toward a theatre culture which more honestly reflects the world in which we live, we embrace and support new and different perspectives on work – people who ask different questions, because their cultural, economic and social backgrounds are informed by a different context."
Petra Kalive | Melbourne Theatre Company
"Elbow Room were fortunate, as a company and as individuals, to work with Sonya in 2015 on We Get It, produced through the MTC NEON Festival of Independent Theatre. We’d approached Sonya six months previously, based sheerly on her reputation as a producer, creator and performer; her work on the production, which drew heavily upon the experience of the participants, was exemplary, both in the development phase and the performance itself. … Moreover, though, and more crucially than ever, Sonya is in the difficult but vital position of a person already able to bring their personal and cultural experiences to bear so to assist and amplify other voices, who are and have been fighting similar battles within contemporary Australian culture."
Marcel Dorney, Co-Artistic Director | Elbow Room
"I’ve worked across Australia and internationally in Europe, Asia and America in a variety of contexts. Sonya is a unicorn. She is rigorous, yet empathetic; she is not afraid to pose difficult questions or complex provocations, and still approaches work with humour and humility."
Katrina Cornwell | Whale