The Rehearsal Room:
Design of Life
Open Table Reads & Creative Lab Series. Three evenings inside the earliest, most formative moments of theatre-making.
You've seen the show.
But have you ever seen
how it's made?
The Rehearsal Room is your backstage pass to the rawest, most electric stage of theatre-making. Over three evenings at Arts Centre Melbourne, watch professional directors, actors and dramaturgs develop brand new plays live in front of you. Culture or costume? Instinct or instruction? Who gets to decide how a character sounds, moves and loves? You'll leave knowing the answers and seeing theatre completely differently.
Whether you're a curious first-timer, a theatre lover, or a working professional in the arts, this is a rare opportunity to deepen your understanding of storytelling by people of African descent, character development, and what it truly means to build a world on stage.
And it goes deeper than the craft. Each session pulls back the curtain on the economics of theatre-making where discussions will take place about the real costs, the invisible labour, and the money stories that rarely get told in public. Who funds a production? What does an actor actually earn? What are the financial and personal costs of bringing a story like this to a major stage? But here's the twist, you don't just get to watch. Audiences who attend all three sessions vote on which play will be developed into a full production. Your presence shapes what gets made next.
This program is also about what comes after the room closes. By opening the process to emerging creatives, teachers, and new audiences, The Rehearsal Room builds something the sector needs: stronger representation, deeper cultural humility, and a pathway for stories by people of African descent to be made with the care and skill they deserve. Grab your seat before the room fills up.
Open Call
for Scripts
We are seeking one-hour plays that explore financial literacy, money, wealth, economic survival, or the relationship between culture and financial life.
A limited number of scripts will be selected.
Emerging and established writers are both welcome. The most important thing is the story.
Scripts do not need to be complete. A strong synopsis and clear vision is what we are assessing.
Audience members who attend all three sessions then vote on which play moves into full production.
By submitting your application for the open call you agree to our Terms & Conditions.
Attend one evening
or all three.
2026
Every play begins at a table. This first evening places you inside that moment. Script A is read aloud for the first time and opened up to the room. Professional actors work with Director Effie Nkrumah and Dramaturg Bernadette Fam through a script by a playwright of African descent. You'll watch the team break down the text, question the shape of it, and look at the cultural logic that holds the story together.
- Live table read of shortlisted script A
- Dramaturgical analysis & discussion
- African vs Western character frameworks
- Script assessment process demystified
- Q&A with the creative team
2026
The second script enters the room. Script B is read aloud for the first time, and brought into conversation with everyone present in the room. Same structure, different world. Another voice, another story, another way of seeing. By the end of this evening you've held another script inside your body, questioned, looked at cultural logic once again. The question of which story carries you further begins here.
- Live table read of shortlisted script B
- Dramaturgical analysis & discussion
- African vs Western character frameworks
- Script assessment process demystified
- Q&A with the creative team
2026
The final evening holds both worlds in the same room. Excerpts from Scripts A and B are presented side by side. The room has done its work and tonight you see it take shape. Selected scenes are staged and shared in a work-in-progress showing. Then we open the conversation that theatre rarely has in public: The Money Stories of Theatre. A frank, unfiltered panel discussion with the creative team and host Fabrice Omankoy (Black Wealth Connect) about the real economics of making art.
- Work-in-progress scene showing from Scripts A & B
- Panel: The Money Stories of Theatre
- Q&A with the creative team
- Audience members vote on the final script
The full process tells the whole story. Each session builds on the last, from table to room to stage.
Register
Your Place
Attend one evening for $29, or invest in all three sessions for $75 and follow the story from first word to staged scene.
Audience members who attend all three sessions vote on which play will be developed into a full production.
Your presence shapes what gets made next.
Arts Centre Melbourne
Presented by Next In Colour and Effie Nkrumah in association with Black Wealth Connect and Arts Centre Melbourne's PLAY Creative Learning Program.
The People
In The Room
Effie Nkrumah is a multi-hyphenate creative and cultural leader of Ghanaian descent from Western Sydney. Effie holds an MA in Arts Politics from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she developed an interdisciplinary practice, relying on memory and the archive. Driven by the concept of challenging the single story of Africa through diasporan stories, Effie creates content that is entertaining, aesthetically pleasing and discussion prompting. Effie is the director of ILARUN (fortyfivedownstairs), AKARAKA (Empty Seat Theatre) and WHO KNO NO GO KNO (Malthouse Theatre), and currently Resident Director of Broadway's MJ THE MUSICAL (Michael Cassel Group).
Geskeva is a trans-disciplinary creative of Comorian and Tanzanian heritage raised in the Western suburbs of Melbourne. She is a graduate of the VCA Master of Producing (Film and Television) and the co-founder/creative producer at Next In Colour. Geskeva has over more than a decade of experience in theatre, film, spoken word and music and has worked across the screen industry, government and community arts settings. Geskeva’s work includes BLVCK GOLD (Pan African Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, Montreal Black Film Festival, Flickerfest), AMKA (Arts Centre Melbourne), ZAMUNDA (Metanoia Theatre), and BLACK FACE WHITE MASK (Malthouse Theatre).
Bernadette is an Indigenous Egyptian (Coptic/Nubian)/Australian interdisciplinary dramaturg, director & theatre maker working across Melbourne and Sydney. She centres on developing new work, with a focus on culturally grounded storytelling, non-Western dramaturgical structures & ethical collaboration. She works with artists across disciplines to translate lived experience, cultural memory & non-Western traditions, pushing the bounds of contemporary theatrical form. Her work goes beyond text-based dramaturgy, engaging language, sound, movement, music, design, rhythm & space as storytelling agents. She’s interested in how stories are held communally, functioning as living archives rather than fixed scripts, migration, displacement, ancestry & inherited memory. From 2022–2024 she was New Work Manager at Malthouse. She has been Literary Associate at Belvoir, Creative Producer at Critical Stages Touring & resident artist at PYT Fairfield & Griffin Studio. She has led developments for STC, MTC, Belvoir, NToP, Critical Stages, Griffin, Malthouse, PWA, Western Edge, PYT, Sydney Chamber Opera, Poetry in Action & innumerable independent artists. She has assessed for ArtsHouse Culture Lab, Patrick White Award & Griffin Award & was a Create NSW Young Creative Leader.
Fabrice is the founder of Black Wealth Connect and host of the Black Wealth Connect Podcast. He is a financial literacy advocate, community storyteller, and live event curator. Over the last three years Fabrice has produced and hosted the Black Wealth Connect Summit, facilitated workshops in collaboration with a variety of organisations across community, government and the private sector. He has also built a podcast platform exploring wealth, mindset, entrepreneurship and community impact across the African diaspora.
THE REHEARSAL ROOM: DESIGN OF LIFE IS PRESENTED BY NEXT IN COLOUR AND EFFIE NKRUMAH IN ASSOCIATION WITH BLACK WEALTH CONNECT AND ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE’S PLAY CREATIVE LEARNING PROGRAM.