HAVEN: HOME TO BILO

Writer & Co-Creator - Katherine Lyall-Watson
Director & Co-Creator - Caroline Dunphy
Originator & Co-Creator - Matt Scholten
Dramaturg - Kathryn Kelly
Composer & Sound Designer - Guy Webster
Set & Lighting Designer - Govin Ruben
Video Designer - Mic Gruchy
Costume & Prop Designer - Keerthi Subramanyam
Tamil Cultural Advisor & Translator - Saivashini Jayakumar
Associate Producer - Emily Coleman

HAVEN – Home to Bilo is a verbatim play about the imprisonment and detention of a small family from Sri Lanka and the grassroots community effort to bring them home to the regional Queensland town of Biloela. The play has the full support of the Nadesalingam family and the Biloela community and has been constructed using hundreds of hours of interviews.

“Matt Scholten has been working for over two and a half years on a theatre project that tells the true story of my family and my home community of Biloela. Matt has the permission and support of my family and the people of Biloela who have supported us and helped us receive permanent visas to remain in Australia. I have fully supported Matt and Katherine’s work so far and hope that they will be able to keep working on the project Haven and wish them every success.”  - Priya Nadesalingam

Priya and Nades met and married in Australia after separately fleeing Sri Lanka and seeking asylum in Australia (Nades in 2012 and Priya in 2013). They married in 2014 and moved to Biloela and had two daughters there. The family came to national attention when Australian Border Force officers raided their home at 5am in March 2018 and gave them ten minutes to pack before taking them into custody.

For the next four years the family was in detention, first in Melbourne and then on Christmas Island. Senate estimates in October 2019 revealed that the Australian government had spent approximately $30 million reopening Christmas Island Detention Centre and filling it with more than 100 staff, while the only detainees were the four members of the Nadesalingam family.

Members of the Biloela community and advocates fought alongside Priya and Nades for over four years to bring them home to Bilo, where they belonged. Finally, in June 2022, with a change of government, the family was allowed to return to Biloela and given permanent residency.

The intense media coverage of the Biloela family and the community’s battle to bring them home has reached households throughout Australia as well as internationally. HAVEN gives audiences a chance to experience a complex real life story straight from the headlines and transported with care and respect onto our stages. It is a potent reminder that communities can come together and help each other, just as the Biloela community did.

regional development 2023

The rehearsed reading of the first draft of ‘HAVEN: HOME TO BILO’ took place at the Biloela ANZAC Memorial Club on the 20th of July, 2023, for an invited audience of Home to Bilo campaigners and the Nadesalingam family. This was followed by an excerpt of the play shared at the Flourish Festival in Gladstone on the 22nd of July, 2023.

The cast for this development were Stephen Geronimos, Zoe Houghton, Monica Kumar, Steven Rooke, Hsiao-Ling Tang & Jessica Veurman.

Dramaturg: Kathryn Kelly; Video Artist: Shaun Charles

Photo Credits: Shaun Charles, Caroline Dunphy, Matt Scholten & Chelsea August.

Creative development 2022

Brisbane City Council's Creative Sparks program funded a creative development of Haven in 2022. We were thrilled to have Simone Cameron from the Home to Bilo campaign team join us in the development room and to have Priya Nadesalingam and Bronwyn Dendle join us via Zoom. The cast for the 2022 creative development were Kerith Atkinson, Barbara Lowing, Michael Mandalios, Steven Rooke & Jessica Veurman.

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 2024 regional development and showing of HAVEN: HOME TO BILO is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

The 2023 trip to Biloela and Gladstone to share HAVEN: HOME TO BILO was made possible thanks to a Festivals Australia Grant from the Australian Government.

The 2022 development was supported by Brisbane City Council’s Creative Sparks program, a partnership between the Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council to support local arts and culture in Brisbane.

In 2022, Katherine and Matt were also supported by the Australian Plays Transform Duologue Program.