About the Artists and Their Work
Creative Australia Support Material
Merlynn Tong
Playwright & Actor
Merlynn Tong’s writing career began through Contemporary Asian Australian Performance’s LOTUS program, which launched the careers of writers including Michelle Law, Katrina Irawati Graham and Natesha Somasundaram.
Through the program, she wrote her first full-length, the beginning of a career that has since produced a significant body of work for the stage, celebrated nationally through major awards and nominations and now gaining growing international recognition.
Golden Blood, developed and premiered at Griffin Theatre Company with director Tessa Leong, marks an important continuation of their artistic partnership, now being carried forward through this opportunity at CAAP. The translation of Golden Blood marks a significant milestone in Tong’s career, reconnecting her practice with Asia and signalling her readiness for a global stage.
“Tong is a voice to watch”
– Arts Hub
Recent highlights
Congratulations, Get Rich! commissioned and produced by La Boite Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company (2025)
Legends (of the Golden Arches) co-written and co-directed with Joe Paradise Lui,, commissioned and produced by Performing Lines WA, MFI funded (2025)
Golden Blood commissioned and produced by Griffin Theatre Co (2022). Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (Drama), Best New Australian Work at the Sydney Theatre Awards and Outstanding New Australian Writing at the Green Room Awards (2023)
Resident Playwright La Boite Theatre Company (2022)
Resident Writer Melbourne Theatre Company (2020)
Blue Bones Six Matilda Awards including Lord Mayor’s Award for Best New Australian Work, Best Mainstage Production and Best Female Actor in a Leading Role (2018)
“Opportunities like this would be unreachable for me as an artist without the support of companies like CAAP.”
Pratha Nagpal
Associate Artist
Pratha Nagpal has been the Associate Artist at Contemporary Asian Australian Performance since 2025. Through the role she leads gatherings that bring artists and communities together around artistic practice, supporting the development of Asian Australian artists and the audiences around their work.
A writer in CAAP’s Playwrights Lab x Sydney Theatre Company in 2024, she is currently developing her new play Azadi with CAAP. As an emerging cultural leader already shaping artistic conversations in Australia, international engagement will expand the regional context for her work and strengthen the connections that will support her future leadership in the sector.
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
Azadi (Freedom) – Reading
Writer, Supper Club, National Theatre of Parramatta Heartland Festival (2025)
Shopfront Co-oP
Board Member (2024 – current); Young Leader (2023)
عورت راج औरत राज Aurat Raj (The Rule of the Woman)
Writer & Director, 25A Program, Belvoir St Theatre (2024); developed in Q Theatre Lab Residency (2023)
माँ की रसोई (Maa Ki Rasoi – My Mother’s Kitchen)
Writer & Director, TapeOver Festival, KXT Kings Cross Theatre presented by Sunderella (2023)
Kali
Writer & Director, devised cultural dance work, Festival of Emerging Artists, National Institute of Dramatic Art (2023)
माँ की रसोई (Maa Ki Rasoi – My Mother’s Kitchen)
Writer & Director, Art in the Heart of Haymarket Festival, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2022)
Master of Fine Arts (Directing)
National Institute of Dramatic Art (2022)
“To meet Asian artists globally at a meeting point like APM, to learn from their experience, to engage with other new works and to critically look at artistic practice will change the trajectory of the work that we will create in Australia.”
Jasper Lee-Lindsay
CAAP Playwright in Residence
Jasper was a writer in CAAP’s Playwrights Lab x Sydney Theatre Company in 2024, after which he was selected to continue developing his next work with the company as CAAP’s inaugural Playwright in Residence.
He is currently writing a new play, Below the Neck, with CAAP, receiving dramaturgical support as the work takes shape. As part of a new generation of Asian Australian playwrights emerging through CAAP’s programs, international engagement will connect his developing practice to wider conversations across the Asia Pacific, expanding the context for his work while strengthening the relationships and knowledge that support the future of Asian Australian theatre practice.
Recent highlights
REX
Writer & Performer. Developed and performed as part of Shopfront’s ArtsLab (2025)
Percentages
Writer. A spoken-word poem which was included in Diversity Arts Australia’s I Am Not A Virus project. (2022)
The Iceberg,
Writer. Featured in ATYP’s Intersection: Arrival. (2019)
Arthur & Marilyn
Writer. Recipient of awards from the Short + Sweet Festival in both Sydney and Los Angeles (2018)
Acting credits include Blessed Union (Belvoir), Follow Me Home (ATYP), The Heartbreak Choir (Ensemble Theatre), and Moon Rabbit Rising (Little Eggs Collective / 25A).
Training includes acting at AFTT and writing at ATYP, with creative development support from APT, National Theatre of Parramatta, and KXT bAKEHOUSE.
“As an independent artist, an opportunity like this will change the trajectory of the work I will create in Australia.”
