Deborah Jane Mailman is an Australian television and film actress, and singer. Mailman is known for her characters: Kelly Lewis on the Australian drama series The Secret Life of Us, Cherie Butterfield in the Australian comedy-drama series Offspring, Lorraine in the Australian drama series Redfern Now and Aunt Linda in the Australian dystopian science fiction series Cleverman. Mailman is currently portraying the lead role of Alexandra "Alex" Irving on the Australian political drama series Total Control.
Gary Edward Foley is an Aboriginal Australian activist of the Gumbaynggirr people, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s. He also co-wrote and acted in the first Indigenous Australian stage production, Basically Black.
Robert Tudawali, also known as Bobby Wilson and Bob Wilson, was an Australian actor and Indigenous activist. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film Jedda, which made him the first Indigenous Australian film star, and also his position as Vice-President of the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights.
Peter Fisher is an Australian film and television actor who was most active in the period from the mid-1970s to the late-1990s. In the early 1990s he started to move into the area of corporate communications. In 1995 he created "Act One!" in Sydney, a company that specialises in corporate training and development. In the early 2000s he became involved with The University of New South Wales' Australian Graduate School of Management, particularly the Middle Manager Program.
Richard Barry Walley is a Nyungar man and an Aboriginal Australian performer, musician and writer, who has been a campaigner for the Indigenous cause. Walley is also a visual artist.
National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the six-day-a-week NITV News Update, with programming including other news and current affairs programmes, sports coverage, entertainment for children and adults, films and documentaries covering a range of topics. Its primary audience is Indigenous Australians, but many non-Indigenous people tune in to learn more about the history of and issues affecting the country's First Nations peoples.
David Ngoombujarra was an Indigenous Australian actor of the Yamatji people. Born David Bernard Starr in Meekatharra, Western Australia, his acting career spanned over two decades from the 1980s to 2010; he won three Australian Film Institute Awards. On 17 July 2011 he was found in a park in Fremantle, and taken to Fremantle Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The National Black Theatre (NBT) was a theatre company run by a small group of Aboriginal people based in the Sydney suburb of Redfern which operated from 1972 to 1977. The original concept for the theatre grew out of political struggles, especially the land rights demonstrations, which at the time were being organised by the Black Moratorium Committee. The centre held workshops in modern dancing, tribal dancing, writing for theatre, karate and photography, and provided a venue for new Aboriginal drama. It also ran drama classes under Brian Syron, whose students included Jack Davis, Freddie Reynolds, Maureen Watson, Lillian Crombie, and Hyllus Maris.
Brian Gregory Syron was an actor, teacher, Aboriginal rights activist, stage director and Australia's first Indigenous feature film director, who has also been recognised as the first First Nations feature film director. After studying in New York City under Stella Adler, he returned to Australia and was a co-founder of the Australian National Playwrights Conference, the Eora Centre, the National Black Playwrights Conference, and the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust. He worked on several television productions and was appointed head of the ABC's new Aboriginal unit in 1988.
Bran Nue Dae is a 1990 musical set in Broome, Western Australia, that tells stories and of issues relating to Indigenous Australians. It was written by Jimmy Chi and his band Kuckles and friends, and was the first Aboriginal Australian musical. The name is a phonetic representation of "Brand New Day".
Ursula Yovich is an Aboriginal Australian actress and singer.
William Townsend Onus Jnr was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, designer, and showman, also known for his boomerang-throwing skills. He was father of artist Lin Onus.
Redfern Now is an Australian drama television series, that first aired on ABC1 in 2012. The program follows the lives of six Aboriginal Australian families living in the urban hub of Redfern, Sydney. The series provides insight into contemporary issues facing Aboriginal Australians, including lack of employment and mental illness, which are positioned as direct ramifications of colonialisation and the Stolen Generations. Produced by Blackfella Films as part of the ABC's Indigenous Department, the show is the first series to be 'commissioned, written, acted and produced by Indigenous Australians'. The series' release contributes to widespread public debate surrounding Indigenous representation in the Australian media.
Kelton Pell is an Aboriginal Australian (Noongar) stage, TV and film actor, best known for his role as the court liaison officer, Sam Wallan, in the SBS legal drama The Circuit set in north-western Australia. Pell is from Western Australia.
Shari Sebbens is an Aboriginal Australian actress and stage director, known for her debut film role in The Sapphires (2012), as well as many stage and television performances. After a two-year stint as resident director of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2023 she will be directing productions by STC and Griffin in Sydney, as well as Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. She is on the board of Back to Back Theatre.
The Cake Man is a 1975 play by Aboriginal Australian writer Bob Merritt, notable for being the first play written by an Indigenous Australian person to be published, televised and to tour out of Australia. A telemovie was made of a 1977 performance of the play. The Aboriginal Theatre Company was formed by Bob Merritt and Brian Syron especially to produce the play for a tour to the United States in 1982.
Meyne Wyatt is an Aboriginal Australian actor, known for his stage, film, and television roles.
Miranda Tapsell is a Larrakia Aboriginal Australian actress of both stage and screen, best known for her role as Cynthia in the Wayne Blair film The Sapphires and her 2015 performance as Martha Tennant in the Nine Network drama series Love Child. In 2016, she portrayed Fatima in the Stan series Wolf Creek.
Rarriwuy Hick is an Aboriginal Australian award-winning actress, known for her roles in the television series Redfern Now, Cleverman, Wentworth and True Colours.
Sally Riley is an Australian filmmaker, writer, producer and media executive, as of 2021 Head of Scripted Production at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
