VCA graduate Maki Morita on the power of community, creativity and theatre

Meet Maki Morita: a writer, performance-maker, and graduate of the Master of Theatre (Writing) program at the VCA. Hear from Maki as they share insights on their craft, valuable lessons learned at the VCA, and why sustaining a creative practice you love is worth it.

Hi, I’m Maki and I graduated from the Master of Theatre (Writing) at the VCA in 2020.

I spent most of the degree studying online because of COVID, so it was an intense year in a lot of ways. But we still managed to build a strong sense of community. In a way, COVID brought our cohort closer together and the course gave us a real space to share and connect, during an otherwise isolating time.

The sense of community around our cohort was one of the best things about the course. While you're studying, you're surrounded by people who are interested in similar things, and you have so many opportunities to connect with them. Being a writer can be isolating, but being able to work through ideas with actors and collaborate with other people on your work was helpful and available to us throughout the course.

My main advice for budding theatre makers and students studying this degree is to seek out your close collaborators as early as possible. With theatre, it's just so much about who you work with. It’s not just about your creative visions being aligned, but how you work together as people.

I loved putting on a play at Theatre Works called Trash Pop Butterflies, Dance Dance Paradise. I collaborated with a few VCA people for that work. I met the dramaturg Noemie Huttner-Koros through the course; we did some of our Masters subjects together. And she recommended me to the director Amelia Burke who I ended up working with, which was great, because we have similar sensibilities. Throughout its development and production, Trash Pop Butterflies, Dance Dance Paradise has also featured VCA acting students Hayley Edwards, Myfanwy Hocking, Romaine McSweeney and Milo Hartill.

Another thing I loved about the degree were the workshops. Artists and people from various parts of the industry would often come in and work alongside us on our playwriting practice. Those intensives were really amazing. We had one intensive with Sibyl Kempson who is a US based playwright. Following that, I went to New York to work with Sibyl. That was an amazing opportunity that allowed me to see the way the industry works in the US.

I was lucky to also get a position as a Playwright Hot Desk Fellow at the Wheeler Centre, where I started working on a new piece of theatre that's still being developed. It's an adaptation inspired by Noh, a traditional form of Japanese theatre.

A career in theatre writing can look like many different things... It’s hard to pin down. So many of us are likely to be juggling many different projects and odd jobs, while maintaining our creative practice. I feel like the most important thing is to always maintain that underlying practice. You can juggle that in a lot of different ways, and creative work can be volatile... But in my experience, it’s all worth it.

Discover the Master of Theatre (Writing) at the University of Melbourne.