Emmanuelle Mattana (born 2000 or 2001) is a

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

-based actor and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

, with a special focus on stories for young, queer audiences.

Career

While in Year 11 of high school, Mattana was cast as Marnie, the protagonist in the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

comedy-drama ''

Mustangs FC ''Mustangs FC'' is a 2017 Australian comedy-drama TV series aimed at young teenagers and starring Emmanuelle Mattana as the lead character. The show is set in suburban Australia, and focuses on Mustangs FC, an all-girls soccer team, and focuse ...

.'' Mattana is currently in residence with the

Sydney Theatre Company Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in the Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Theatre ...

's Watershed: Writers Group and on commission with

Red Stitch Actors Theatre Red Stitch Actors Theatre is an ensemble theatre company based in Melbourne, Australia. Established in 2001 and with its first season in 2002, Red Stitch has presented over 100 contemporary plays. These include works from international playwri ...

. Previously, she was a member of

Malthouse Theatre Malthouse Theatre is the resident theatre company of The Malthouse building in Southbank, part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct. In the 1980s it was known as the Playbox Theatre Company and was housed in the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne's CBD ...

's Emerging Writer's Group and the recipient of the Equity Foundation Scholarship to study at the

Atlantic Acting School The Atlantic Theater Company is an Off-Broadway non-profit theater company based in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1985 by playwright David Mamet, actor William H. Macy, and a group of acting students, the compan ...

in New York.

''Trophy Boys''

Mattana's debut work as a playwright, ''Trophy Boys,'' took 18 months to write and debuted in 2022. The show is a "subversive

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

" centering on the debate team of an all-boys' private high school; the male characters are performed by women and non-binary actors in drag. It toured

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

in 2024 to sold-out audiences and critical acclaim. It was awarded Sydney Theatre Award's ''Best New Australian Work'',

BroadwayWorld BroadwayWorld is a theatre news website based in New York City, New York. Launched in 2003, the site covers Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and international theater productions, with sections devoted to particular countries, cities, or regi ...

Australia's ''Best New Play in Melbourne'' and ''Best Performance for VCE Theatre Studies Students'' after its inclusion on the Victorian curriculum. ''Trophy Boys'' will have its American premiere at New York's

MCC Theater MCC Theater (Manhattan Class Company) is an off-Broadway theater company located in New York City. The theater was founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler. Blake West joined the company in 2006 ...

in 2025 directed by

Danya Taymor Danya Taymor is an American theatre director. She won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for '' The Outsiders''. Life and career Taymor grew up in Palo Alto, California. Her parents are doctors in Palo Alto — her father is a pedi ...

, as well as touring Australia once again.

Early and personal life

Mattana was on her high school's debate team. Mattana uses she/her and

they/them Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'', and ''themselves'' (also ''themself'' and ''theirself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun derived from plural they. It typically occu ...

pronouns.

References

External links

* {{IMDB name, nm4587332 Living people Australian actors