Nakkiah Lui is an Australian actor, writer and comedian. She is a young leader in the

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

community.

Career

Lui is co-writer and star of ''

Black Comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

'', a sketch comedy television program on 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 ...

. From 2012 to 2014 she was playwright-in-residence for Sydney's Belvoir Theatre and in 2013 she was the artist-in-residence for the Griffin Theatre. Her work includes: ''This Heaven'' (2013), ''I Should Have Told You Before We Made Love (That I’m Black)'' (2012), ''Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death'' (2013), ''Kill the Messenger'' (2015) and ''Power Plays'' (2016). Lui is a columnist for '' Australian Women's Weekly'' and has also hosted Radio National's ''Awaye'' and ''NAIDOC Evenings'' for ABC Local Radio. She has appeared on '' Q+A'', '' The Drum'' and ''

Screen Time Screen time is the amount of time electronic devices are used. Screen time, Screentime or Screen Time may also refer to: * Screen Time, an iOS and macOS feature that tracks how long devices are used * Screentime, an Australian-based television pr ...

'' on ABC. In 2017, Lui was on the program to appear in four events at the 2017 Brisbane Writers Festival in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

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 ...

. The same year, Lui wrote and starred in '' Kiki and Kitty'' (2017) a comedy series on

ABC iview ABC iview is a video on demand and catch-up TV service run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Currently iview video content can only be viewed by users in Australia. As of 2016, ABC iview attracts around 50 million plays monthly and a ...

and

ABC Comedy ABC Family is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of family and teen entertainment programming. The channel oper ...

. Teaming up with Indigenous Australian actress

Miranda Tapsell Miranda Tapsell (born 11 December 1987) 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 ...

, Lui and Tapsell host the

Buzzfeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...

podcast ''Pretty for an Aboriginal'' (2017). Lui's play ''Black is the new White,'' was staged in 2017 at 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 ...

. The play was extended to a second season in 2018. ''Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death'' is Lui's second play in the 2018 season at the

and in co-production with

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 ...

. The play contains illustrations by Barkindjii, Birri-Gubba artist Emily Johnson, visual animation by Oh Yeah Wow and directed by Declan Greene. This production was awarded a $40,000 grant from the Australia Council production grant in 2014.

Awards

In 2012, Lui was the first recipient of the Dreaming Award by The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Arts Board of the

Australia Council Creative Australia, formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announ ...

and was the inaugural recipient of the

Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright Award Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia, originally known as Company B. Its artistic director is Eamon Flack. The theatre comprises two performing spaces: the Upstairs Theatre and the smalle ...

. In 2014, Lui was awarded the Malcolm Robertson Prize and a

Green Room Award The Green Room Awards are Australian peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, theatre companies, independent theatre, musical theatre, contemporary and experimental performance, and opera. The awards, which were established in ...

for Best Independent Production. In 2015 she was joint winner of the

NSW Philip Parsons Fellowship for Emerging Playwrights The NSW Philip Parsons Fellowship for Emerging Playwrights, formerly the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award, is an Australian annual award for early-career playwrights in New South Wales, offered by Belvoir St Theatre and Arts NSW from 199 ...

, for ''Kill the Messenger''. Lui received the Nick Enright Prize for playwriting in the 2018

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, th ...

for ''Black is the New White''. She won the 2021

Russell Prize The Russell Prize (Russell Prize for Humour Writing) is an Australian literary prize awarded every second year by the State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a ...

for humour writing for the same work.

Personal life

Lui is a

Gamilaroi The Gamilaroi, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Austr ...

Torres Strait Islander Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...

woman and lives in Sydney.

Works

Plays

* ''I Should Have Told You Before We Made Love (That I’m Black)'' (2012) * ''This Heaven'' (2013) * ''Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owners of Death'' (2013) *'' Kill the Messenger'' (2015) * ''Power Plays'' (2016) * ''Black is the New White'' (2017) * ''How to Rule the World'' (2019) * ''My Dreaming, Our Awakening'' (first radio play on ABC's ''AWAYE'' program)

TV shows

* ''

'' (co-writer and star) * '' Kiki and Kitty'' (2017) * ''

Get Krack!n ''Get Krack!n'' is an Australian comedy series which was created by and stars comedians Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan. The series is a satire of breakfast television and features McCartney and McLennan playing versions of themselves hosting ' ...

'' (2017-2019) * ''

Preppers Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists, doomsday preppers or preppers) who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, and other disasters causing disruption to social order (that is, ...

'' (2021)

Films

* ''From Drag King to Law Queen'' * ''BabyGirl''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lui, Nakkiah Living people Australian dramatists and playwrights Australian television actresses Indigenous Australian writers 1991 births 21st-century Australian actresses