Michèle Saint-Yves – May 24 2020

Michèle is a playwright, poet and author. Her short stories and poetry have been published in print and digital anthologies and she has recently completed her debut novel. Michèle has an acquired brain injury, and during a period of being bedbound she started writing and enrolled in a writing-for-performance qualification. After a craniotomy, her health improved and she did a two-year residency at State Theatre of South Australia. Michèle now holds an Advanced Diploma in Professional Writing (Playwriting), an Associate Diploma in Human Resources Management (Industrial Relations), a Bachelor’s Degree in Politics and a Masters of Business Administration. She is currently studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Neurobiology and Neurosciences at the University of South Australia. Michèle’s other residencies have included a creative research residency, kinstillatory mappings in dark & light, a 1-week LWDhub residency, and Unfixed, a joint Australia-UK 2-year residency for ten creatives with a disability. Michèle has been a contributing writer for Access2Arts’ online project Collude – Embody; an Access and Inclusion Consultant with the City of Adelaide and a Principal Consultant Organisational Development with the SA Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology (DFEEST).

Songs About Girls and Their Fingertips
Australian Script Centre, 2012
65 minutes; 2 female, 0 male, plus one musician
“The trouble comes when people start holding their breath.”
Kara goes to the pool to swim, Rach to float. Kara holds every lifesaving certificate, Rach hopes to break her breath-holding record. Kara thought Rach needed saving. Little did Kara know. Songs is a play with music that anyone who has been in love and seen that love erode can relate to. At the local pool, out artist Kara meets closeted workaholic Rach and so begins a blossoming love. However, the differences that magnetically drew them together eventually become untenable in the face of their insecurities and fears. As Rach’s appetites go unchecked and Kara’s dealt a hand that turns her world upside down, tempers flare and betrayal takes hold. In the aftermath, the stark reality of loss and grief forces each of them to find their own life’s meaning.

An Intimate Evening with #KickAssREDS
Australian Script Centre, 2015
90 minutes; 2 female, 0 male; Young adult
“It’s a well-known fact in creating popular fiction that all the kick-ass girls are redheads!”
Poignant, passionate and hilarious, #KickAssREDS, subtitled ‘Save the Red, Save the Planet’, is an unconventional cabaret that takes its audience on a journey through the history of women blessed with red hair. Weaving together the three threads that make up the story of the red haired woman – the myths, the science and personal history. It may just charm you into reconsidering your idea of what it is to be a ‘Ginger’!