The Wheeler Centre Gala 2019: Crush

Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. Claire writes fiction, essays, poetry and art writing while either living in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. During an extended circuit of the continent she wrote a novel, Terra Nullius, which won the black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship and was listed for eight awards including a shortlisting for The Stella Prize. Lies, Damned Lies is her first full length work of non-fiction.

Lawrence is an award winning stand-up comedian, screenwriter and documentary-maker. He created the ABC1 comedy shows Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable and the AFI Award-nominated Choose Your Own Adventure and co-wrote and starred in ABC2's action/comedy series Maximum Choppage. Recently, he wrote an episode of The Family Law (SBS2) and played a sleazy nerd in Jane Campion's Top of the Lake.

Lawrence has performed his one man shows in festivals and theatres around the world including London's Soho Theatre and the Sydney Opera House. His award-winning theatre show, Sucker, was adapted into the AWGIE-nominated feature film starring Timothy Spall. The screenplay was shortlisted for the 2017 NSW Premier's Literary Award.

As a hardcore geek, Lawrence once jumped out of a plane with a Rubik’s Cube and solved it during freefall – just in time to release the parachute.

Sinéad Stubbins is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and cultural critic, and the author of In My Defence, I Have No Defence. She made her name writing TV recaps for Junkee on shows such as The Bachelor and Game of Thrones, and she’s also on the writing team for The Weekly with Charlie Pickering on the ABC. She has written for The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, frankie, The Big Issue, New York Magazine and many other publications.

Faustina Agolley is a TV host, actor, DJ, producer and writer. She’s hosted Video Hits, The Voice and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.  She made her stage debut with Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company’s co-production of the Molière award-winning play, The Father, alongside theatre luminary John Bell in 2017. Faustina has toured Australia and New Zealand as Oprah Winfrey’s resident DJ and written for Sunday Life, Women of Letters and the upcoming anthology, Growing Up African in Australia, out through Black Inc. this April.

Modern pop’s patron saint Washington is a platinum-selling and ARIA award-winning musician who’s been known to reduce grown men to tears. The acute thinker and blistering performer has captivated music listeners with her ability to tell stories that inflate the spirit.

Claire Hooper started on the stage – crafting engaging, innovative live shows that blended stand-up, theatre and some hammer dancing.

Her 2006 show, Oh, earned her both critical acclaim and a nomination for the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Best Newcomer award. A born storyteller with a sharp wit, Claire has gone on to regularly perform at festivals and comedy rooms all over the country.

Claire Hooper started on the stage – crafting engaging, innovative live shows that blended stand-up, theatre and some hammer dancing.

Her 2006 show, Oh, earned her both critical acclaim and a nomination for the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Best Newcomer award. A born storyteller with a sharp wit, Claire has gone on to regularly perform at festivals and comedy rooms all over the country.

For four years Claire shared a set with Paul McDermott and Mikey Robbins on the iconic comedy show Good News Week as a team captain. She has also appeared on Rove and The Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Great Debate and Opening Night Gala. In 2019, she returned to Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Great Debate as host.

Over the last decade, Claire has been captivating audiences and touring brilliant solo shows across the country to critical acclaim.

In 2015 Claire scored her dream job, as co-host of The Great Australian Bake Off for Foxtel’s LifeStyle Channel alongside the seriously funny Mel Buttle, as well as judges Maggie Beer and Matt Moran and their fourth season aired in 2019.

After seven years as a lawyer, Jon entered radio broadcasting in 1989 to produce and present Radio National’s Law Report.

He then presented 3LO’s Morning and Afternoon programs, worked on ABC TV’s Investigators, First Edition and Wise UP and has been presenting the Morning program on 774 ABC Melbourne since 1997.

Known for his provocative and probing debate, quick wit and willingness to ask the stickiest of questions, Jon Faine delivers thought-provoking radio.

Each weekday morning from 8.30am, be it politics, finance, health, law, arts or sport, Jon investigates the issues and stories affecting Melbourne with energy and vigour - all without taking life too seriously.

George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction ...

Ella Hooper made her entrance onto the Aus music landscape as the technicolour teenage frontwoman of her high school band, Killing Heidi. She traversed the highs and lows of pop rock, wrote some hits, became an unlikely teen icon, spent a fair bit of time overseas and generally lived out her youthful dreams. Eventually she dismantled the band, craving time away from pop rock, and made a country album off the back of which she toured in support of Fleetwood Mac. A fateful conversation with Grand High Witch Stevie Nicks herself being the catalyst for Ella’s full transition into ‘independent solo diva mode’. 

Now three releases in to her solo sojourn Ella’s new tunes are a mix of bright snappy rock, synth driven singalongs, classic rock feels, Pretenders by way of Blondie street walking struts – with her unmistakable, textured vocals delivering the goods. Not shy of a cowbell backbeat or a yoga-tastic backbend, Ella’s live show has a reputation for intense energy transferal of a sweet and sweaty kind.