Madeleine Little

Recipient of the 2022 Australia Council National Arts and Disability Award for Early Career Artist

Madeleine Little is a performer, theatre maker, writer, advocate, and access consultant for the performing arts based in Brisbane. Her credits include her recent portrayal of Dr Emma Brookner in The Normal Heart at Ad Astra Theatre Company (November 2022). Other credits include work with indelabilityarts and performing with Restless Dance Theatre in the Helpmann-nominated Intimate Space at Bleach* Festival in association with Festival 2018.

In 2019, she contributed to The Last Avant-Garde – Disability and the Performing Arts in Australia: Beyond the Social Model research project (UniMelb, UniSyd, AAV, ARC lastavantgarde.com.au). The same year, Madeleine wrote, produced, directed and performed her original play, Hold, presented as part of her Master of Arts (UniSQ) research testing the application of accessible theatre practice conventions and the implications of the disabled body in a new work. This research has been published in part in Australasian Drama Studies Journal (Issue 76) – Hold On: Australian Innovations in Access Aesthetics co-authored with Sarah Austin and Eddie Paterson. Madeleine holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drama) from QUT and a Master of Arts (Creative Arts) from UniSQ.

Madeleine has dedicated her work to accessibility in the performing arts with the aim of increasing opportunities for authentic representation of disabled voices on stage. She was the inaugural recipient of both the Stella Young Award (Arts Access Victoria 2018) and National Leadership Award (Arts Access Australia 2019). Madeleine is currently the Festival Director of Undercover Artist Festival, Australia’s premier performing arts and disability Festival, which is due to return in September 2023.

Learn more about the 2022 National Arts and Disability Awards.

Image credit: Nick Morrissey