BIOGRAPHY
Letitia Sutherland
Enrolling in The Hunter School of The Performing Arts in 1993, Letitia soon cemented her position in the Senior Dance Ensemble and Drama Ensemble of the school. This allowed her to represent her school at regional and state levels. As part of her dance achievements, Letitia was in the ensemble that won State Shakespeare Festival in 1998 and then went on to achieve 100% in her Major Dance Composition HSC. With such physical groundings, it’s not surprising that the first acting role Letitia landed was as Puck in the school production of A Midsummer Nights’ Dream. In following years Letitia would play Mrs. Beaver in The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe and Lily (Lead) in Living With Lady Macbeth in school productions. Whilst at high-school, Letitia also took on a mentor role, teaching play building and theatre sports weekly to students at Lambton Primary School.
After completion of her HSC in 1999, Letitia traveled south to Wagga Wagga to commence a B.A in Acting for the Screen and Stage at Charles Sturt University. Whilst at University, Letitia played Gwendolen in Oscar Wildes’ The Importance of Being Ernest, performed in an acrobatics troupe for the 2000 Olympic torch ceremonies, and taught contemporary dance to her acting year.
In 2001 Letitia returned to Newcastle to find many creative like-minds. Together they formed an ensemble and founded Caravan Theatre Company- Newcastle’s only independent, professional youth theatre company focused on creating original works. With the help of in-kind sponsorship and an Art-Start grant, Caravan Theatre Company was able to stage their first professional stage production It Didn’t Have to Be This Way Brenda in early 2001. Parallel to the production, Caravan Theatre Company ran workshops for Newcastle’s youth venue summer program on script writing and characterization.
In 2002 Letitia directed a community production of a child’s’ puppet show The Story-tree, and completed her Certificate 3 in Child Studies at TAFE.
2003 was predominately spent touring high schools in Queensland in a Queensland Arts Council production of David Browns’ In A Mosh Pit No One Can Hear You Scream. Letitia returned to Newcastle to do a season of this play, which later won her a CONDA (City Of Newcastle Dramatic Awards) for Best Professional Actress in her role as Lexi. Caravan Theatre Company also staged their second production, the black humored Cunning Linguists with the help of their mentors, Performing Arts Newcastle. Letitia worked as a street performance artist in Newcastle’s’ Arts Bazaar, before traveling abroad to Europe at the end of 2003.
On her return from overseas, Letitia was elected onto the board of Performing Arts Newcastle. From this position, Letitia was able to establish and co-ordinate a live, monthly cold reading of original Hunter scripts, Cold Read In A Hot Tub. Caravan Theatre Company started writing their third play, Gilbert’s Milk and were granted a writers’ residency with Hothouse Theatre Company called A Month In The Country.
Letitia frequently commuted to Sydney in 2004 to perform in Phoenix Theatre Company’s’ production of It’s My Party And I’ll Die If I Want To and then later for the Short and Sweet Festival in The Blanket - a play work-shopped with older, female ex-criminals.
2005 came around and landed Letitia her first feature film work: as an extra in Superman Returns and then as Heather in Suburban Mayhem. Shortly after that, Letitia landed the 3D Paint commercial with catalogue appearances and acted in an Emma Page Jewelry corporate video.
Letitia secured weekend work with the Mattara Hotel as their child entertainer/clown, and continued training privately in voice and acting for camera. Letitia then moved to Canberra where she was to be employed as a research actress with the Australian Institute of Criminology.
At the AIC, Letitia was part of an ensemble, re-enacting a mock rape trial to community jury members for research reasons. Letitia played the role of the rape victim, giving her testimony word for word in various mediums (Live, prerecorded, CCTV) and varied emotions (Emotional & Neutral). On completion, Letitia moved to Sydney, making it her new base.
Towards the end of 2005, Caravan Theatre Company reformed to write a television drama for a Newcastle based director entitled Coal Harbour. Whilst in Newcastle, Letitia would also work with Teresa Conicella (Shootout Festival founder), and Bronwyn White (Hunter Dance Company choreographer) on a solo dance theatre piece selected for Infest- a youth theatre festival.
In 2006, Letitia and a couple of University friends reunited to create Lumacast- Sydney’s’ first independent pod-cast network. Lumacast consisted of eight original weekly shows. Aside from co-ordination assistance, Letitia also wrote and acted in a mocumentary entitled Wannabe. Lumacast received an article in MX paper and Letitia was interviewed on Channel TVS program The Stained Glass Fish Bowl.
Letitia continued to work in film and television in 2006 as a featured main in Shane Fritsch music clip for his debut single Watch Me Burn, as a Diner in a Star City Casino TVC, and then as an assistant scientist on television game show Clever. These led to Letitia acting opposite Peter Fenton in a lead female role in the TV pilot Beachcomber.
Letitia returned to the stage in April 2006 in ATYP’s production Light Years, directed by Lucy Bell.
Letitia has also had her fair share at working behind the scenes. Letitia was an MC at the ABC’s’ Gardening Australia Expo, she worked as an audience co-coordinator/entertainer on kids’ game-show, Go-Go-Stop and It’s Academic and worked as a projectionist at Newtown’s’, Dendy Cinema. At the end of 2006, Letitia completed a pilot film Watch Me Burn for entry into MTV’s Project One80 competition. Letitia co-wrote, produced and acted in Watch Me Burn.
2007 saw Letitia returning to the stage at Sydney Theatre in The Vagina Monologues.
Later in 2007, Letitia played Sister Sarah (support lead) in a comedy television pilot Acting Out, appeared as a Pig Farmer in a Big Brother/3Mobile commercial, as an office worker in a Newcastle Permanent commercial and worked in role-play for employment agencies training days as a disgruntled customer.
In 2007 Letitia was fortunate to act the role of Dianne in the short film, A Pretty Penny, alongside accomplished, veteran, Australian actor, Max Cullen. A Pretty Penny was directed by Newcastle based director Mark Shields. A Pretty Penny was later show cased in Leith, Edinburgh at the Leith Short Film Festival in 2008.
2007 has also seen in Letitias’ first Voice Over gig, recording for Comm Bank.
Letitia returned from Melbourne where she was working for Osmopolition as Fifi The Flower, performing in-store children concerts, before heading overseas.
Towards the end of 2007 relocated to London where she spent the holiday season performing as Barmy Bosworth in Chaplin’s touring production of Jack And The Beanstalk.
Letitia saw in 2008 by preparing a one woman show, The Girl Who Fell From The Sea, for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Rehearsing in studios in London, Anyssa Camille Baki jumped on board to choreograph the dance sections of the show. Whilst the Australian based writer, Teresa Conicella, sent the final scripts through.
As a lead up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Letitia performed a section of the show at Northern Stage’s, First in Three night in Newcastle, UK. The First in Three nights show case up and coming young performers, with the audience giving feed-back on the original scripts.
With the support of her friends and her father coming over from Australia, Letitia hit the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008 with her one woman show in August.
After performing at the Fringe, Letitia relocated to Edinburgh, and commenced another Pantomime season with Chaplin’s. This time Letitia was to play Dick in Dick Whittington. When the season had come to an end in 2009 Letitia gained a position at Auld Reekie Tours, as a performer/tour guide of the infamous haunted underground vaults.
Soon after, Letitia become involved in a short film made by graduates out of Edinburgh University. Letitia played the lead role of Vivian, in the film Interrogating Vivian.
At the same time, Letitia was in rehearsals for A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer by Eve Ensler, directed by Kirsty Halliday. This show was performed as part of the V-Day Campaign, with all the profits going to Rape Crisis Scotland.
With the Edinburgh Fringe just around the corner, Letitia started rehearsals for another show for the Festival, Anthony and Bee-ing Cleopatra, directed by Fiona Adamson. Soon after the festival, Letitia went traveling around Europe enjoying the arts and cultural side of many European countries.
Letitia has now returned to Australia and is currently based in NSW as an actress.
Currently you can catch her nationwide on her 3D Paint TVC.