The festival of mother tongue
Introducing the cast
Ioanna Gagani -
Older Nancy Wake
Ioanna Gagani was born in Athens, Greece. She obtained a Diploma of Acting from the National Theatre of Greece and a Masters in Theatre Studies at the Sorbonne University (Paris III) in Paris. Ioanna has appeared on Greek television. She joined the Creative Drama and Arts group of the Greek Community of Melbourne upon moving to Australia in 2017. Since then, Ioanna has participated in five productions of the Creative Drama and Arts group, and several Australian community and independent theatre productions. Ioanna has also participated in several short films. In April 2021, she won the People’s Choice Award for her performance in the one-act play Burning Bridget. Ioanna has also won several awards for the role of Camille in the short film A Piece of Work is Man (2022). Ioanna speaks four languages - Greek, English, French and Spanish.
Natalia Nour -
Younger Nancy Wake
Natalia Nour is an actor and voice artist training at the Victorian College of the Arts. Born in Moldova, she fled to France with her family at age four as a political refugee following the Moldo-Russian war. She is fluent in both Romanian and French. Before pursuing acting in Australia, Natalia earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering in France. As an acting student, she was awarded the 2023 Portland House Theatre Outreach Program accolade. She has featured in Melbourne Theatre Company's educational video resources on actor training and has collaborated with numerous VCA dramaturgs, directors, writers, and dancers. These collaborations led to public performances at the MUSE Festival in 2023 and 2024. Later this year, Natalia will play Adine in La Dispute (directed by Keith Brockett) and will make her Melbourne Fringe debut as Patricia in Salad Day (directed by Charlotte Rogers). Natalia speaks three languages - English, French and Romanian.
Damien Kenny -
Henri Fiocca
Damien Kenny studied at the National Theatre Drama School. He focuses on French-speaking roles and has performed extensively with the Melbourne French Theatre Company (MFT). His first role with the MFT was in a 1993 production of Dr Knock. Most recently, in 2023, he played the lead role in another comedy Flagrant Delire. Other productions have included Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre (1995), Elle t'attend by Florian Zeller (2009) and Don Juan on Trial by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (2012). Damien has also performed in several productions of Secret of the Raft with ReAction Theatre (2018, 2019 and 2022). Damien is fluent in French.
Luca Romani -
Denden
Luca Romani is a stage actor who studied at The National Academy of Drama “Silvio d'Amico”, Italy. He has acted extensively across Italy and worked in England, France, Switzerland, and Australia. Luca has been featured twice at the Spoleto Festival (Italy 2009, 2010), and twice at the Melaka Art and Performance Festival (MAP Fest Malaysia 2015, 2018, 2022) as a freelance actor, composer and musician, and as a director of his stage productions. When Luca moved to Melbourne, he took a break from acting to learn English and settle into his new country. Since then, he has been training in martial arts and African drumming, he became an Australian citizen and a proud father. Luca has recently resumed acting full-time and is currently taking on theatre work and film and TV productions. In 2021, Luca founded Roman Flowers Theatre Company, also participating in the Festival of Mother Tongue with their new show I topi non avevano nipoti, written and directed by Luca. Luca speaks four languages - Italian, (Aussie) English, French and Spanish.
Jo Malta - Sabine
Jo is a 32-year-old multilingual actress. Fascinated by foreign languages, she left her hometown in Northern Portugal when she was very young, and her identity is now influenced by a beautiful mix of cultures. She lived in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Spain and Aotearoa-NZ, where she became fluent in six languages and worked as a translator and language teacher.
In 2018-2020, Jo decided to pursue her childhood dream and study professional acting. She then realised she wanted to merge her two passions—drama and languages—and promote linguistic diversity through art. She has been part of multiple multilingual and linguistically diverse plays in Spain and NZ, not only as an actress but also as a director and drama teacher.
She has now decided to continue her journey as a multilingual artist in Melbourne. Being part of La Souris Blanche is truly special to her because the two languages the play is in (French and Māori) reflect the culture of many of the countries where she lived and that means so much to her.