Callum McLean

Callum McLean is a writer and performer whose work has appeared on ABC Radio National, with the Australian Theatre for Young People and State Theatre Company of South Australia, and in Glam Adelaide, InDaily, Buzzcuts, and Rip It Up. He is interested in writing about the LGBTQIA+ community and experience.

In 2015, Callum participated in the Australian Theatre for Young People’s Fresh Ink Mentoring Program. He worked with playwright Nicki Bloom to produce two short plays, Bed Song and 3AM. In this same year, he attended ATYP’s National Studio at Bundanon, NSW, where he developed the monologue Changing Room under the mentorship of playwright Lachlan Philpott.

Callum’s monologue ‘Changing Room’ appeared in ATYP’s The Voices Project 2016, All Good Things, and was later published by Currency Press in an anthology of the same name. He later adapted the monologue for ABC Radio National. Both productions were performed by actor Moreblessing Maturure.

He is the winner of the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s 2017 Young Playwrights Award for The River, a one-act queer play for young actors. The play reading was developed with director Teddy Dunn, and read at the Dunstan Playhouse by actors Annabel Matheson and Matilda Bailey.

Callum mounted his first cabaret show in the 2017 Adelaide Fringe, Love & Anger. In the same year, the short film “Don’t F*** With Mother” which he wrote the screenplay for won Best Film at the Adelaide 48-Hour Film Project.

Callum was nominated in the Express Media Awards for Best Piece Published in Buzzcuts, for his review for Zygosity. He received commendations in the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s ‘Young Playwright’s Award’ competition for two of his plays; in 2010, for Call Me Lolita, and in 2013 for The Pink Elephant.

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Callum completed his Bachelor of Creative Arts (Creative Writing), with Honours, at Flinders University in 2015. During this time, Callum attended Oxford University’s Creative Writing summer school, and studied with playwright Shaun McCarthy. He also travelled to Guangzhou, China as part of the AsiaBound project in early 2015 to mentor Creative Writing students at Sun Yat-sen University’s South and Zhuhai campuses.

He currently works at the State Library of NSW.

For a condensed version of this bio, please contact Callum.