Creative Team
The creative team behind this project is Eliane Morel (writer), Merran Hughes (writer), Joanna Weinberg (composer/director) and Daryl Wallis (arranger/musical director).
Hughes and Morel are residents of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney with a strong connection to their local artistic communities. They have extensively researched Australian swimming history and in Dangerous When Wet: The Musical, they bring a unique perspective to the story of Australia’s pioneering female swimmers, Mina Wylie and Fanny Durack (pictured). From the ambitious young athletes striving for greatness to the chaperone and coach guiding them through, the intertwined narrative reveals the personal and societal hurdles they overcome.
Eliane Morel
Eliane Morel: Singer, actor, writer, producer. Eliane is a principal mezzo-soprano with Opera Bites. She is NIDA alumni and has performed in two of Joanna Weinberg‘s musicals, and worked with Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Company of Rogues, Kantanka Theatre, CityMoon Vietnamese Theatre Company the Asian Australian Arts Association Theatre Company, and more. Eliane has written and performed several of her own shows, including Disenchanted, a Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales, and Carmen the Cabaret.
Merran Hughes
Merran Hughes: Historian, playwright, artist and competitive swimmer.
Merran Hughes is a multi-disciplinary creative, writer and swimmer with a particular interest in ocean conservation and swimming culture. She has a Master of Design from UNSW and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UNSW. Merran is co-founder of Blue World, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to catalyse positive change for a thriving ocean.
Joanna Weinberg
Joanna Weinberg: Composer and director Joanna Weinberg is an actor, writer and composer with 14 original one-woman shows to her name, including the critically acclaimed Pandora’s Bag, Piano Diaries, Twelve Shoes, Bianka’s Bloodsongs and Sinksongs, the inspiration for her internationally released feature film, Goddess. Her award-winning musical Lifeforce won the Sydney Fringe Best Production Award in 2013, and her soccer parent musical Every Single Saturday played in multiple Sydney theatres before touring NSW in 2011. In 2018 she wrote and directed The Secret Singer at the Eternity Playhouse, starring Genevieve Lemon/Kate Mannix.
Daryl Wallis
Daryl Wallis: Musical director, arranger and accompanist.
Daryl is a composer, sound designer, keyboard musician, vocal coach and musical director. He has composed music for Belvoir, Ensemble, Griffin, Merrigong, Studio, ATYP, Monkey Baa, CDP, Milkcrate, Karnak and Siren Theatre companies, the television documentary series Heat in the Kitchen, the award winning short film Embrace, a 10-minute tango-opera An/nA and an operatic adaptation of the children’s picture book Fox that toured throughout Australia. He won first prize in the 2012 Federation Bells Composing Competition and won the 2013 Sydney Theatre Award for best Score and Sound Design in a Mainstage Production with Elena Kats-Chernin for their work on the Ensemble Theatre Co production of Frankenstein. He won a Green Room Award as musical director for the Strange Bedfellows.