Jane Austen's 250th Birthday Party Parlour

Celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th birthday with songs from her personal music collection, a chat about her letters and all things Pride and Prejudice with mother-daughter playwrights/musicians Dr Emma O’Brien OAM and Olivia O’Brien (By Her Hand).

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OLIVIA O'BRIEN is a co–creator of By Jane’s Hand and co-found of Seldom Theatre Collective. She is an actor, singer, instrumentalist, puppeteer, and stilt walker. A VCASS VCE student in 2013 they later graduated from the University of Melbourne with honours in voice and has since pursued further education and a career in a diverse range of performance practices. Olivia has studied film and television with NIDA and has performed internationally at the United Nations in Geneva and New York City and in Central Park and Lincoln Center, singing alongside Sister Sledge and Ricky Kej. This is Olivia’s first creative writing project with her mother Emma, and she has enjoyed the process of delving deeper into the words, music, and world of Jane Austen through a feminist lens.

EMMA O'BRIEN OAM is the co-creator/Director of By Jane’s Hand and co-founder of Seldom Theatre Collective with their adult daughter Olivia. Emma's  writings have been published in research journals, music therapy publications, and general media. Emma has directed and edited award-winning music video clips, and she has co-created/written/composed original works created with people living with cancer (A Chorus of Women, and Opera Therapy). Emma is the founder and director of the Royal Melbourne Hospital Scrub Choir. Emma recently returned from working on global video projects and performing in Geneva for the World Health Organization, at the UN in Geneva and New York, Central Park at the Lincoln Centre. Emma is writer, musician, theatre maker, director, composer, music therapist, video editor, choir conductor, public speaker, and researcher.