Photo: Photos by Jamois
Showing and Q&A
When: Friday, August 22, 6-7pm
Where: The Breakout at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Cost: $10 (+ booking fee)
Note: Please arrive 15 minutes early to grab a drink. This event will be 1 hour (including a Q&A).
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This showing and Q&A will be held in The Breakout. Please come to The Mill at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive at 5:45pm for a 6pm sharp start.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com
Beneath the Mountain is an ambitious new interdisciplinary theatrical work that confronts the invisible and undervalued labor inherent in motherhood and domestic life.
Developed and produced by Deus Ex Femina, the production integrates spoken word, live music, theatre, and physical performance to explore the quiet violences of emotional labor and the slow erosion of autonomy within domestic settings. Inspired by Aesop’s fable The Mountain in Labour, the work interrogates the disparity between the lofty expectations of caregiving and the isolating, complex realities experienced by women; particularly within heterosexual relationships. It asks: what happens when women are expected to be everything to everyone, and what remains beneath the weight of it all?
The show’s narrative structure is built from a series of non-linear, thematically connected vignettes, culminating in a central arc that follows WIFE and HUSBAND; a newly married couple who, after falling pregnant, experience the gradual collapse of their relationship under the pressure of societal roles. WIFE, while navigating her pregnancy, is increasingly left to carry the household and emotional burden alone as HUSBAND becomes more disengaged, controlling, and emotionally absent.
During this development residency at The Mill, we will test the narrative structure, key moments, and thematic throughline. Audiences can expect an evocative and personal exploration of caregiving’s emotional and physical impact.
About the artists:
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Katherine (she/they) is a queer, first-generation Italian theatre maker, actor, writer, and founder of Deus Ex Femina. A 2018 Honours graduate from Flinders Drama Centre, Katherine’s work spans acting, producing, dramaturgy, directing, and spoken word poetry.
In 2023, Katherine won the Australian Poetry Slam South Australian Heat and performed at the Grand Final at the Sydney Opera House. Their debut show All The Things I Couldn’t Say won the Adelaide Festival InSpace Award at the Adelaide Fringe. It was then chosen to premiere in theRUMPUS 2023 Season. Their show Dirty Energy won the Holden Street Theatre Award at the Adelaide Fringe. Both shows had sold out seasons.
Katherine and Deus Ex Femina hold a two-year residency at Goodwood Theatre & Studios (2025–2026) and were selected for The Mill’s Theatre Residency for Beneath the Mountain (2025). The other production within the residency, Scenes with Girls, was chosen for State Theatre Company South Australia’s 2025 Stateside program.
In 2022, Katherine was nominated and selected as a finalist for the 7 News Young Achiever Award. In 2024, she was again recognised for her contributions to the arts and community, becoming a finalist for the South Australian Italian Awards in the category of Young Achiever, as well as being nominated for the Frank Ford Young Achiever Award at the Ruby Awards. Also in 2024, she was selected to be a part of the Helpmann Academy Creative Innovators Co-Hort and won the State Theatre Company of South Australia award which provides mentorship throughout 2025. -
Elizabeth is a graduate of the Flinders Drama Centre and lives and works as an actor on unceded Kaurna land. Her theatre credits include The Dictionary of Lost Words, Girl From The North Country (GWB and Damien Hewitt), Hibernation, The Gods of Strangers, Red Cross Letters, Volpone and Jesikah for the State Theatre Company South Australia, Baba Yaga, Grug and Grug and the Rainbow for Windmill Theatre Company, Yo Diddle Diddle and The Lighthouse for Patch Theatre Company, the Helpmann Award winning Emil and the Detectives for Slingsby, and Emily Steel’s The Garden with Theatre Republic.
Elizabeth made her directing debut in the inaugural season of RUMPUS at the end of 2019, with Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, and continues grow as a director. She joined the main cast of Danger 5 as
‘Holly’ for the series return on SBS and has worked on many other locally made television productions, commercials and short films. Elizabeth is the voice of Olli in Sun Runners, a collaboration between Audioplay and Windmill Theatre Company. -
Nate is an award-winning, multidisciplinary theatre facilitator, educator, performer, and researcher whose work spans genres, continents, and communities. Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts in Naarm and currently based in Tarntanya, he has created and performed across Australia, the Netherlands, and the USA.
Nate is currently completing Honours at Flinders University under Dr. Sarah Peters, researching an “inside-out” model for inclusive, participant-led devised theatre—centering artists’ intrinsic creative agency over imposed frameworks. As a queer, disabled artist of culturally and linguistically diverse background, Nate’s practice is grounded in accessibility and cultural equity. He has facilitated with SAYarts, Riverland Youth Theatre, Open Space Contemporary Arts, and ActNow Theatre, and mentors emerging artists from marginalised backgrounds.
Most recently, he has mentored young Narungga playwright Mali Harkin-Noack in developing her first full-length plays, including Tell Me Something, which will be featured in the Adelaide Festival Centre’s 2026 inSPACE program and Our Mob Festival. Nate has been funded by Carclew to create improvisation-based writing tools for learning-disabled young artists, and to develop and run their first theatre intensive school holiday program for young people. He is currently collaborating with Fleur Kilpatrick on Beginnings—a new work exploring donor conception and non-traditional families.
As one half of theatre-trash duo Muse of Fire, Nate’s creative ethos is irreverent, collaborative, and fiercely inclusive—reimagining theatre as a space where difference is celebrated, and access drives innovation. -
Steven is a multi-talented live theatre technician and lighting designer. He has worked on numerous of productions such as NUISIA & KINDER by a ry production, The Ugly One by Famous Last Words, I Know The End by Alix Kuijpers, That's Amore by Kate Burgess and is the in-house technician for Goodwood Theatre & Studios. He has been apart of shows for indie, amateur and professional productions of all types. In his off-time he produces music, graphic designs, video edits and has used those skills towards productions.
Photo: Bri Hammond
This residency has support from
