Vidya Rajan is a fresh and fearless talent of undeniable range. A comedian, performer and writer working across screenwriting, theatre, comedy, and digital space, her genre-crossing work is contemporary, innovative, and sharply hilarious.

A former writer-in-residence at the Malthouse Theatre, a graduate of the VCA, and a recipient of Screen Australia’s Developer Program, Vidya’s live comedy combines the silly and surreal with incisive insights into race, capitalism, and the strange depths of the internet. Her 2022 festival hour Respawn (a show about death and reincarnation through the giddy lens of stand-up, sketch and passive-aggressive PowerPoint) was a hit at the MICF & Darwin festivals, and her digital interactive experience In Search of Lost Scroll took home Best Experimental Artwork at the 2022 Melbourne Fringe awards.

With a background in improv, sketch and theatre, Vidya is an in-demand comedy voice. She appeared (and wrote on) Aunty Donna’s new sitcom Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café as part of the core ensemble, as well as in Grouse House’s Finding Yeezus. She was a contributing writer and performer for the ABC sketch show At Home Alone Together (playing a spectrum of characters from teenage wank-boy to crow), appeared in the 2021 Australia Debates series for ABC TV, and was a writer and actor with The Feed Comedy SBS on several projects, for which she won the 2022 AWGIE award for Comedy – Situation or Narrative.

Vidya also appeared as a series regular in Slushy, an audio comedy series for Audible, and was a staff writer on the Amazon Original series Deadloch, both created by Kates McCartney and McLennan.

An accomplished playwright and theatre-maker, Vidya studied at VCA and her shows have been performed to acclaim at some of Australia’s best art spaces including Red Stitch, Griffin Theatre, The Blue Room, Artshouse, Belvoir, and the Malthouse amongst others. A one-time Malthouse writer-in-residence, as well as a Besen and Malcolm Robertson Fellow, her previous work has included award-winning shows like experimental comedy-play Asian Ghost-ery Store, Sleepover Gurlz, Poorly Drawn Shark, and cult Fringe favourite The Lizard is Present – described by Kill Your Darlings as “a torrid brew of truth, satire and mindfuckery”.

In 2022 Malthouse Theatre and Belvoir St Theatre presented Vidya’s adaptation of the beloved Australian novel Looking For Alibrandi.

Increasingly working as a screenwriter, Vidya has contributed to various story rooms across broadcast and streaming services, worked as a development assistant for Tony Ayres’ Productions on YA and high-concept scripts, and written on several Screen Australia-funded developments and series. Current projects include co-writing a feature film script from Elizabeth Honey’s 45+47 Stella St for Charlotte Nicdao’s Tough Crowd Pictures and working on Brouhaha’s upcoming adaptation of Love and Virtue.

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“A master of sketch…provocative (and) disarmingly complex.” ★★★★ Time Out

“One of the smartest, funniest, and most resolutely cooked writers and comedians in Australia right now.” Declan Greene

Television

AUNTY DONNA’S COFFEE CAFE
Role: The Nameless One / Thelma / Jake. Dir: Max Miller, Haven’t You Done Well Productions 2023
THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING
Role: Various. Latenite Films / Screen Australia 2022
AUSTRALIA DEBATES
Guest Panellist. ABC 2021
THE FEED
Performer / Writer. SBS 2021
AT HOME ALONE TOGETHER
Performer / Writer. ABC 2020

Podcast

SLUSHY
Role: Vedi. Guesswork Television Pty Ltd 2021

Writing

PLANET LULIN
Princess Pictures 2024
MONOLOGUE
Truce Films 2023
AUNTY DONNA’S COFFEE CAFÉ
Haven’t You Done Well Productions 2023
DEADLOCH
Amazon 2021
THE FEED
SBS 2021
HOW TO STAY MARRIED (Series 3)
Network TEN 2021
WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS
Netflix / ABC Comedy 2018-2021
GOLDEN BOY (Series 1)
Audible / Screen Australia 2019-2020
LARRY THE WONDERPUP (Series 2)
WTFN / Channel 7 2020
AT HOME ALONE TOGETHER
ABC 2020
THE ZOO
Screen Australia 2019
THE LEAK
RMITV / Channel 31 2017-2019

Playwriting

LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI
Writer under commission to adapt Melina Marchetta’s novel Looking for Alibrandi as a co-production for two major Australian theatre companies – the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Belvoir Theatre in Sydney. 2020
WE ARE NEMESIS
Writing a one-off half-hour narrative digital comedy special with Alistair Baldwin for a live-streamed event through the Wheeler Centre. Wheeler Centre 2020
THE LIZARD IS PRESENT: A GALA
Director / Devisor / Writer. Melbourne Fringe 2019
BATMANIA BUS TOUR
Co-Writer / Performer. Melbourne Fringe 2019
HURRICANE
Co-Writer / Performer. Artshouse development with Emma Hall 2019
FUTURE PERFECT
Writer. Malthouse Theatre commission 2019
MERMAIDS
Dramaturg. La Mama development 2019
MADAM NIGHTSHADE’S POISON GARDEN
Dramaturg / Assistant Director. Midsumma & Darwin Fringe 2019
POORLY DRAWN SHARK
Co-Creator / Dramaturg / Assistant Director. Fringe World & Theatreworks 2019
ASIAN GHOST-ERY STORE
Creator / Writer / Performer. Griffin Theatre, Blue Room Theatre, Melbourne Fringe & This Is Not Art 2018
SLEEPOVER GURLZ
Writer / Performer / Devisor. Griffin Theatre & Melbourne Fringe 2018
THE LIZARD IS PRESENT
Devisor / Director. Happenstance 2018
THE STORY OF EVE
Dramaturg. Artshouse development 2018
THE LAMENT
Writer / Devisor. EWF Live Art Program & Queensland Poetry Festival 2018
LAST NIGHT
Writer. West Australian Youth Theatre Company 2017
GENESIS
Writer. Red Stitch Theatre Playlist 2017
CONGRESS
Writer / Performer. All The Queen’s Men 2017
A COMPLETELY UNIFIED THEORY OF YOU + ME
Performer / Director. This Is Not Art 2017
AUNTY
Writer / Performer. ASIATOPA 2017
THE SHUBARATNAMS
Writer. VCA 2016
FRIENDQUEST
Writer / Director. Fringe World & Paper Mountain 2015

Awards / Achievements

Melbourne Fringe Award for Best Experimental Work (2022)
AWGIE Award for Comedy – Sketch or Light Entertainment (2022)
Malthouse Theatre Writer in Residence (2018 & 2019)
The Blaz Award for New Writing – Perth Fringe World (2019)
Best Theatre Nomination – Melbourne Fringe (2019)
Screen Australia Developing the Developer Recipient (2018)
Theatreworks Associate Artist (2018)
Lonely Company Residency (2018)
City of Melbourne Creative Spaces fellowship (2018)
Westerly Writers Program Mentorship (2017)
Melbourne Festival Director’s Lab (2017)
A Room of One’s Own Residency (2017)
Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship (2016)
Innovation in Practice Award – Melbourne Fringe (2015)
Best Theatre Nomination – Perth Fringe World (2015)