Canberra-born actress Nathalie Morris will return home for a special show.

Morris is one of four Australian actors and actresses to take part in ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) at The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre.

Dubbed as “a mysterious night at the theatre — where anything could happen”, the singular performer of each night of ECHO won’t know what will happen on stage.

Morris moved to Bungendore when she was 17, returning to Canberra when she was 15 to attend high school before leaving for university.

While in Canberra, she joined the Canberra Youth Theatre at Gorman Arts Centre.

“Canberra Youth Theatre was a huge part of my life growing up. I think I took my first class when I was about 13, a Shakespeare class, and I was hooked,” she told CD.

Performing in Canberra are:

24 July: Acclaimed actor Fayssal Bazzi who has appeared in Stateless and The Merger, 7:30pm.

25 July: Nathalie Morris, 7:30pm.

26 July: Australian actress and singer Paula Arundell (Love My Way and Gods of Egypt). She also appeared as Hermione in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage show, 1pm.

Author, screenwriter, and journalist Benjamin Law (The Family Law and Wellmania), 7:30pm.

Tickets are available at: canberratheatrecentre.com.au/show/echo

Tell us about being part of Canberra Youth Theatre.
I remember Karla Conway — she studied directing at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) and was really passionate and driven. When you’re a teenager, you take yourself seriously and think you’re an adult. But looking back at being 15 and 16, you’re just a kid. But she valued us and was putting on cutting-edge and brave shows.

Looking back 10 years later, that time doing youth theatre in Canberra was a beautiful entry into this industry.

What are you most excited about being on stage in your hometown? Will you do something with Canberra Youth Theatre while you’re here?
It’s so beautiful. It’s also great for me because some of my community is still in Canberra so to be able to share this experience with them is special. I’ve got a few friends who have moved to other cities and they’re coming back, and (CEO and artistic director) Luke (Rogers) with the youth theatre coming through now.

It feels like a really beautiful full-circle moment. To come back for an experimental show, I feel connected to who I am as a performer within this experience.

I’ve been talking to Luke to see if we can arrange something, perhaps the day before. I would love to go and see the space and meet some young people doing cool theatre.

How much experience do you have with improv?
I’ve only really ever done scripted work. I really admire people who do improv (improvisation) shows because for me, it’s absolutely horrifying. I work more with scripts, it’s definitely what I love.

This play is interesting because it is scripted, but the perspective that is different/improvised is that I haven’t read the script before.

I have done things like that before: Canberra Youth Theatre would really nurture writers and directors as well, where they often brought us actors to read the plays cold to let them hear their words. So I’ve kinda been on stage performing a new play, but this is an entirely different experience.

Nassim Soleimanpour has written the play intentionally to be altered, not new with a cold reading, so different actors get to experience it on the stage for the first time and then never again.

It’s fascinating to me. I don’t know what to expect at all when I’m on stage.

I’ve watched interviews of Nassim about these plays. He has to imagine what the actor would say to write the responses. I’m fascinated with how it will come together. He has quite a mathematician’s brain, so he uses algorithms.

Are each of the performers using the same script?

Every part is the same thing, but the difference will be what the individual performer brings to it.

I can’t see Fayssal’s the night before. We’re all doing the same thing, but we can’t have communication of what the experience is.

Depending on what the performer brings, the show will be entirely different, which makes me think there’s some point of improv or the performer bringing who they are, because that changes what’s happening on stage.

How did you feel filming the last season of Bump knowing you won’t get to do that again?

It’s funny because we wrapped up on season five last year and we’ve just come back this year to make a Christmas film. We just wrapped on that about two weeks ago.

I was ready creatively, as with the rest of the team, to move on with other things.

It was such a beautiful project to be part of, the crew and team were such good humans. Creatively, we’re all ready to see what’s next.

It was an exciting feeling to finish the show and also a bittersweet feeling.

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