Biography
Anna Straker is a Queensland-based, award-winning artist specialising in puppetry and visual theatre. She has over a decade’s experience working across theatre and television as a performer and maker, and is known for her allegorical works of ‘fierce originality’ and grotesque whimsy. She prioritises working with found and recycled objects in her practice as a designer.
Anna won the state-wide industry Matilda Award for audio-visual design in 2016 for her original illustrations in Queensland Theatre’s blockbuster production of ‘The Wider Earth’, for which she was also lead puppeteer. For her sell-out debut production of her gothic feminist fairytale, ‘Umami Mermaids’, commissioned by Brisbane Festival last year, Anna’s handmade and recycled sets and puppets earned her a 2018 Matilda Award nomination for best set design. Since then Anna had her busiest years set designing five new Queensland works, including ‘‘Squad Goals’ (Share House) ‘The Revisionist’ (Refraction Theatre), ‘Genesis’ (A Very Theatre Company) and ‘Rockpocalypse’ (Jess Lamb).
Anna’s solo puppet show, “The Boy Who Ate Teeth’ was a critically-acclaimed success at the 2017 Brisbane Festival, and has regularly toured to festivals since, such as Woodford Folk Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Short and Sweet Festival. Street theatre and roving has been a staple part in Anna’s performance career; working regularly for Wilde Applause, Snap Creative and and IZIT? Entertainment.
She was an instrumental founding member of Dead Puppets Society, contributing to and performing in “The Wider Earth”, “The Timely Death of Victor Blott”, “The Harbinger”, “Argus”, “Laser Beak Man” and “The Last Tree in the City”. Anna was the puppeteer of Poppy on the children’s television series, “Pipsqueaks” (2013-2014).
Anna is regularly commissioned to design and make puppets, props and sets throughout the country. She has worked for companies including the Commonwealth Games, Cirque du Soleil, Erth, Beyond Productions, White Rabbit Theatre, and Shock Therapy Productions. She is keen to expand on her technical skills and all aspects of fabrication
