For Vidya Makan, realising she was an outsider in her industry wasn’t a lightning bolt moment. “It’s just always been a part of it,” says the 26-year-old musical theatre performer. “My whole life I have been seeing shows where you just go in accepting the majority of people you see on the stage will be white. It’s just the way things are,” she says. “My own family had to sit me down and say, ‘Hey, is there room for you here? You have to think about this.’” Vidya was starring as Catherine Parr in Australia’s production of the smash hit show SIX! when the national tour was cancelled due to coronavirus. Two months later, in May, the Black Lives Matter movement had galvanised the world. With it came renewed urgency of conversations around race and representation. As a woman of colour in an almost exclusively white industry, these conversations had been part of Makan’s entire career. But this time it felt like … [Read more...] about These are the faces of Australian musical theatre. They need you to see them