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Artist of the Month

Since 2023, we have been making it our mission to highlight a new artist from the Australian theatre scene each month.

This individual could be a performer, director, writer, reviewer, sound designer, musician, lighting designer, set designer, stage manager and so on.

If you feel like you’d know someone who would be perfect, contact us or hit us up on our socials @theatrethoughtsaus.

April - Diego Retamales

Performer and Fight Choreographer

Diego is a Chilean-Australian actor and fight choreographer based in Sydney/Gadigal with a B. Performance from Theatre Nepean’s final graduating year in 2008.

Recent credits: The Comedy of Errors, Betrayal, Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove), Furious Mattress (Legit/25A), A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre), Labyrinth (Flight Path)

Fight Choreography credits include: Purpose (STC), A Mirror (Belvoir), Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Belvoir), Port (KXT), Werkaholics (Belvoir 25A), POSH (Old Fitz), Taming of the Shrew (Wharf 2), Timon of Athens (Sport for Jove), Furious Mattress (Belvoir 25A), Pride and Prejudice (Old Fitz), SHOOK (Lost Thought/Qtopia), Teenage Dick (Flight Path), A Very Expensive Poison (New Theatre), The Wasp (Akimbo + Co), Apocka-wocka-localypse (Tooth and Sinew), A Fortunate Few (Something Wicked), One Man Two Guv’nors (New Theatre), Labyrinth (Flight Path) and U.B.U (Tooth and Sinew/KXT).

Diego has also spent the last 15 years in professional wrestling as a wrestler, trainer and most recently Ring Announcer for Pro Wrestling Australia (PWA)

My Story

What inspired you to make art as a career?

My parents had a VCR box set of Charlie Chaplin shorts I used to watch as a little kid. I like to think that was the catalyst for my performative career; it definitely shaped my love of comedy as well as highly physical styles of performance.
 
As for fight choreography, I kind of just fell into it. During university we studied stage combat as one of our topics for a semester and it immediately clicked with me. After high school I stopped playing tennis and other sports that kept me active so discovering something so physical within my practice felt rejuvenating to me. When I turned 21 I started training in Professional Wrestling (the tights, the masks etc.) and stayed with it until this present day. That training inspired me to look at how to translate that world onto a different kind of stage. It’s made me constantly be always attentive to the psychology and structure of fights/combat, body agency, how things look from different angles and how to tell a story.
 

What have been the highs of your career so far? What have been the lows?

One high is walking into rooms and stages I’ve never been into before – like walking into the Drama Theatre at the Opera House from the stage door –  that was really cool. Spending half a show in a mattress and coming to life is definitely a big one. Also being part of the end of the Lehmann Trilogy where I got to stand on a revolve for the first time. The consistent high is getting to work with so many people, all who have differing levels of ability, experience or even comfort – and discovering something on the floor. It could be a solution to a problem, or something completely new, but the joy of that discovery is the best!
 
I think the lowest points for me are in the exhaustion. Like so many of us, having a day job to pay bills, and then making time for what we love can often be really hard. A good kind of hard, but nonetheless it can really drain you. Having to always be trying to navigate that balance point – and not always be correct, can really take its toll over time. I am often incorrect, but I’m learning from it.
 

What helps to keep you grounded in a changing industry?

My family. They’re not involved in the theatre scene at all. They don’t know the difference between any of the theatres, so everytime they come out to see a show it’s an honest response. A pure reaction to theatre.

Also my friends, the ones who keep my head up when the existential dread hits. And most recently, my Friday night soccer team. I’m very new to the game, but having something to work on from the ground up again is fun to me

Where do you see yourself going/want to go next?

My Instagram algorithm keeps showing me a lot of physical theatre/partner lifting things and it’s been leading me to following some accounts like Ockham’s Razor and Collectiefmamm which keeps me motivated to play with more full body contact choreo. I would love to travel overseas to work and train with companies who do work like this.
 
Where I want to go next: Tasmania  – I want a vacation.

Our Artists of the Month Gallery

Wondering who we’ve highlighted in the past? Scroll through our gallery of artists below!

Have a question?

If you have any questions or comments on our reviews or are interested in work opportunities, please let us know!