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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.

September - Jenny Guigayoma

Filipina-Australian Actor

Jenny Guigayoma is a 2025 graduate of the NIDA BFA (Singing Actor) and was most recently seen as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (Hayes Theatre, dir. Julia Robertson). Previous to that, she played Chastity in Everyone Knows I’m A Pervert (KxT, NIDA Festival). In her time at drama school her credits included Luisa in Nine (dir. Dean Drieberg), Ashlee in Dance Nation (dir. Nigel Turner-Carroll) and Michael Darling in Peter Pan (dir. Ben Schostakowski).

She also completed the WAAPA Diploma of Musical Theatre in 2022 and has participated in moved readings for Slanted Theatre (2025-2026)and The Hayes Festival of New Works (2024-2026).

My Story

What inspired you to do acting and musical theatre as your career?

I grew up idolising the great pop vocalists of the 2000s: Beyonce, Christina, Whitney, Amy Winehouse etc. I wanted nothing more as a child than to strut my stuff on a stage and belt my face off! Somewhere along the way I had a great drama teacher in high school who made me fall in love with actingfunnily enough through a performance as Squealer in Animal Farm. When I (and every musical theatre kid in the world) stumbled across Hamilton, it was basically my goldmine – to discover that you could combine the two loves for a living! 

Now I can’t finish this answer without mentioning Lea Salonga as Eponine in Les Mis, whose performance has always been an inspiration to me even before I knew I wanted to pursue theatre – purely out of Pinoy pride.

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

My career’s just started! Everything feels like a high! Doing The Addams Family with Marcus Rivera, a fellow Filipino, playing my father, and just a generally very diverse and wonderful cast has been the best experience I could have imagined for myself coming out of drama school. I miss them already. I love everything The Hayes do, so for that to have been my mainstage Hayes debut and my professional debut was everything I could have asked for. 

The lows … fingers crossed I don’t meet them for a while longer. Maybe when I had just finished the Diploma and thought I was too old to have achieved anything by then (my reference point was Olivia Rodrigo). I obviously now know that to be so far from the case. My heart goes out for everyone affected by the recent show cancellations; I not only was saddened by what it meant for the arts workers involved but also as a genuine fan of those shows.

What do you feel is “your voice” in the theatre industry?

Interestingly enough, at this current moment I feel like my ‘voice’ is to just exist and be me and persevere in this industry like any other new grad. The Filo Fiesta occurred very recently at Hayes Theatre and seeing all of the Filipino greats of Sydney who have been paving the way for us all in one room was honestly quite moving for myself. I just remember the look on Jordy Shea’s face when he mentioned that it is ‘so normal’ now, to have an event celebrating Filipinos in the Arts. And it is! And it should be! 

I have many things I’m passionate about and have opinions on, but for now I just want to keep being me, and ‘normal’ and keep diversity as a given. The ones who came before me have fought the hard fight and now it’s time to carry their legacy by just being unapologetically ourselves. For too long, struggle has been part of BIPOC’s narrative and, while it’s important we hold space for that and keep telling those stories, we also need to embrace unbridled joy and empowerment in our communities.

What helps to keep you grounded in a changing industry?

Honestly still working this one out! I have a tendency to move at a million times per hour, but honestly having good routines you can rely on regardless of the day, friends outside of the industry to remind you that there is more to life than work, and family to remind you what you’re actually doing this for. 

Regarding the industry itself, focusing on the people as opposed to the milestones really helps.

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

I totally didn’t see anything happening this year coming, so I’m honestly just so open to what comes next. I love musical theatre so much, touring is ultimately the dream! But I also did do an acting-heavy course, which piqued a love for screen that I’d be interested in exploring as well. 

Honestly anything and everything, which is usually my motto.

 

Our Artists of the Month Gallery

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

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