Miranda Tapsell

Background

Miranda was born in Darwin to Tony and Barbara Tapsell. When she was five the family moved to Jabiru in West Arnhem Land, where she grew up around Kakadu National Park.

Education

After finishing school she moved to Sydney to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (National Institute on Drug Abuse) from where she graduated in 2008.

Career

Tapsell is a Larrakia woman. Tapsell has been active both on stage and screen, starting with her 2008 performance in Dallas Winmar"s play, Yibiyung, at the Belvoir Theatre, where she had the title role. In June 2010 she performed in A Midsummer Night"s Dream at the Old Town Hall Ruins, Darwin.

Later in that year she appeared as Ngala in Kamarra Bell-Wykes" Mother"s Tongue at the Yirra Yaakin Theatre in Perth, a play about a young woman"s connection to her Indigenous heritage.

2012 saw Tapsell as Bonita in the mini-series Mabo and then in the breakthrough role of Cynthia McRae, one of The Sapphires, Wayne Blair"s film about a group of four Indigenous singers during the Vietnam War era. Tapsell topped the year off with her appearance as Teneka in the second episode of the American Broadcasting Company"s Redfern Now.

In 2014 Tapsell took on the role of Elizabeth, a young Indigenous woman, for a short film called Vote Yes which looked at issues around the 1967 referendum on including Aborigines in the census. The film was screened by the Recognise campaign, the movement seeking to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Australian Constitution.

She appeared in four episodes of the American Broadcasting Company sketch programme, Black Comedy.

On the stage she played "Tiny Tim" Cratchit for a performance of Charles Dickens"s A Christmas Carol at the Belvoir Theatre. On reception of the first she urged the relevant people in the audience to "Put more beautiful people of colour on television and connect viewers in ways which transcend race and unite us," adding, "That’s the real team Australia.".

Achievements

• In 2004, when she was 16, Tapsell won the Bell Shakespeare Company regional performance scholarship. Back in the theatre in 2013 she played a dual role (as Gillyagan and Muruli) in Andrew Bovell"s The Secret River at the Sydney Theatre, a performance which earned her a nomination for the Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play. Her performance was extremely well received, garnering two Logies in May 2015, Most Popular New Talent and the Graham Kennedy Award Foreign Most Outstanding Newcomer.

Membership

Also in 2014 Tapsell became a member of the cast of the Channel 9 drama series, Love Child, set in the 1960s.