Tony Le-Nguyen

Tony Le-Nguyen is an Vietnamese-Australian actor, director, producer and writer. Le-Nguyen is perhaps best known for his role as Tiger in the 1992 Australian drama film Romper Stomper. He changed his name to Tony Lee when began working as an actor in 1985.

Tony Le-Nguyen
Born
Lê Thiện Toàn

(1968-10-03) 3 October 1968
Sa Đéc, Mekong Delta, Vietnam
OccupationActor, director
Years active1985–present

Early life

Le-Nguyen was born in Sa Đéc, Mekong Delta, Vietnam on 3 October 1968.[1] In 1978, Le-Nguyen and his family moved from Vietnam to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, when he was 10 years old.[2]

Career

Le-Nguyen was the first Vietnamese-Australian to be appointed as an Official Prison Visitor to Port Phillip and Fulham Correctional Centres by the Minister for Corrections, the Honourable Andre Haermeyer in 2003 to act as an independent voice for the prison system in Victoria.

Le-Nguyen played Tiger in Geoffrey Wright’s 1992 Australian drama film Romper Stomper.[3] He has also appeared in other television productions including: Stingers, SeaChange, Raw FM, G.P., Fast Forward, All Together Now, Embassy, Secrets, The Damnation of Harvey McHugh, Paradise Beach, Australia’s most wanted & Sword of Honour.[4]

Le-Nguyen studied Television Production at RMIT in 1989 and completed his Bachelor of Arts (Drama/Community Development) in 1998 and Diploma of Education in 2000 at Victoria University.

He was awarded the Community Cultural Development Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2000.

Between 1986 and 1987, Le-Nguyen toured with Mary Coustas in Handspan Theatre’s[5] production A Change of Face[6] written by Andrea Lemon and directed by Carmelina di Guglielmo. He worked on the Victorian Opera 1990 production of Madama Butterfly and performed in Theatreworks 1992 production of Titus, directed by David Pledger and Robert Draffin

In May 1994, he founded Australian Vietnamese Youth Media[7] with the support of Huu Tran and David Everist, the theatre coordinator at the Footscray Community Arts Centre.[8] The company received its first funding from the Queens Trust in 1995 to produce Chay Vong Vong,[9] a play he wrote and directed with the Vietnamese Community in Footscray, Melbourne. The following year, this organisation received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Sidney Myer Foundation to re-stage Chay Vong Vong[10] as a fully professional production at the Napier Street Theatre, in South Melbourne. In 1998 he was commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects to write and direct "Chay Vong Vong[11]" with the Vietnamese Community in Sydney, Australia.

Le-Nguyen has directed and produced such professional and community productions as A Time of Your Life, St. Martins Youth Theatre and Flemington Community Centre 1996, Now I Lay Me Down,[12] La Mama 1997, Taboo, Next Wave Festival 1998, "Aussie Bia Om,[13] 2001 Fringe Festival and directed segments for the BigWest Festival in 1997 and 2000, Children of the Dragon 2005,[14] Silent 2007[15] He co-directed Worlds Apart in 1996 with Gary McKechnie, a half-hour Television drama about generation conflict within a Vietnamese Australian family. Worlds Apart was first screened on SBS Television in December 1997.

Le-Nguyen began teaching drama at Blackbox, Hanoi from December, 2013 and directed his first Vietnamese 30 minutes drama "Mơ Chua" in 2015. He is currently teaching life-skills using drama for KOTO, a not-for-profit social enterprise that empowers at-risk and disadvantaged youth in Vietnam founded by Jimmy Pham.

Filmography

Films

TV series

References
  1. "Workshop sáng tạo: 'Lục giác Hợp nhất' cùng Tony Lê Nguyễn". ticketgo.vn (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  2. "Tony's story". Refugee Council of Australia. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  3. Romper Stomper, retrieved 16 June 2019
  4. Sword of Honour, retrieved 16 June 2019
  5. "Handspan Theatre". handspantheatre.com.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  6. "Handspan Theatre | A Change of Face". Handspan Theatre. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  7. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  8. Twenty4. "Footscray Community Arts Centre". Footscray Community Arts Centre. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  9. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  10. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  11. "The middle years: Death Defying Theatre transformed – By Ian Maxwell". Urban Theatre Projects. 2 December 2012. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  12. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  13. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  14. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  15. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
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