DYLAN Van Den Berg and his auntie, Gaye Doolan, make a formidable double act.
He’s the up-and-coming actor and playwright who just snared the coveted Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the Griffin Award and the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award in 2020.
She’s the former chair of the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, and the Environment Reconciliation Action Plan Committee at the ANU Medical School, and now works with the National Cultural Educators and Cultural Mentors Network.
Both identify as Palawa Tasmanian Aboriginal Australians from the north-east of Tasmania, and both are linked through a close ancestral relationship, although Doolan prefers to call herself “more like his great-aunt”.