Ella Peeters, an emerging neurodivergent artist, chats with Autistic actor and performance-maker Adam Kelly about his upcoming show Dragon, I at Perth Festival, 2026. They discuss Adam’s journey in theatre, starting from productions with the WA Youth Theatre Co where he met James Berlyn and created the acclaimed show ARCO. Kelly’s newest show Dragon, I, delves into the intersections of dragons and AI, reflecting on neurodiverse creativity.
Ella Peeters
Hi Adam. Can you please introduce yourself and the kind of art you like to make?
Adam Kelly
My name is Adam Kelly. I’m an autistic gentleman. I would describe myself as an actor, performance maker and a bit of a writer who’s always been fascinated by story making in all ways. The sort of stories that really get me, that I find interesting, are stories with different perspectives of the world and interpretations of things. I always try and broaden my horizons and look for stories that help me get a better understanding of the world.
Ella Peeters
What’s your background in theatre and performance? How did you end up doing what you’re doing now?
Adam Kelly
A mixture of hard work and random chance. In high school, my friends were interested in acting, and I loved seeing them do shows, so I thought I’d be interested in that. I really liked the drama classes and I did improv. Then those friends went on to join The WA Youth Theatre Company (WAYTCo), so I gave it a shot and I thought, yeah, I love this. For most of my life, I felt like I didn’t really fit in. I felt like a penguin who had lived all his life on dry land. But when I found acting for first time I found I could glide, I could soar, I could swim, I could dart, I could do all sorts of things. I found it really freeing and I loved every second of it. I started doing some WAYTCo, while studying horticulture at TAFE. In 2017, WAYTCo started doing auditions for a show called Away and I thought, I’ll audition for that because it looks like a really cool play and I got in! Now I’m on a roll. Once I got bit by the acting bug, I just loved it, everything about it was fantastic.
Adam Kelly in development for Dragon I.
Ella Peeters
I know you love dragons, and you’ve been talking, writing and performing about them for years, so could you tell me how and when did this obsession start?
Adam Kelly
I adore dragons. They just make so much sense to me. I guess I started when I was really young, I had a few obsessions. First, there was hubcaps, then there were dinosaurs and then when I saw dragon in Shrek, I just thought, yep, I love these things. Such a cool character. The current dragons I’m working with right now in my story is Morguthul, Aquarina and Pyrothies. I’ve been working on their world for a very long time now. I started with the idea of Morguthul in 2013 and I’ve been slowly building their world ever since.
Ella Peeters
Could you tell me a bit about their world?
Adam Kelly
The Realm of Myrithia is very vast dragon realm, roughly around the size of Europe and Asia combined. It’s an enormous world with very different landscapes and very different areas and stuff. There’s human kingdoms, next to the vampire kingdom. There’s a Taurine territory and Minotaur’s kingdoms, and the thing is, Taurints are bull creatures and Minotaurs are bull creatures as well. But they don’t realise they’re the same species, but we’ll get to that later. They hate each other anyway. Pyrothies is a fire dragon, he lives on the summer islands and stuff. He’s one of the four Guardian dragons and their goal is to protect Myrithia from things.
Adam Kelly and Director/Co-Writer James Berlyn in development for Dragon I.
Ella Peeters
That’s awesome. An interesting idea in Dragon I, is that you’re joining the debate to AI or not to AI. So, I’m wondering, how is the show highlighting the use of AI, and how do dragons and AI intersect?
Adam Kelly
Well, the thing is, dragons are beings who are tremendously powerful, hard to predict, and it’s hard to know what their possibilities can be. AI has similar traits, in the sense that they’re hard to predict, we don’t understand the full fragments of it, and they can very much, really reshape a lot of things in some ways. One thing [my Director and Co-writer] James Berlyn and I were interested in was creating our story about AI and what it means for neurodiverse creativity.
Ella Peeters
Could you elaborate on that?
Adam Kelly
AI is very good at doing is sifting through a lot of normal stuff and producing generic, general versions of what something’s supposed to look like and stuff. There’s a lot of over representation of neurotypical data sets and ways to do things, there may not be as many autistic ways of doing things representing their data sets. So, AI might cause a bit of an invisibility in our styles of story making and our styles of creativity, if that makes sense. But also, at the same time, AI can also assist. Not everyone has the same access needs and some may need AI to help them promote their stories. I feel on a personal level, when it comes to neurodiversity and AI, no one else is really talking about neurodivergence and AI. I feel like this show could really help explain a niche, because in it, I’m sort of playing a fictional version of my fictionalised version of myself, who’s feeling a bit insecure about his dragon books and wondering if he should use AI to help finish the books or not, and the internal call for that within himself that arises.
Ella Peeters
What else can you tell me about Dragon I?
Adam Kelly
It’s a show about a fictionalised version of myself trying to do like a TED Talk to introduce people to the world of Myrithia I’ve built, and then hijinks ensue. It’s sort of like a fictionalised biography, but not really, there’s definitely comedy and definitely drama. There’s all the above.
Ella Peeters
What do you hope the audience will get from the show?
Adam Kelly
I hope the audience start having conversations at home about what AI actually means. My view of AI is that it can be used in some instances, but I feel like it should be more, highly controlled when it comes to creativity. Art’s very intrinsic to humanity and our imagination, our ability to create new things. When we start trying to copy that, it kind of cheapens it. I hope the audience gets some understanding of how my mind specifically works, works differently. Autism for a very long time has been seen as something like a deficit. But I think it’s for them to see an autistic human being creating something so elaborate, so cool, a taste of what I’ve been creating in my mind for a very long time. I hope other neurodiverse people see what they can make and just feel seen in the world. I’m also aware as an actor, that I can’t necessarily control what the audience thinks and what they comment. So when they come to this show, when they see it, they can put their own things on it. That’s the beauty about performance, because each and every person will see it differently. The performer is like the sun, but everyone else, all the audiences, are planets orbiting it, seeing a different side of it.
Adam Kelly in development for Dragon I.
Ella Peeters
That’s beautiful, Adam. You’ve made two shows now, and you’ve toured ARCO across Australia, so in a way you’re starting a legacy for neurodivergent artists. Do you have any advice for emerging neurodivergent and Deaf/disabled artists?
Adam Kelly
To all my neurodiverse, Deaf and disabled brothers and sisters and non-binaries out there, I’d like them to know to follow your dreams, believe in yourself, always follow your heart absolutely and form bonds with people you trust and work well with. Do what makes you happy. If you have a dream, don’t be frightened, don’t hesitate, just do your best. And know that fundamentally, it is said that the journey of 1000 miles begins with only one step, you know, and you can achieve it if you just do your best, and if doubt comes your way, what I do when I started having doubts about stuff. Well, I imagine those doubts just riding a unicycle on a balloon that could fall over the balloon at any moment. Follow your dreams, do what makes you feel happy, and also always believe in yourself, because that’s the glue that’ll get you through anything.
Ella Peeters
Finally, is there anything else that you want to say or anything that I’ve missed that you want to talk about?
Adam Kelly
For those who want to become actors and performers. Remember, you don’t have to compare yourself to others in order to feel successful. You don’t need the best headshots. You don’t need to go to university, because I didn’t go to university. All you need is people who believe in you, and when you don’t have that, believe in yourself, do the things you love, and you’ll find the people who believe in you.
Dragon, I is playing at Subiaco Arts Centre from 26 February to 1 March, 2026.