Tamasein Holyman has the intriguing title of Mistress of Make-Believe. She is one of Australia’s leading pioneers in immersive entertainment and has spent the last 14 years creating original immersive worlds for people to discover and explore.

In 2009 she launched Underground Cinema, a secret film-screening experience held in undisclosed locations in Sydney and Melbourne where guests are immersed into the world of a secret film. Today, she and her team have created over 30 different unique, bespoke worlds and produced more than 100 screenings across Melbourne and Sydney.

The success of Underground Cinema saw her team up with Mushroom Group and Frontier Touring in 2019, Australia’s largest independent music and entertainment company, to launch Immersive Cinema that began with an experience based on Dirty Dancing which was attended by over 20,000 people across shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

Tam is also the Managing Director of Secret Squirrel Productions, storytellers with a strong focus on designing unique participatory experiences in unusual environments.

Working with different brands and clients, Secret Squirrel Productions blends theatre, cinema and music, to build distinctive universes that transport guests through a fictitious live narrative.

Over the years the team have created diverse innovative experience designs, including an immersive zombie escape room in a 40ft shipping container in Fed Square and a Les Miserables flash mob in Sydney Central Train Station at peak hour. In the world of make-believe anything is possible.

To date, over 60,000 people have stepped into one of her 80+ immersive worlds. In 2021 Time Out named Tamasein a Future Shaper in the Arts.