Biography
Born as Le Thien Toan in Sa Dec, Vietnam in 1968. He migrated to Australia with his family in 1978 and changed his name to Tony Lee.
In 1992, After acting in Romper Stomper, he changes his name to Tony Le Nguyen. He is currently the Executive Producer for Australian Vietnamese Youth Media, a professional community theatre, film and events Production Company, based in Melbourne, Australia.
Tony studied video production at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1988 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, at the Victoria University of Technology, majoring in Drama and Community Development.
Between 1986 and 1988, he toured with Handspan Theatre's, A Change of Face, a play written by Andrea Lemon, directed by Camelina Di Guliamo. He has worked with the VSO production, Madama Butterfly. In 1992, Tony performed in Theatreworks production, Titus, directed by David Pledger and Robert Draghin, as part of the 1992 Melbourne International Festival.
He is best known for his pivotal role, Tiger, in Jeffrey Wright's feature film, Romper Stomper. Tony has appeared in many Television productions including: Raw F.M., G.P., Fast Forward, All Together Now, Embassy, Secrets, Damnation of Harvey McHugh, Paradise Beach, Stingers and Sea Change.
In 1994, he founded Australian Vietnamese Youth Media (Vietnamese Youth Theatre), with the support of David Everist, Theatre co-coordinator, FCAC. The company received its first funding from the Queens Trust in 1995 to produce Chay Vong Vong, a play written and directed by Tony Le Nguyen with the Vietnamese Community in Footscray, Melbourne. The following year, the company received funding from the Australia Council and the Sidney Myers Foundation to re-stage Chay Vong Vong as a fully professional production at the Napier Street Theatre, in South Melbourne.
Tony has directed numerous professional and community productions including, Now I Lay Me Down, 1997, by Frank Otis for La Mama Theatre Company, Co-directed A Time of Your Life, 1996 with Anne O'Keffe and Helen Simonson, for St. Martins Youth Theatre and Flemington Community Centre. He also co-directed the 1998 Next Wave Festival production, Taboo, with Debbie Maziarz, Andea Ousley, and Maryanne Permezel. He directed the Vietnamese Chair Dance for the 1997 Maribyrnong Festival. He co-directed Worlds Apart with Gary McKechnie, in 1986, a half-hour drama about generation conflict within a Vietnamese-Australian family. World's Apart was screened on SBS Television in December 1997.
In 1998, Tony was commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects to write and direct a new version of Chay Vong Vong with the Vietnamese Community in Sydney.
