If you ask any of the theatre makers behind A Ghost in My Suitcase what drew them to Gabrielle Wang's novel, they're likely to mention three names: Celeste, Por Por and Ting Ting.

"It's great to have three strong female characters at the centre of this narrative," says Barking Gecko Theatre's artistic director Matt Edgerton. "That still doesn't happen much in theatre."

Or, as playwright Vanessa Bates puts it: "I really loved the idea of girls kicking ghost butts."

Celeste is the girl at the centre of Gabrielle Wang's story. She's 12 years old and has travelled to China for the first time, to scatter her mother's ashes. Celeste is Australian with French and Chinese heritage.

In China she meets her grandmother (Por Por) and Ting Ting, an orphaned girl Por Por has taken under her wing — and it's there Celeste discovers the women in her family are ghost hunters.

Barking Gecko were intent on bringing a diverse range of characters to the stage. ( Supplied: MIAF/Stefan Gosatti )

Barking Gecko specialise in making theatre for children, and with that audience in mind, Edgerton says it's important for them to present a diverse range of characters on stage.

"We've got a responsibility, in giving people some of their first theatrical experiences, to represent lots of different perspectives," he says.

He also just loved the story.

"I read a lot of fantasy books when I was a kid and I really loved writers … that wrote with great imagination — that created worlds, but also had a sense of heart and a moral sensibility to their work," he says.

"Coming across Gabrielle's book I thought: 'This is all of that, and it's Australian'.

"What a great gift to give an audience of Australian kids."

An Australian story

The events of A Ghost in My Suitcase take place in China, but it's a distinctly Australian story.

"Unless you're Indigenous, if you're living in Australia in recent history, you've got heritage elsewhere," Edgerton says.

"So, that story of diaspora, of people who have travelled to be here but have roots elsewhere, is a story that's almost universal in Australia."

It's a theme that took Wang some time to wrestle with. The author was born in Australia, and is fourth-generation Australian on her mother's side, but grew up resenting her Chinese heritage.

Writer Gabrielle Wang started to connect with her Chinese heritage once she spent time living in China as an adult. ( Supplied: Gabrielle Wang )

"Growing up in Australia, I have an Asian face and so people would say, 'Where do you come from?' and I'd be offended by that and I would say the suburb that I lived in," Wang says. "I knew exactly what they meant.

"I knew nothing about Chinese culture when I was growing up. I couldn't speak the language, I only could speak English. I wanted to reject it totally."

It wasn't until Wang spent time living in China as an adult that she started to connect with her heritage.

These feelings were familiar to playwright Vanessa Bates, who adapted the novel for the stage. Bates was born in Australia to a Filipino mother and English father.

"I immediately understood the idea of this 12-year-old Eurasian girl who's half Chinese and going to China for the first time and [asking], 'Am I Australian? Am I Chinese?'" the playwright says.

"We don't often see the experiences of Asian Australians on stage," Bates says. ( Supplied: MIAF/Stefan Gosatti )

Bates leapt at the chance to be involved in a project that would put more Australians who looked like her on stage.

"When I sat down [with the cast] for the first read and looked at all the people around me, I just went, 'My god, this is really exciting'," Bates says.

"We don't often see the experiences of Asian Australians on stage, and this is a story for children and for families. I think it's great to be seeing the diversity of that kind of story, and yet for it to be universal.

"It's a child who is dealing with the death of a parent and is in a strange environment and has to overcome their fear. That's a classic trope in any culture."

Learning to trust children

A story of grief, identity confusion and restless spirits might not immediately scream "children's theatre", but Barking Gecko have a reputation for challenging their young audiences. They have already staged acclaimed productions of John Marsden and Shaun Tan's The Rabbits, and Colin Thiele's classic, Storm Boy.

Barking Gecko involved children in the development of the play. ( Supplied: MIAF/Stefan Gosatti )

Edgerton, who has co-directed A Ghost in My Suitcase with Hong Kong-born theatre maker Ching Ching Ho, says their young audience shouldn't be underestimated.

"Children love stories that take them seriously as humans," he says. "We don't want to shy away from the big themes and the big ideas."

Barking Gecko also make efforts to involve children in the creative process, staging trial seasons for hundreds of children in their home city of Perth, to gather feedback.

"What that means is you're not making a show just based on your own taste and aesthetic decisions," Edgerton explains. "You're actually having to make a show that takes your audience into account."

When asked what he learned from that process, Edgerton responds: "It taught us to trust children more.

"Children are incredibly astute observers of theatre and actually you don't need to spell things out for them — they pick things up incredibly quickly."

A Ghost In My Suitcase has its world premiere as part of Melbourne International Arts Festival, from October 18-21.