In this episode, Caitlin spoke with playwright, director and dramaturg, Andrea James.   Andrea is a Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai woman who is dedicated to the telling of First Nations stories on stage. She was Artistic Director of Melbourne Workers Theatre 2001-2008, was a playwright in residence at Melbourne Theatre Company and is currently an Associate Artist at Griffin Theatre Company.  Andrea’s plays have appeared on stages across Australia and around the world.  Here, we speak about her theatre practice, and her two most recent plays, Sunshine Super Girl, about Aboriginal tennis champion Evonne Goolagong, and, Dogged, written in collaboration with Katherine Ryan.   *** Grab copies of Andrea's scripts here: https://tinyurl.com/axncm7a6 *** Music by Grace Turner.  

Not in Print: playwrights off script - on inspiration, process and theatre itself

Andrea James: on collaboration, First Nations‘ storytelling and Sunshine Super Girl

"Five years at law school, eleven years of practice, I have always believed. Now I need to know that I was not mistaken." --- In this episode we spoke with Suzie Miller, playwright and former lawyer, about her award winning play, Prima Facie. Winner of the 2018 Griffin Award, Prima Facie is an indictment of the Australian legal system’s failure to provide reliable pathways to justice for women in rape, sexual assault or harassment cases. It’s a work of fiction, but one that could have been ripped from the headlines of any paper, any day of the week, so common you could cry. Tessa is a criminal lawyer at the top of her game who knows the law permits no room for emotion. To win, you just need to believe in the rules. And Tessa loves to win, even when defending clients accused of sexual assault. Her court-ordained duty trumps her feminism. But when she finds herself on the other side of the bar, Tessa is forced into the shadows of doubt she’s so ruthlessly cast over other women. Turning Sydney’s courts of law into a different kind of stage, Suzie Miller‘s (Sunset Strip, Caress/Ache) taut, rapid-fire and gripping one-woman show exposes the shortcomings of a patriarchal justice system where it’s her word against his. *** Prima Facie will be showing again at Griffin Theatre 23 June - 10 July 2021. Tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/4j8kd74x Grab copies of the script here: https://tinyurl.com/5zdjzr2y *** Music by Grace Turner Thanks to Sarah Easterman for reading the excerpts from the play for this episode.   

'The law of sexual assault spins on the wrong axis': Suzie Miller on her play, Prima Facie

"Tease us and hate us / but don't underestimate us..."   This month we spoke with Yve Blake, playwright, screenwriter and composer, and the creator of the hit musical FANGIRLS. FANGIRLS is showing again at Sydney Festival 2021 before touring Australia, and you can now get the script through Currency Press. The song in this episode is a track from FANGIRLS performed by some of the original 2019 cast, including Yve Blake, who played the role of Edna.  Learn more about Yve and her work over at yveblake.co  

Fangirling over FANGIRLS with Yve Blake

‘In Tamil we don’t say goodbye. Only, I will go and come back.’‘நாங்கள் விடைபெறேக்க, ‘போயிட்டு வாறன்’ எண்டு மட்டும் தான் தமிழில சொல்லுறனாங்கள்.’ In this episode we speak with S. Shakthidharan, a writer, director, musician and producer of film and theatre who grew up in Western Sydney and has Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry.  We discussed Shakthi's multi-award-winning, multilingual play, Counting and Cracking, which traverses countries and decades to bring us an epic tale of family, love and politics.  See more of Shakthi's work at kurinji.com.au 

'Counting and Cracking': in conversation with S. Shakthidharan

To re-launch Not in Print, we spoke with Finegan Kruckemeyer about magical worlds where monsters are friends and lighthouses are boats, and on the richness and dynamism of theatre for children and young people. *** Finegan has had 94 commissioned plays performed on six continents and translated into eight languages. His work hasenjoyed seasons in more than 200 international festivals and in 2018, he was the most-produced playwright of originalchildren’s theatre in the US.  He and his work have received 36 awards, including the Mickey Miners Lifetime Achievement Award for international Theatre for Young Audiences, David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Australian Playwrighting, seven Australian Writers' Guild Awards and an inaugural Sidney Myer Fellowship. Finegan has spoken at conferences in ten countries, with papers published and works studied at international universities. Finegan was born in Ireland and moved halfway around the world to Adelaide, Australia, aged eight. After 15 years, he and his wife Essie left for the island state of Tasmania. And after 15 more, with their son Moe, they returned. Finegan is committed to making strong and respectful work for children, which acknowledges them as astute audience members outside the plays, and worthy subjects within. See more of Finegan's work at finegankruckemeyer.com ** Currency Press has published four titles by Finegan, including one play collection; For We the Young, At Sea, Staring up, The Grumpiest Boy in the World and The Violent Outburst that Drew Me To You. Available at currency.com.au/books-tag/finegan-kruckemeyer/     

'For We The Young': Finegan Kruckemeyer on writing plays for children and young people

A powerful story of five disenfranchised young women who are fighting for respect, railing against authority and struggling to form an identity in a small town with limited opportunities. The relocation of an Iraqi refugee family to the town provokes a climate of hostility and tension that threatens to violently explode.--Angela Betzien is a multi-award winning writer and a founding member of independent theatre company Real TV; her work has toured widely across Australia and internationally. She is currently the Patrick White Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company and developing new plays for them, as well as Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir.Angela’s play Children of the Black Skirt toured Australian schools for three years and won the 2005 Drama Victoria Award for Best Performance by a Theatre Company for Secondary Schools. Another work, Hoods, won the AWGIE Award for Theatre for Young Audiences in 2007 and the Richard Wherrett Award for Theatre for Young Audiences in the same year. 

War Crimes: How do you win the battle inside your head? l Award-winning Australian theatre

"We hit Cairo like a train!... Every dirty little alley, every dusty back room bar. The pyramids are marvellous, but I could spend the rest of my days quite happily in the arms of your temptation."Inspired by The State Library of New South Wales' jaw-dropping collection of World War I diaries and letters, A Town Named War Boy explores both the events of war and the impact it has upon soldiers and their families. Written with insight, humour and sensitivity, Ross Mueller's moving play brings the ANZAC legend to life. 

A Town Named War Boy

Alana Valentine reads her response to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler. It’s called An Ever-Changing Idiom and features in the Currency Press series, Cue the Chorus, in which an assortment of respected Australian playwrights respond to the work of their peers. You can download all the responses in the series from our website - currencypress.com.auA little bit about Alana Valentine. She is one of Australia’s most renowned and respected writers. Valentine writes for the stage, screen, radio and multimedia projects, but is perhaps best known for her plays. She is well known for her rigorous use of research within the community she is writing about. Her work for the stage includes Run Rabbit Run, Parramatta Girls, Cyberbile, Ear to the Edge of Time and Comin’ Home Soon. She has received numerous awards, both in Australia and internationally.

An Ever Changing Idiom - Alana Valentine's response to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, by Ray Lawler

Alana Valentine—one of Australia’s most renowned and respected playwrights, whose work includes Parramatta Girls, Eyes to the Floor, Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah, Grounded and Cyberbile—reads the preface to the double edition of Brumby Innes and Bid Me to Love, two plays written by another of Australia’s literary treasures, Katharine Susannah Prichard. The introduction was written by Prichard's son, Ric Throssell.A little bit about Katharine Susannah PrichardPrichard was born in Levuka, Fiji, where her father was editor of the Fiji Times. She matriculated from South Melbourne College and worked briefly as a governess. She later taught in Melbourne studying English literature at night.In 1908 she travelled to London, working as a freelance journalist for the Melbourne Herald and, on her return, as the social editor of the Herald's women's page. In 1912 she left for England again to pursue a career as a writer and published two novels, The Pioneers and Windlestraws. She met the Australian Victoria Cross winner, Captain Hugo Throssell while away and in 1919 she married him and moved to Western Australia. Already a committed Communist in 1920, she was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia. In 1922 her only son Ric Throssell was born. While she was on a trip to the Soviet Union in 1933 Hugo Throssell committed suicide.From the 1920s until her death she lived at Greenmount, Western Australia, earning her living as a writer of novels, short stories and plays. Her novels include Black Opal; Working Bullocks; The Wild Oats of Han; Coonardoo; Haxby's Circus; Intimate Strangers; and the goldfields trilogy The Roaring Nineties, Golden Miles and Winged Seeds. Prichard was a member of the Communist Party of Australia until her death, and her political concerns were reflected in most of her published work. Her novels were published throughout the world and translated into numerous languages. In 1951 she was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.A few words about Brumby Innes and Bid Me to LoveWritten in the 1920s, Brumby Innes confronts the turbulent relations between the sexes and the races in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is published with another Prichard play from the 1920s, Bid Me To Love which, by contrast, is set among the fashionable rich in the lush hills outside Perth.

Introduction to Brumby Innes and Bid Me to Love - Ric Throssel

In Norm and Ahmed a rather ocker, white Australian male encounters a well-mannered Pakistani student with revolutionary ambitions on a Sydney street at midnight. The exploration of alienation in this play remained a common theme in Buzo’s work, with a tireless commitment to reflecting the true nature of Australian society.--Alex Buzo was born in Sydney and educated at the University of NSW. In the late 1960s his early plays Norm and Ahmed, Rooted and The Front Room Boys pioneered a revival of Australian theatre. Macquarie and other historical plays such as Big River and Pacific Union helped to popularise the themes of our individual and national maturity. Buzo's books Tautology, The Longest Game, The Young Person's Guide to the Theatre and A Dictionary of the Almost Obvious confirm his reputation as an important recorder of the modern Australian idiom. In 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales for his contribution to Australian literature. And following his death in 2006, his daughter Emma founded The Alex Buzo Company, which was the first arts organisation in Australia to produce, promote and perpetuate the work of a single Australian writer. Today, Emma Buzo is here to discuss what is, perhaps, her father’s most famous work, Norm and Ahmed, which she loves deeply and also directed for The Alex Buzo Company in 2007.

Norm & Ahmed: Race prejudice is a profoundly irrational force l Australian theatre classics

Toby Leon reads an article Alex Buzo wrote for Quadrant Magazine in 2004. It’s called ‘Wary Asians on a Theme: Dramatising in the Near North’ and unpacks the cultural complexities that Buzo encountered when presenting his work in Asia - from India, to Malaysia and Indonesia too - seeing the reactions from audiences, reading local critics’ appraisals of his plays, listening to the directors’ choices about his characters motivation and truth, then trying to make those same choices himself when he directed his play Pacific Union in Jakarta. And of course the piece is brimming with Alex’s insight and humour, both just as sharp as each other.--Alex Buzo was born in Sydney and educated at the University of NSW. In the late 1960s his early plays Norm and Ahmed, Rooted and The Front Room Boys pioneered a revival of Australian theatre.Macquarie and other historical plays such as Big River and Pacific Union helped to popularise the themes of our individual and national maturity. Buzo's books Tautology, The Longest Game, The Young Person's Guide to the Theatre and A Dictionary of the Almost Obvious confirm his reputation as an important recorder of the modern Australian idiom.

Wary Asians on a Theme: Dramatising in the Near North l Australian theatre in Asia

Each night two hoods ride a train to a wrecking yard on the outskirts of the city. Here, in this cemetery of stories, they are storytellers with the power to fast forward, pause and rewind. Tonight they tell the story of three kids left in a car. Exploring issues of poverty and family violence, Hoods is a suburban tale of survival and solidarity against the odds.--Angela Betzien is a multi-award winning writer and a founding member of independent theatre company Real TV; her work has toured widely across Australia and internationally. She is currently the Patrick White Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company and developing new plays for them, as well as Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir.Angela’s play Children of the Black Skirt toured Australian schools for three years and won the 2005 Drama Victoria Award for Best Performance by a Theatre Company for Secondary Schools. Another work, War Crimes, won the 2012 Kit Denton Fellowship and the QLD Literary Award for Playwriting; it was also nominated for a NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 2012.

Hoods: Who is responsible for childrens' welfare? l Award-winning Australian theatre

At times funny, bizarre and confronting, cultures and ideologies collide in this intimate and innately Australian exploration of love and loss. Drawing the 2005 Cronulla Riots, which attracted worldwide attention for all the wrong reasons, Stories of Love & Hate considers the idea of hate being a consequence of feeling that the things we love are under threat.--Roslyn Oades is well known for her pioneering work in the field of headphone verbatim and audio-driven performance, taking real life and fusing it into storytelling. As an artist, Roslyn harbors a long-term fascination for vocal patterns and moonlights as a well-known cartoon character voice performer—including major roles on the animated TV series Tracey McBean, Bananas in Pyjamas and Zigby. She has also worked extensively as a TV actor and puppeteer.

Stories of Love and Hate: When do they collide? l Headphone verbatim theatre

Roslyn Oades reads the transcript of a speech she gave at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010, where she was invited to contribute to a panel on dramaturgy & emerging artists.--Roslyn Oades is well known for her pioneering work in the field of headphone verbatim and audio-driven performance, taking real life and fusing it into storytelling. As an artist, Roslyn harbors a long-term fascination for vocal patterns and moonlights as a well-known cartoon character voice performer—including major roles on the animated TV series Tracey McBean, Bananas in Pyjamas and Zigby. She has also worked extensively as a TV actor and puppeteer.

On Dramaturgy and Emerging Artists l Advice for up and coming playwrights

An odd-couple story—a friendship between two musicians stuck in an immigration detention centre. There’s the drummer who loves rock ‘n’ roll and the guitarist with a passion for Cat Stevens. Their discord becomes a key, unlocking the deep frustration and aimlessness both men feel. And Linda Jaivin finds just enough dark humour to save them from oblivion.--Linda Jaivin is a writer, translator and cultural commentator. She is the author of eleven books and a frequent contributor to respected publications, including The Monthly. Her first novel was the comic-erotic international best-seller Eat Me. Her seventh and most recent novel is The Empress Lover. Her non-fiction includes Confessions of an S&M Virgin and the China memoir The Monkey and the Dragon as well as Beijing, which has just been published as part of Reaktion Press’s Cityscopes series. She is also a literary translator from Chinese, specialising in film subtitles, and an editorial consultant to the ANU's Australian Centre on China in the World. Between 2001 and 2005, Linda regularly visited asylum seekers at Villawood Detention Centre where she helped some to draft appeals on their cases to the minister for immigration.

Halal-el-Mashakel: "Asylum seekers are just like you and me" l Refugee theatre

Currency Press believes in theatre that raises more questions than answers, so we’re talking to Australian playwrights about their work, getting insights straight from the source

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Not in Print: playwrights off script - on inspiration, proce...

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