Episodes
Wednesday Jun 08, 2022
’Australia in 50 Plays’: In conversation with Julian Meyrick
Wednesday Jun 08, 2022
Wednesday Jun 08, 2022
In this episode of Not in Print Caitlin speaks with Julian Meyrick.
Julian Meyrick is Professor of Creative Industries at Griffith University and an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University. He has directed award-winning productions at Melbourne Theatre Company, Griffin, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Workers Theatre and Kick House Theatre and was Associate Director and Literary Advisor at Melbourne Theatre Company until 2007.
In this podcast Julian discusses his most recent book, 'Australia in 50 Plays', published by Currency Press and launched at the inaugural Australian Playwrights’ Festival in March this year.
Grab a copy of the book here: currency.com.au/books/history-and-criticism/australia-in-50-plays/
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Music by Grace Turner
Monday Jun 15, 2015
A Town Named War Boy
Monday Jun 15, 2015
Monday Jun 15, 2015
Sunday Apr 26, 2015
Introduction to Brumby Innes and Bid Me to Love - Ric Throssel
Sunday Apr 26, 2015
Sunday Apr 26, 2015
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 Prichard
Prichard 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 Love
Written 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.
Saturday Mar 14, 2015
Saturday Mar 14, 2015
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.
Saturday Mar 14, 2015
Wary Asians on a Theme: Dramatising in the Near North l Australian theatre in Asia
Saturday Mar 14, 2015
Saturday Mar 14, 2015
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.
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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.
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
The Secret River: Our history is contested space l Classic Australian theatre
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
William Thornhill: Born into brutal poverty in London in the late 18th century and transported to the Colony of New South Wales for theft in 1806. After earning his freedom he brings his wife and children to the Hawkesbury River where they ‘take up’ 100 acres of land, only to discover that it’s not theirs to take.
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Andrew Bovell writes for the stage, television and film. In 1992 he wrote the original screenplay for Strictly Ballroom and in 2001 he went on to adapt his stage play Speaking in Tongues in to the feature film, Lantana. The film premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2001 and went on to screen at numerous international film festivals winning many awards. Most recently Andrew adapted John Le Carre’s novel A Most Wanted Man.
His theatre credits include Scenes from a Separation (with Hannie Rayson); Speaking in Tongues, which premiered at Griffin Theatre in 1996 and has had over 50 other productions worldwide; Holy Day, which won the Louis Esson Prize for Drama at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the AWGIE Award for Best Stage Play (2002); and When the Rain Stops Falling, which won Queensland and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Best Play, the Adelaide Critics Circle Individual Award, Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Australian Work and 3 Greenroom Awards including Best New Writing for the Australian Stage.
Tuesday Jul 29, 2014
Tuesday Jul 29, 2014
Sunday Jun 01, 2014
Introduction to Radiance l Classic Australian theatre
Sunday Jun 01, 2014
Sunday Jun 01, 2014
Louis Nowra reads his introduction to his play, Radiance. It’s called Women on the Mud Flats and it charts the journey of the work from a single image, into the shape of a story, to the premiere production and beyond. But this isn’t just a recount of the tale. If you're a believer in fate, you will see that Radiance is a story that was destined to be told.
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Louis Nowra is one of Australia’s most successful writers. He has penned novels, crafted film scripts, authored two memoirs and worked as a librettist, but he is perhaps best known for his plays. Since the early 1970s he has created over 30 stories for the stage; several of them have earned a rightful place in the Australian dramatic canon, and our hearts. They include Summer of the Aliens, Cosi, The Golden Age, The Temple and Albert Names Edward.
Tuesday Apr 01, 2014
Neighbourhood Watch: hope, death and pets l Australian theatre - comedy
Tuesday Apr 01, 2014
Tuesday Apr 01, 2014
It’s a classic odd-couple story. Meet Ana—a battle hardened Hungarian-Australian veteran of the twentieth century. Catherine is her neighbour: twenty-something and waiting for a better world. Can their unlikely friendship outlive the colossal forces of history, the inevitability of death, and a trip to the mall to see Mamma Mia?
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Lally Katz is one of Australia’s most intriguing playwrights. She is also one of the country’s most performed playwrights. A graduate of the University of Melbourne, Lally also studied playwriting at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Her plays include Frankenstein, The Black Swan of Trespass, The Eisteddfod, Criminology and Goodbye New York, Goodbye Heart. Her 2009 play, Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, received the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. A Golem Story won the same award in 2012. Other awards include several Green Room and Melbourne Fringe Awards, as well as a New York International Fringe Festival Producer’s Choice Award.
Monday Feb 17, 2014
Jump for Jordan: caught between cultures l Award-winning Australian theatre
Monday Feb 17, 2014
Monday Feb 17, 2014
Aspiring archaeologist, Sophie, left home when she was 20, much to the shame of her traditional Jordanian mother. Years later, losing sleep and petrified by the judgement of her visiting ‘mad Arab’ Aunty Azza, Sophie's forced to lie about her life, her career and the existence of her Aussie partner. Worst of all is the fear that she’s also lying to herself.
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Donna Abela served her playwriting apprenticeship at Powerhouse Youth Theatre, a company she co-founded in 1987 in Sydney’s culturally diverse western suburbs. Donna worked continuously with PYT for the next seventeen years as it consolidated its practice of community collaboration.
She has worked extensively as a dramaturge and script assessor for various theatre companies and organisations, including the Australian Writers' Guild and the Australian National Playwrights' Centre. Donna also teaches writing, and has lectured in scriptwriting at Wesley Institute since 1991.
Over her career, Donna has written more than 30 stage and radio plays for audiences of all ages. Credits include: A Cleansing Force, Olympia and Phoung, Spirit, The Greatest Show On Earth, The Rood Screen, The Daphne Massacre and Mrs Macquarie’s Cello.