As part of its 50th anniversary celebrations Currency Press held the Australian Playwright Festival over the weekend of the 18th to 20th March 2022.
The Festival was well attended and it was pleasing to see a lot of young people. The Festival was built around a number of panel discussions which proved very interesting.
Patricia Cornelius gave the keynote Festival address and spoke about her extensive career including her time with the Melbourne Workers Theatre working alongside such luminaries as Andrew Bovell.
Writing Taboos : Voicing the Unspeakable was chaired by Currency Press editor Katie Pollock and featured prolific Australian playwright Hilary Bell. Bell talked about a number of plays including ‘Wolf Lullaby’ which had a very successful season at the Stables Theatre in Kings Cross.
My Playwright Crush 1 featured Elias Jamieson and his crush, playwright Debra Oswald. Oswald spoke about a number of her scripts including her play ‘Gary’s House’ and her television series ‘Offspring’. There was discussion with the audience about how difficult it was to get plays produced and when how after submitting scripts sometimes theatre companies wouldn’t even get back to you.
Stephen Sewell chaired a very lively forum ‘You Can’t Write That’ with Vanessa Bates, Dylan Van Den Berg and Andrew Bovell.
Tommy Murphy chaired the panel Staging the Real’ which discussed how playwrights gather and transform lived experiences into compelling drama The panelists were Angela Betzie, S. Shakthidharan, whose plays included the successful Belvoir production ‘Counting and Cracking’ and the very prolific playwright Alana Valentine who has written plays with such diverse subjects as the South Sydney rugby league club and Lindy Chamberlain.
Wesley Enoch chaired a forum on Blak theatre with Andrea James, Nakkiah Lui and Nathan Maynard. This was a fascinating forum during which Enoch spoke about how he enjoyed controversy and intense discussion as long as each party was respectful.
Saturday night saw Currency Press launch its latest major publication, Australian academic Julian Meyrick’s Australia in 50 plays which documents how leading Australian plays respond and reflect what is going on in society at the time.
Sunday morning started with a cheery forum chaired by Melanie Tait and featuring Jonathon Biggins, Nick Coyle and Michelle Law. Biggins spoke about the power of satire, stand-up comic Coyle about his fearlessness when he was on stage. He also spoke about how sometimes he kept using a joke in his act that he knew audiences won’t responding to, just because it was a personal favourite. Michelle Law spoke about how much she enjoyed writing across different platforms; theatre, television and print journalism.
The second installment of My Playwright Crush saw Emily Sheeham chat to her crush Andrew Bovell. This was a fascinating discussion with Bovell going into depth about his writing process. I found it particularly interesting how he spoke about much he thought about his prospective audience whilst writing his plays, particularly in regards to how to the points in the play when the audience can ‘spot’ something shifting in the play.
Stephen Sewell chaired a panel featuring Michelle Arrow, Wesley Enoch and Julian Meyrick which followed the same theme as the book launch of Meyrick’s ‘Australia in 50 Plays’, that of the way that plays talk about how plays reflect on changes in society. David Williamson who was listed as one of the panelists didn’t attend.
The final forum was entitled ‘The Playwright and The Publisher’ in which John McCallum paid tribute to prolific playwright Alma De Groen’s contribution to Australian theatre and then Katherine Thomson spoke to Katherine Brisbane’s contribution and the growth of her and her late husband Philip’s ‘baby;, Currency Press.
This was a stimulating writer’s festival where like minded people got together and shared ideas. Hopefully it won’t be too long till another Festival takes place, maybe next year?!