Media Release

The Final Act in the Playwright Awards

The Chair of the R.E. Ross Trust, Eda Ritchie, tonight announced the four winners of the R.E. Ross Trust Playwrights’ Script Development Awards 2004 at Zinc, Federation Square.

Stories reflecting both Australian experiences and the greater human condition were winners in this year’s Awards, announced at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards function.

Anthony Crowley’s Shadow Passion was a winner this year. The play deals with many confronting themes including euthanasia, our treatment of asylum seekers and the compromises of the soul and spirit that result from western society’s inward focus.

Duet for Lovers and Dreamers by Sandra Long was another winner that captured the judges’ imaginations. This series of six duets that imaginatively explores aspects of life, death and the human condition using image, music, text and dance was also described as ‘a wonderfully poetic piece of writing’.

Also successful was Brother Boy, a play by Nic Velissaris, which tells the story of a Greek family coping with the loss of their mother to cancer. Actor and playwright Pauline Whyman’s play That’s a Good Question won accolades from the judges with her story of Susan an Aboriginal woman in her thirties, ‘stolen’ from her biological family and placed in the care of a middle-class white family.

Convenor Ben Harkin commended the philosophy of the Award. ‘All the work submitted reinforced the need for such awards and the opportunities they afford writers to explore and fully develop their work prior to final production. We consider such opportunities are vital if we are to develop the ability to tell stories that are current and socially relevant in both local and global communities’.

One of last year’s winner Tee O’Neill has praised the Awards for the invaluable time they have given to her work with theatre artists to develop her play from a first draft to a rehearsal ready script. Her script is now ready for its presentation in the Theatre@Risk season next June at Theatreworks. It is also currently shortlisted in the final three in the Corkadorka Award in Ireland.

The Awards are an initiative of the R.E. Ross Trust and support and foster Victoria’s theatre industry by assisting writers to develop their play scripts. The Awards are administered by the State Library of Victoria.