With this website now in existence (thanks to the amazing talents of illustrator Andy Ellis, designer Kelly Eijdenberg and builder Shaun Wilson), I’ve been admittedly lax with posting updates. So today I look both forward (to 2016 and a preemptive new year’s resolution of more rigour), and back – over all that’s come to be in the second half of 2015.

Seasons:
Since launching the site in May, 17 seasons have taken place throughout the US, Czech Republic and Australia. These included a three-month Los Angeles run of Man Covets Bird (thanks, 24th Street Theater), an Australian premiere for The Boy at the Edge of Everything (at the wonderful Melbourne Theatre Company), and a Prague Festival season of This Girl Laughs… (as brought to life by Just This Once).

Awards:
I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that my work had received four major industry awards in the last while:
– The 2015 David Williamson Prize for Australian Playwrighting, as generously gifted by its namesake (and Aussie theatre icon).
– The 2015 Future leader Award at the CHASS (Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) Australia Prizes.
– The 2015 Australian Writers Guild (AWGIE) Award for Best Children’s Play (for The Boy at the Edge of Everything).
– And the Best Moving Experience acknowledgement at the Diemen Awards for my first ever commercial (The Wanderer for East Coast Tourism. Here it is: The Wanderer advert

Other Activities:
In July, I was honoured to deliver a keynote at the renowned Lincoln Center for the Arts in New York, presenting a paper as part of their Summer Education Forum, before a Trusty Sidekick reading of The Boy at the Edge of Everything as a taster before the full production in March!

In September, I spoke at the senate hearing enquiry into the removal of $104M from our peer-assessed funding body The Australia Council, by our then Arts Minister Brandis. Statement to the Senate Enquiry

In October, I was very lucky to speak on a number of panels for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, as held in beautiful Bali. Essie and Moe joined me for the amazing adventure and it was a true pleasure to present alongside writers whose words I love (among them Michael Chabon, Chigozie Obioma, Okky Madasari).

In November, Essie, Moe and I returned home and breathed out after the months that had been (including three spent overseas in the US and Asia), weeding the garden and planting the tomatoes, in readiness for the summer months ahead.

Now 2016 looms and, with it, a great run of 20 new seasons in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and the US. Feel free to check the listings for those in your part of the world, and to make contact if ever interested in something yet to be created.

Fin