STC Honours Playwrights
• Hilary Bell named the Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellow
• Anna Barnes wins the 2013 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award
Hilary Bell was announced as the winner of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship at a special event at Sydney Theatre Company on Friday 24 May, 2013. Now in its third year, thefellowship is a position for an established Australian playwright whose work has beenproduced professionally in Australia within the last four years. Hilary received $25,000 inrecognition of her body of work and previous artistic achievements. As well as including acommission from STC which she will develop during the year-long tenure, the Fellowship willprovide opportunities for her to share her skills with other playwrights and artists.
STC Artistic Director, Andrew Upton said: “We are delighted that Hilary Bell is the recipient of this year’s Fellowship. She is a playwright who refuses to be pigeonholed and constantly seeks new creative challenges and new ways of telling stories for the stage. She is a wonderful collaborator, a true creature of the theatre and an important voice, both on and off stage, within the Sydney’s writing community. Hilary has an existing relationship with STC and this Fellowship is an exciting opportunity to consolidate on our previous creative collaborations.”
Hilary Bell’s play The Splinter was produced at STC in 2012 and in 2009 she co-adapted The Mysteries: Genesis. Her plays have been produced across Australia and internationally andinclude: Wolf Lullaby, Fortune, The Falls, The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch, Memmie Le Blanc, The Bloody Bride, Take Up Thy Bed And Walk, The White Divers of Broome and Victim Sidekick Boyfriend Me for the National Theatre Connections Programme. Hilary has receivednumerous awards including the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights’ Award, Jill BlewettPlaywrights’ Award, Bug’n’Bub Award, Aurealis Award for Fiction, Eric Kocher Playwrights’Award, Inscription Award, a Helpmann Award and an AWGIE for Music Theatre.
Anna Barnes was also announced as the winner of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award at the event for her play, MinusOneSister. Inspired by Sophocles’ Electra, Barnes’ playreimagines the Greek myth in the setting of contemporary Australia; telling the story of afamily in trauma from the perspective of the young daughters.
Scripts were submitted to readers and judges anonymously with the aim of acknowledging a playwright whose play is ambitious, demonstrates skilful application of craft and reveals great potential for a stage production.
Of MinusOneSister, Andrew Upton said: “This play finds inspiration in an ancient narrative and draws on the conventions of Greek drama to give mythic gravity to a contemporary story.
By telling the story of a family in trauma from the perspective of the children, the playwright reveals the mysteriousness of an adult world; glimpsed only and entirely beyond the children’s control. We were seduced by the sheer confidence of the writing and the richness of theatrical possibilities that it presents. It is an affecting work that could only be realised in the form of theatre.”
Anna Barnes is a Melbourne based writer and playwright. Her first play, The Silence Between the Tracks, was produced by La Mama in 2005. In 2006, she was the winner of the MelbourneFringe Festival Patrick Alexander Playwriting Award and the co-winner of Malthouse 3Dfestcompetition for her play. In Remembrance. Her other plays include: Revelation or Bust and A Small Death.
Anna was the recipient of British Council’s Realise Your Dream Award in 2007, funding her trip to study playwriting at the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2011, she was Redstitch Actors Theatre’s (Vic) writer-in-residence. In 2012, her first book Girl! The Ultimate Guide to Being You was released by Penguin, Australia. In April 2013 Girl! was named as one of the Eva Pownall Notable Books of 2013 by the Children's Book Council of Australia.
Image: Anna Barnes and Hilary Bell