JANE BODIE

FOURPLAY

2M, 2F 67pp. 75 mins.
A character falls in love with her stalker.

HILT

2M, 2F
A cramped flat, a couple who are breaking up, or are they starting an affair? A love triangle, or is it a quartet?

RIDE

1M, 1F (twenties) 32pp
Charming, funny and insightful two-hander exploring the tentative and bold steps from acquaintanceship, romantic beginnings and intimacy, even when they don't follow in the usual order.

A SINGLE ACT

2M, 2F
Scott and Michelle meet in a bar. On the other side of town, Neil returns home to find Clea still alive. But are any of them safe? Four separate trajectories. One single moment that will help define them all.

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TERENCE CLARKE

SUMMER RAIN

A musical by Nick Enright and Terence Clarke. Full length.
6F, 7M , including a 16-year-old girl; chorus possible and desirable.
Christmas Eve, 1945. Harold Slocum, proprietor of Slocum's Travelling Tentshow, is a womanizer and a gambler. He pays his employees: most walk (and make a quick change into the townsfolk). What to do? Harold remembers Turnaround Creek, last visited 16 years ago. The truck limps into town where they are given a warm welcome until Barry Doyle, the proprietor of the only pub in town emerges: 'We got no rooms'. The troupe is about to leave when the clouds open, ending a long drought, flooding the creek, and closing the bridge. Town and Troupe are stuck with each other. The Troupe has no money, so they suggest putting on a show in the School of Arts. The past is faced, reconciliation follows.
Script published by Currency Press. Vocal score (version 3) published by Fitzroy Press; version 4 (authorised) in preparation. Bandparts (flute, clarinet, French horn, double bass, percussion/ vibraphone/xylophone, piano) will be for hire.

THE VENETIAN TWINS

3F, 6M. 2 Acts. One set.
A musical comedy by Nick Enright and Terence Clarke. Based on Carlo Goldoni's comedy of mistaken identity. Tonino (dashing, brave, gallant) and Zanetto (dopey, Ocker) are twins (played by the same actor), separated at birth. Zanetto has come to Verona to marry Rosina, to whom he has been promised sight unseen, but she spurns his advances. Her father's false friend, Pancrazio, lusts after her. Beatrice, Tonino's betrothed, has fled to Verona to meet him there: she takes the fancy of both Tonino's friend Florindo and the fop Lelio.
Script published by Currency Press; vocal score published by Fitzroy Press; bandparts (flute/mandolin/guitar, clarinet, trombone, percussion/tubular bells, piano) for hire
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ELIZABETH COLEMAN

IT'S MY PARTY (AND I'LL DIE IF I WANT TO)

3F, 3M. Full length.
Ron Patterson has 111 minutes to live so he decides to invite the kids around for sausage rolls, saladas and a bit of quality times. As he attempts to tie up the loose ends of his life, all the juicy neuroses of this very dysfunctional family come out of the closet and his well-planned last party starts to unravel.
An excellent black comedy that keeps the surprises coming until the very end.

SECRET BRIDESMAIDS' BUSINESS

6F, 1M
It's the night before Meg's wedding. She and her bridesmaids plan to kick up their heels in the final hours before the big day. However, not everything goes according to plan as a last-minute scandal threatens to ruin the whole affair. Never far from reality this play exposes the insanity that can be created as the wedding juggernaut threatens to swerve out of control.
Marriage may be a wonderful thing, but after a night like this, could it really be worth it?

SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS JANA WENDT

2F, 2M*
Sharon Evans is rapidly retreating into a fantasy world, far removed from her empty marriage. When her husband Barry leaves the house, Jana Wendt becomes her closest friend, and Ray Martin and Peter Overton vie for her affections. When Barry finds Sharon interviewing the fridge with a spatula, he keeps his counsel. But when she drags their two small children into increasingly bizarre games involving TV current affairs personalities, Barry decides that he has to take action.
* The kids can be played by children or adults (but have always been played by adults, so far).

THIS WAY UP

3F, 2M
Melanie has had enough. Her journo boyfriend Nick prefers to trot around the globe visiting the world's hotspots rathern than stay at home and help with the housework. There's only so much a girl can take! She's leaving! Nick arrives home unexpectedly and catches her packnig. Now old friend Damien is suddenly showing dangerous signs of infatuation with her. Her sister Kris is more interested in psychoanalysing the situation than being of practical help. Just when things couldn't appear more complicated a crisis arises next door and the foursome find themselves trapped in the house for the night.
A very funny play about love gone wrong.
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BARRY CREYTON

DOUBLE ACT

1F, 1M
Five years after an acrimonious divorce, two people give a relationship one more try and make the same mistakes. PRODUCED (to date) in 25 countries and more than 20 languages. (published Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, etc. etc.)

LATER THAN SPRING

4F, 3M
A man of seventy marries a woman half his age against the vehement opposition of his socialite daughter.

MARRIAGE IN THE FIRST DEGREE

6F, 1M
A man's obsession with marriage complicates his life and ultimately causes his downfall.

VALENTINE'S DAY

3F, 4M
Two men have been divorced, and cleaned out, by the same women. They seek revenge by putting a hit on her.
Produced to date in 4 languages.
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BEN ELLIS

BETWEEN THE AIR AND THE SEA (Le Suspension du Plongeur)

By Lionel Spycher. Translation by Ben Ellis.
2F, 3M
In an unnamed European city, German manager Markus finds himself stuck between car dealerships and organised crime; an erudite Russian mafioso and a mysterious young woman who does not speak; and an American woman pretending to be English and her violent French boyfriend. In the bar of the Hotel Europa, he tried to drown his sorrows alone before he finds himself trapped in the details of theft, of killing and - worst of all - of yearning. Perhaps he can relax and float over the history of Europe in the hotel's pool, but everybody gets wet in a pool, sometime.

FALLING PETALS

2F, 1M (a number of adult characters played by 1F and 1M)
A darkly comic fable about the consequences of a culture of disposable youth. The rural township of Hollow has a problem. A mysterious epidemic that only affects the young has broken out and threatens to reach disastrous proportions. The school is closed, the town is quarantined and panic runs rife. Three school leavers are caught in the disease-ridden town, unable to sit their final exams, trapped in a community with no future. Part sci-fi, part satire, this play blasts the urban/rural fissure wide open.

THE FINAL SHOT

3M/2F
"How can you take a man's death and turn it into television?"
A loving family preparing for the end.
A filmmaker struggling to stay.
A nation hungry for its next TV dinner.
How far should you go to put something on screen? What should you film? What shouldn't you?
A final breath. A dying wish. A living need.
This play takes a close look at a man dying of Huntington's disease and his son observing what might lie before him.
Immediate and searing, Ben Ellis's new play forces us to confront life's final taboo.

THE METAMORPHOSIS (aka Kafka's Metamorphosis)

(Adapted by Ben Ellis from the story by Franz Kafka)
3F, 3M
Gregor Samsa awakes after a night of uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic beetle. Having relied on their son as the breadwinner for years, will the Samsa family be able to adapt quickly enough to keep their home in Australia's Sanctuary Vale? Will Gregor's dream of seeing his sister become the next Australian Idol evaporate just as his arms have done? Will Dad go back into the building trade? How will Mum cope with her asthma? When Gregor learns to scuttle hard, will it be the family or the guilt which condemns him? Adapted from Franz Kafka's classic short story for middle Australia.

OUTPATIENTS

2F, 3M
Full length. One Act.
Troy is a diabetic who needs the signature of his soon-to-be retired doctor in order to keep his driving licence. Beetle and Snail are middle-managers trying to reform St Peter's Hospital, where a nurse called Rebecca has developed multiple personalities to cover for all of the cutbacks. With the funding cuts so severe that even the stairs have stopped working, will Troy ever see his clean bill of health autographed?

POET NO. 7

2F, 2M
A librarian is in love with a man, but she doesn't know his name. A psychiatric patient, on the run from hospital, can't remember his own name. A council worker conducts a eulogy for an un-named woman. And a businessman in lvoe with America (and his boss's daughter) enters into a deal that will change his country forever. By the way, it's Australia. And somebody, some time, is bombing it.

THESE PEOPLE

2F, 2M
One Act. Full length.
The story of what a 'typical' Australian father, mother, daughter and son become when confronted with the stories of asylum-seekers: nightmares, dreams and, sometimes, penguins. Transforming the play's documentary material (which includes court and inquiry transcripts, statements by immigration ministers, interviews with detention centre workers and asylum-seekers themselves), the play highlights the dramatic Australian response to the refugee story of recent times, with terrifying consequences for the lives of father, mother, daughter and son in their Sydney home.

360 POSITIONS IN A ONE NIGHT STAND

Co-Writer. See end of catalogue.
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BOB ELLIS

A LOCAL MAN

Co-written by Robin McLachlan
1M Full Length
This play tells the life story of Australia's best-loved Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, set in his Bathurst home a few days before his death in 1951. Stephen Dunne, Sydney Morning Herald (11.8.04) reviewed it as a 'strong and affectionate monologue that is not mere hagiography but an effective portrait of the private man behind the iconic political figure'. Frank McKone, Canberra Times (10.8.04) wrote, '[A Local Man] gives us both the history and the man. [Ben Chifley's] perceptiveness and his humour show us the reality of his time. His passing leaves us reflecting on today's political and personal world. The script is a major achievement, welding art and accurate history'.
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NICHOLAS FLANAGAN

BURNING TIME

2F, 5M
A portrait of an affluent Melbourne artistic family seen through the eyes of their precocious son Vincent, who at the age of fourteen pays the price of his parents' urbanity by being sexually abused by one of the family's most trusted male friends. This tragedy is made more appalling by Vincent's parents' semi-witting complicity in the abuse, in order to rescue themselves from financial ruin which is brought about alcohol and drug-induced unravelling lives. The characters in this mosaic live their lives in italics, swinging between laughter and tears. Over many years, the play chronicles the tragic flaws of the characters who may appal or amuse, but who never fail to engage. Beneath the glittering fun of a constantly partying world is a heartfelt cry that urges us to confront the forces which threaten what is left of the Australian family in the new millennium.
Published by Currency Press.

DOLPHIN BOY

3F, 5M
Jack Cullen is a criminal lawyer in crisis: He feels he has stretched the bounds of morality in pursuit of victory so often that he no longer can claim a standard. Compounding this his twenty-three year old heroin-addicted daughter's inability to recover bewilders him to the core. More importantly his affair with her best friend when she was just sixteen seems to lie at the heart of her disengagement with life. Things come to a head for Cullen when he goes into an environmental business venture with one of his more questionable clients, Davies. Both these men look to this deal as a socially credible profit-venture, but things unravel when Davies fifteen-year-old son falls in love with Cullen's daughter, Helen.

THE SHRINKING LEDGE

1F, 2M
When seeking asylum puts you in one...
A madcap fantastical comedy/drama about a writer, Brown, who jumps from the ledge of the 'real world' into a burlesque world of his own creation. But when the fictional characters of Brown's invention start turning on him, and blurring with people from his 'real world', Brown's oasis becomes a nightmare. All Brown needs to do is not to take himself so seriously...If only that were possible when everyone is laughing at him...
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ADAM GROSSETTI

ASHEN SKY

2F, 3M
Full length.
A rambling, decrepit farm house on the outskirts of a Far North Queensland township during the 1980's is the set for Ashen Sky. Structurally Ashen Sky follows a cycle of ploughing, sowing and reaping to re-build not only fractured lives but the natural environment they inhabit. It is a play about re-growth of the spirit.

CAVALLO A HORSE CAVALLO

4F, 5M
Full length.
Set in the Far North Queensland sugar cane community in the late 70's, Cavallo A Horse Cavallo twists the notion of the successful migrant story into a gothic tale comparing the old world values and traditions of peasantry with new world ideas on consumerism, multinational corporations taking over cottage industries and greed. It is a play about the search for a better life by any means possible.

DOGS

1F, 3M
Charlie returns to his family's sugar cane farm in the hot cyclonic tropics of Far North Queensland after several years walking dogs in New York to be confronted with the ghosts of his past.

LOST LAGOON

1F, 2M
Cliffie is an artist, a painter who lives alone in an old shack in the middle of the Australian outback. Pursuing his art he is haunted by visions of his son who is himself searching for his own identity and by a woman (Scheherazade) who may or may not be Cliffie's former lover. He is delivered new age affirmations via Lily a woman who helps Cliffie find the love that he lost so long ago, all this through his art.

PITCHFORK

1F, 1M
1 Act
Set in London and Morocco, Pitchfork follows the changing lives of two fractured young backpackers. Clinging to each other during a fierce London winter Kady, an American girl and Val, an Australian boy, believe their lives, love and future will be happier if they head for the warmth and colour of Morocco. Pitchfork is a play about the culture of those that travel and the difference between travelling and running.

MANO NERA

3F, 6M
Full length.
Mano Nera is set in Ingham, Far North Queensland in the 1930's. Based on fact it follows the lives of a number of Italian criminals who used violence and threats to extort large sums of money from their fellow migrant countrymen. Trading on the fear Mano Nera (Black Hand) held for his fellow countrymen Vincenzo D'Agostino, the leader of the gang, was said to be responsible for numerous murders, acts of violence, bombings, kidnapping, arson, poisoning during the 1930's. The play also looks at repercussions his actions had on the British population, a fear made worse as Mussolini was gearing up to enter the 2nd World War. Thematically the play provides an opportunity to examine how an ethnic minority coming to a democratic first world nation, fleeing a murderous dictator, can be judged by the actions of a few thugs and then blossom to contribute to the social and political fabric of their adopted nation.

3606202

1F, 3M
It is 1942 and an Italian Australian man is under interrogation. Despite his wealth and status he will be incarcerated as an enemy alien. It is 2006 and a man is captive to haunted visions of abuse and torture. He has committed atrocities, in our name. It is 2020, a man and his aged Uncle flee an Australian capital city for Far North Queensland, their one chance for survival after the war of wars. Filled with luscious poetry and brutal imagery, this play is a powerful allegory on injustice and fear, complicity and paranoia.
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SUZANNE HAWLEY

CONCRETE PALACES

1F
Black Comedy: Mavis, a woman living alone battles loneliness, by performing her own show every night to an empty room. She is constantly challenged by her unseen nemesis Brenda, to give up, but always manages to win out on the night. This play could be doubled with Mummy Loves You Betty Ann Jewel.

TALKING TO GEORGE

In 1989 a group of teenage street kids attacked a stranger following an argument over a plastic bracelet, and murdered him in what was described by police as an almost 'ritualistic killing'. Talking To George, inspired by this story, focuses on the life of the youngest in the group, a thirteen year old boy, and explores the circumstances surrounding his life which may have lead to his involvement in this terrible crime. The play poses the question - how did this boy slip through the welfare net and who ultimately is to blame?

This play requires a large cast.

MUMMY LOVES YOU BETTY ANN JEWEL

2F
A black comedy with music. Originally titled Hitler had a Mummy Too, this play explores a mother/daughter relationship and asks the question 'can we ever escape our conditioning?'. The two characters, Mummy and Betty compete for supremacy in a macabre, emotionally charged battle ground where both characters compete for supremacy in the relationship. Often seen as a 'sacred cow', the play offers another look at a mother/daughter and explodes some myths about how loving and tolerant this particular relationship is.
Published by Currency Press.

A NIGHT ON THE TILES

4 F, 3 M
2 Acts
Comedy set in the bathroom of a woman's flat on her fortieth birthday. The second act is set in the bathroom a year later on the forty first birthday. Relationships, divorce, infidelity, babies, sex and more. Seven characters move through the minefield of life and challenge the audience to identify with their failures, their feelings, their ways of coping.

TALKING TO GEORGE

4 F, 4 M (playing additional characters)
Inspired by a true story, Talking to George follows the story of a 13 year old street kid Josh, who after running away from his junkie parents, finds his own family, a group of street kids aged from 15 to 18, and for the first time in his life, feels that he belongs. The group is involved in a bizarre murder, where they attack a stranger in an almost ritual killing, for no apparent reason. The play attempts to show how this one young boy fell through the social services net and the circumstances which led to this horrific event. Suitable for young peoples theatre.
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NOELLE JANACZEWSKA

ABOUT FACE

6F, 3M (some with singing ability)
Full-length. Youth theatre
In an abandoned gothic library adorned with gargoyles and grotesques, a group of young people meet - apparently for choir practice. Soon however, it becomes apparent that singing is merely a façade. For Tarwater and Jonah want to track down the missing Morgan Bequest. Some twenty thousand volumes donated to the university when the library closed. They want to reclaim the books, or if the university have destroyed them expose those who committed the ugly deed. But how? The enigmatic Haphazard suggests they need an act of God.

THE BUTCHER'S WIFE

3F, 1M
Full-length.
When she married Luke Harris, Saren thought she'd escaped her past. Here she's Mrs. Harris, a country town butcher's wife, and Cambodia seems a long way away. Until Luke's mysterious disappearance prompts an investigation. And Gan, a local policeman, and his sister Callie enter the picture. Saren's response to her husband's disappearance puzzles Gan. Who seeks Callie's advice. Recently returned from a long and gruelling stint as an aid worker in Cambodia, Callie however, is struggling with her own ghosts. A situation exacerbated by having to deal with their astronomer mother's growing blindness. Meanwhile, Saren has an unexpected visitor. The Naga: a mythical water serpent who has assumed human form. Gan meanwhile, finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic Saren. While at home their mother's difficulty adapting to life without sight causes growing tension between brother and sister. And Callie begins to suspect there might be dark secrets in the butcher's wife's Cambodian past.

CONNIE AND KEVIN AND THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES

1F, 1M (both with some singing ability)
Full-length
Set in the busy international food court of a city mall, the structure is essentially three different versions of the same event. In the first act, Connie, a young sandwich stall worker, fantasises a romance with a young man who works at the Korean food counter. While singing along to schmaltzy tunes in the style of her namesake, Connie Francis. Knowing nothing about him, not even his name, she calls him Ki-sung. In the second act, Ki-sung, the object of Connie's dreaming, is revealed to be Kevin. And, in between comments on Internet spam and racism in Australia, he now imagines an encounter with the sandwich stall girl. Not knowing her name is Connie, he calls her Coralie. In act three, fantasies meet reality, when Connie and Kevin finally connect. A topical and comic romance with a fantastical twist. A romantic fantasy with kimchi.

MRS PETROV'S SHOE

F, M
Anna Lubansky shoots to prominence with her first novel Mrs Petrov's Shoe, the emotional narrative of a 9-year-old girl's struggle to reconcile her Australian reality with her parents' Central European heritage. Promoted as heavily autobiographical, Anna's multicultural star shines brightly in the literary firmament - until the real fiction is exposed: Anna Lubansky is actually Ann Loxton. Is this reworking of her identity an act of post-modern bravado or simply fraud? Does it matter if the novel is a record of her own experiences, or the product of a vivid imagination? How did she manage to draw so many people into her invented world? Inspired by a number of recent Australian literary scandals, Mrs Petrov's Shoe is a portrait of a complex and unstable psyche, structured in 4 parts, with each movement asking us to reconsider its predecessor.

MYSTERIYAKI

1F, (preferably able to sing)
Full-length.
Life is not going smoothly for Teruko. Her boyfriend has turned into Cardigan Man. She's lost her job managing the laundromat. Her dream of becoming a private detective seems increasingly remote. And the bills are piling up. So Teruko becomes Mysteriyaki: a telephone fortune-teller with an organisation called Dial-a-Clairvoyant. Meanwhile, across the hall, tragedy strikes. Brigitte Bardot has disappeared. Could this be Teruko's lucky break? Soon she's got a clue - several, in fact - but instead of them leading her to BB, Teruko finds herself caught in a tangle of friends and lovers, questions of faith, suspect financial dealings and a disappearing lawn.

REDHEADS

2F, 3M
Full-length.
Ruth loves Frank who lives with Brigid; Joanna is in love with Guthrie who's married to Vienna; Australia has been devoted to America for decades. Redheads is about hyprocrisy and delusion, deception and self-deception. About our desire to fall in love, to be in a relationship, and our willingness to rush in even when all the signs are indicating: This really isn't such a great idea. TOP

SONGKET

3F, 3M + piano player (optional)
Full-length
What happens when one person's culture is another's crime? Ten years ago in north-eastern Laos, Klaudia ran out on Hayden. Now they meet up again when Hayden needs an anthropologist to be his expert witness in the trial of Koua Neng Vang, a Hmong migrant accused of raping Chan, a young textile designer. Was it sexual assault? Or did Koua recognise, in Chan's confused signals, the enduring rituals of courtship? Songket is about different notions of love and how the law does, or doesn't, accommodate cultural diversity.
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CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

BACKPACKER

2F, 3M
One Act Thriller
When young Sydney bankers Phil and Phoebe and their friend Jasper, a debt collector, head off to the Coogee Bay Hotel, it is only in the hope of having a little fun and maybe for Jasper to pick up a backpacker for the evening. Instead they meet Corisande, a young English traveller whose beauty and charm entrances them all. Before long, Corisande is living with Phil and Phoebe, the perfect housemate and source of everyone's desire. As sexual tension mounts among the group, suddenly their world is spun on its axis by the arrival of Corisande's brother Clive, whose dangerous presence comes to threaten their entire existence.
A fast-paced comedy thriller for adults.

THE DOG LOGS

Any number of actors from one to eleven; three to four preferred; any gener mix but male preferred.
Ever wondered what your dog was thinking? A lot of people have, as The Dog Logs has been performed in more than 17 cities and towns throughout Australia since its debut in Sydney in 2001. The Dog Logs tell the stories of eleven different dogs, brought vividly to life in monologue form. Although currently performed by three actors and a live musician, it has been performed as a one-man play and could also use up to eleven separate actors. The result is highly theatrical, extremely funny, at times very moving, and thoroughly unique.

THE YOUNG TYCOONS

3F, 6M
A dark and cynical - but always very funny - comedy that takes a scathing, satirical look at the ruthless world of Big Business in Australia. When Australia's two largest media barons hand over power to their sons, fortunes are risked, secrets are exposed, unspeakable acts are performed, and lives are ruined. Sex, lies, backstabbing, treachery, money, money, money - and even a little bit of true love. Topical, controversial - even scandalous - and hilarious.

Also available Barnesy and The Harbour and You.
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MIREILLE JUCHAU

WHITE GIFTS

2F
One Act
Amid the blitzed-out muzak of an American mall, an Australian photographer and a Jewish refugee remember those they have lost, but are these testimonies or confessions? After her daughter goes missing in New York City, Martine, an Australian photographer, goes to live in Central Park where Ruby was last seen standing. The play moves between the antiseptic halls of a shopping mall, where Martine unfolds what has happened to Ruby and the Park where she meets a German Jewish refugee. White Gifts explores the rituals we invent to cope with loss and the small gifts that are given without ceremony or gesture; that give us sustenance for the long journey. The poignant, profound and sometimes absurd ways that we remember what we have lost is captured in White Gifts.
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VERITY LAUGHTON

THE BALLAD OF BONNIE WHEELER

5 Actors
A play for primary age children and their families.
55 mins.
Bonnie Wheeler is a child living on a soldier settlement farm on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. What she wants above all is to be a farmer like her dad but life intervenes to make her choices less straightforward. An energetic and amusing evocation of rural life.

BURNING

3F, 2M
Full length.
June Matthews, an ex-dancer, and her history professor husband, Stephen, return, without their university age son, to her grandmother's large stone house by the sea immediately after the publication of Stephen's latest, and most controversial book. June finds the skeleton of what turns out to be a 14 year old Irish servant girl, Lizzie, from the previous century.
A detective tale wrapped inside a love story, about place, history, personal imperatives and ways of seeing the world.

CARRYING LIGHT

3F, 4M
Full length.
Rose MacBride, a discredited photojournalist, returns to the small country town of her birth to find that her beloved childhood friend, Hannah, has become part of a religious cult lead by her erratic, charismatic brother, Nicky 'Raphael' Carver. As MacBride and a companion, Harvey Marshall, investigate the cult, Carl Lucas, an adolescent protege of MacBride becomes drawn further into the danger zone around Raphael. An investigation into the operation of religious and personal charisma.

FOX

1F, 2M
Half-hour drama.
Jo, an Australian graduate archaeology student, leaves Dan, her surfie boyfriend to study with Dr Marks, an archaology professor at the British Museum. Their object of study is a fictionalised version of Linden Man, the 'body in the bog' of a likely Celtic ritual sacrifice deriving from the period of the Roman invasion of Britain. Jo is thrown back into a Celtic apprehension of life and sacrifice as she is forced to face elements of her own nature and likely life choices. A concrete evocation of the tension between visible and the apprehended worlds.

THE GIZMO

2M, 1 gender non-specific
1 hr. No interval.
For children and families. Suitable for schools productions.
A boy is conned by his feckless mate into stealing a strange object, the 'gizmo'. This turns out to have the properties of an unwelcome and un-lose-able conscience, with hilarious results.

I SAW A DINOSAUR

Cast of 5
A play for primary age children
A rag bag team of eccentrics set out to find a lost dinosaur egg.

KOALA LOU

2 versions: (i) 13 characters; (ii) 7 characters
3 leads are female, the rest can be played by either sex
60 minute musical, based on Mem Fox's picture book, for children and families (music: Stuart Day). Koala Lou is a small koala. Feeling displaced in her mother's affections by an army of smaller siblings, she resolves to win the gum-tree climbing event at the Bush Olympics.
A classic hero quest in the form of a musical for a very young audience based on Mem Fox's popular picture book.

THE LIGHTKEEPER

1M
75-80 mins.
Harry Power, an ex-seaman, is a lightkeeper at an (unnamed) lighthouse on the South East coast (the 'shipwreck coast') of South Australia. The play covers his midnight to dawn watch on a stormy night as he revisits his turbulent life. Part story-telling, part drama one man play.

THE MOURNING AFTER

1F
Full length adult drama.
Belle Doyle, a performer in both radio serials and the Australian musicals of the 50s, is alone on Christmas Day on an Australian beach. She has just buried her domestic tyrant of a husband, Harry Doyle, a one time comic dancer turned very serious bank manager. She grapples with guilt and the shades of her highly coloured, obnoxious family to make a decision that might give her a return to passionate life. A warm, and richly comic evocation of a woman's life and choices set in context of Australian theatrical history.
Published by Currency Press.

THE SNOW QUEEN

4F, 2M
65 mins. No interval.
For children and families.
A contemporary adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale in which Kay, a clever, bold, heedless boy, is abducted by a virtual reality representation of the Snow Queen and Gerda, his innocent playmate, journeys through a series of adventures to rescue him. A contemporary version of Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale.
First produced by Windmill Performing Arts for Children and Families in Adelaide, at the Dunstan Playhouse in September 2003.
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KARIN MAINWARING

BINGE

2F, 1M
Full length
Comedy, with songs, about eating disorders and family secrets. Was produced for adult audiences but would actually be a good TIE piece. There's a bit of searing in it but this might not be the problem it was when it was produced in 1985. Easily cleaned up. Adele lives in two worlds, One, her secret, a sensitive world of deep self-hatred, compels her to eat compulsively. The other, the outside world, is fraught with expectation and peer group pressure. Two weapons help Adele survive in this enemy zone; her smart mouth and her drop-dead gorgeous friend, Mary. Mary, full of snappy, new-age speak, urges Adele to confront her demons. Adele's demons are more than snappy. They're voracious. The girl has courage though and she does indeed confront her demons. A sense of self-worth is her reward.

THE RAIN DANCERS

3F, 1M
2 Acts
An outback comedy with serious bite. Dan, the man, comes home to a run-down and isolated outback station after a 25-year absence. He returns to the three significant women in his life - his mother, his wife and his daughter. The country is deep in drought. For the women, who haven't really seen a man for 25 years, it has been a drought of a different kind. His wife, Rita, has been concentrating her venom in his absence. The last thing she expects to feel is her love for him. The drought breaks with tragic consequences for all.
Published in Australia by Five Islands Press, Australian Playwright
SIGNATURE SERIES PLAYS 1.ISBN 0-86418-552-9

STIFFS

4F, 1M
Full length
An urban comedy with serious bite. A drug deal goes very badly wrong for Angel and her boyfriend Lester. Angel's family home, home to her dying mother and two sisters, is the only collateral these two desperate junkies have. In order to secure the home, Mum has to be bumped off and the sisters have to be force-fed a truckload of lies. This doesn't, at first, appear to be too hard. One sister has had a reality by-pass and the other, a deaf-mute, can surely be assumed to be true to the old medical terminology, Dumb. But family are the ties that bind us and are not easily buried. As Lester, rather gruesomely, finds out. 'Don't fuck with the girls'.
TOP

NICK MARCHAND

ADVENTURES IN THE APIARY

1F, 5M
Full length
Max and Robert have a pyramid scheme they've been developing. But Sarah has discovered their game and Richard has discovered Sarah's body in the attic. Meanwhile, Nigel and James wait to changing tides on Waterloo Bridge, whilst Eric and Chris are, as usual, waist-deep in ship in city sewers. Luckily, Roger and John are the two 'water-rats' that patrol the river that links them all.

MOGADISHU

1F, 4M
One Act
A soccer sensation names his child and a new football boot after a Somalian city where his chart topping wife has just completed a goodwill tour for an aid charity. While a vice-president of a sportswear company wrestles with the naming rights, the couple start to discover there may be other more important gestures they can make.

THE RIDE

1F, 4M
Full length
Verbatim play based on Source Material & Interviews With Darce Cassidy (SBS Radio), Ann Curthoys (ANU lecturer), Bill Ford (UNSW Lecturer & Social Rights Activist), John Smith (Moree Resident, 1965) & Gerald Stone (former journalist).
In February 1965, a bus load of students left Sydney University for rural New South Wales. The trip, led by Charlie Perkins, aimed to highlight racial prejudice and segregation in Australia. It became known as The Freedom Ride. The Ride, through a mixture of source material and interviews with students from the trip, tells his historic story.

360 POSITIONS IN A ONE NIGHT STAND

Co-writer. See end of catalogue.
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JOHN MISTO

GOSSAMER

3F, 4 M
2 Acts
A story of intrigue, magic and humour based on actual events. What happens when Houdini discovers a magic trick he cannot perform? When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle encounters a mystery that baffles even Sherlock Holmes? These two legendary men join forces to unravel the greatest riddle of the 20th Century. Their rivals? Two young girls. Did Frances and Elsie really photograph fairies, or was theirs just the worlds most elaborate hoax? As Houdini and Conan Doyle search for answers, they are ensnared in the puzzle they are trying to solve a secret as deadly as Baskerville Hound and as fine as a gossamer web. Two famous men. Two young girls. A mystery that stretches from Australia to Buckingham Palace. This is a story guaranteed to astonish and amaze you. And this one is true!

HARP ON THE WILLOW

3F, 2M
2 Acts
Irish folk singer Mary O'Hara was a star at 18, bride at 20 and widow at 21. Her concert tours played to full houses worldwide. Her love affair with the American poet Richard Selig was legendary for its beauty, its intensity and its tragedy. Then at the age of 26, at the height of her fame, she abruptly disappeared. She entered an austere monastery in the English Midlands. Here, as an anonymous nun, unable to see visitors or even listen to a radio, she began a journey of self-discovery, a journey both humorous and harrowing.

THE SHOE-HORN SONATA

2 F
2 Acts
In 1945 Sheila and Bridie were freed from a Japanese POW camp in the jungles of Sumatra where thousands of women and children had lived and died virtually forgotten by their own governments. Now, after being separated for half a century, the filming of a television documentary forces them to relive the past, contact the present and question the future. Woven into their fifty years of separation are a shoe-horn and the threads of loyalty and love which form their uncommon bond.

SKY

1M
2 Acts
A young pilot vanishes in mysterious circumstances on a clear and cloudless summer night. In the minutes before he disappears, he describes a mysterious flying craft pursuing him in the skies. Was he really taken by a UFO? Or did he fake his own disappearance? Or was there a much more sinister conspiracy involved? The pilot's father, Rocco Bettoni, begins to search for the reason behind his son's disappearance and embarks on an astounding journey of his own. Sky is the true story of one of Australia's greatest unsolved mysteries.
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ROSS MUELLER

COLD LIGHT OF DAY

3F, 3M
One Act
90 mins
Set in a fictional country town three hours drive from Melbourne. Matthew is returning home after a long time away in the city. He wants to see his sister and prove he has made something of his life, but when he returns his nephew goes missing and the whole family is thrown into chaos. The City based media gets hold of the story and goes looking for the culprit, before the boy's body is even found. The play examines the concept of trial by media and the city/country divide.

COLOSSEUM

10F 5M
2 Acts: Young People's Theatre
Two desperate importers stuck with 1000 religious icons become accidentally entangled in an ecstasy importation ring. A young dock worker is in two deep and wants to get out. His flatmate is sick of her job and wants her life to be the main feature for once. Her feelings for him eventually come out in the wash. Two cleaners dream of other times and places. One longs for sunshine and stardom while the other dreams of revolution. A med student spends her time studying her movies instead of her books. A homeboy called Matthew becomes the object of obsession for a girl obsessed by Matt Damon. Her best friend knows karate and isn't afraid to demonstrate. A teacher is being stalked by one of his students and faces his final exam on the train. Five stories and fifteen lives collide in blood and chaos.
Published by Currency.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN HEART

1M, 1F
At the heart of the play is The Couple, known only as Him and Her, as they deal with unimaginable loss the only way they know how: by building a fortress of words impregnable to grief. An original meditation on loss and the redemptive qualities of communication through art.

DOMESTIC ANIMALS

2F, 1M
One Act
Set entirely in a luxury serviced apartment, some twenty floors above Flinders Street Melbourne. The action takes place over the period of one night in luxury. Michael and Trudy have been married for four and a half years. Three months prior to tonight, Trudy's sister Karen has come to live with them in their suburban home. She has left an abusive relationship and has found a haven with them. The three of them escape to the city for a night on the town but their fragile world begins to fall apart during one night of lies and risks and revelations. It is a play about family, emotional blackmail and sexual dysfunction. It is a fresh examination of what lies at the heart of the 'great Australian dream'.

THE FINAL DAYS OF JOHNNY DEERE

2F, 4M
One Act
80 mins
Johnny Deere is haunting Vito La Barbera. He has haunted him all his life and he is refusing to leave in death. A fictional tale about two of Australia's greatest ever prize fighters. The story spans sixty years and the adult lives of these two men. It examines friendship and betrayal, racism and passion. Professional sport and the pressures to win.

THE GHOST WRITER

2F, 2M
Claudia is an ex-journalist. She is hired to write the autobiography of a very public grieving mother. Along the way she is confronted by the ghosts of her own life. Stylistically, The Ghost Writer sits between forensic investigation and relationship drama. It explores trust, love, family, truth and prejudice.

THE GLORY

3F, 2M
Martin Connors was a career soldier. In the last six months of his life he had been a public critic of the war. His death is unexpected and a State funeral is being organised. His sister Elizabeth is to conduct the eulogy. The action takes place over one night in her home. From Sunset to Sunrise this surviving family battle with the burden of public grief and personal responsibility.

GREAT OCEAN ROAD

1F, 1M
30 mins
A father and adult daughter reunite for one last trip down the Great Ocean Road. It is on this trip that the father reveals that his marriage has broken up and the daughter takes this in the wrong context. The play explores the themes of love, lust, jealousy and the darkness of the soul.

NO MAN'S ISLAND

2M
1 Act
There is a riot going on outside. Two men are locked in a cell together. Their crimes are unknown and their sentences are uncertain. The play explores the complex relationships established when two very damaged souls come to care very deeply for each other. Within the darkness of this play exists a healing force of love and honour. It is a deeply emotional play that acknowledges the roles and postures that men adopt to survive, but plunges past all that to the core of confusion, need, and loneliness that boils beneath the surface.

A PARTY IN FITZROY

1M
37 mins
Gordo has always met his mates at the Weddoe's shows in Richmond. The Christmas gigs have been the best family reunions of his life. These gigs have happened for almost ten years now but when the Weddoes decide to split up, what is Gordo to do? The play explores mateship, loyalty and passion. It is a beautiful and hilarious insight into a raucous Australian environment - the pub and the music inside it. The play is based on a series of true events, real people and gives the fan's eye view of Weddings Parties Anything.
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KATE MULVANY

BLOOD AND BONE

2F, 1M
Ron is a Vietnam Veteran who works for a building company and lives with his mum Edie. He is left to his own devices high up on the scaffolding, away from the other blokes. They stay away from him, he stays away from them - that's the way it works. Until the day that Jules shows up at work. A self-titled 'conspiracy theorist', she takes Ron under her wing and starts to make him question his own past. But some scars never heal, and it takes an awful moment of truth that proves reality is more of a conspiracy than any 'theory'.

THE DANGER AGE

3F, 3M
Two Acts
In 1942 on his 10th birthday, John Curtin of Kalbarri, Western Australia receives a phone call from President Roosevelt. Thinking he is talking to the Prime Minister, the President reveals a secret plot that has major ramifications for the entire of Australia - especially Kalbarri. John Curtin suddenly finds himself on a crusade to save his town from wartime annihilation. But who's going to listen to him when his mother's the town tramp, his best mate's a Bardi and he's the weakest kid in town?

THE SEED

1F, 2M
Two Acts
Meet Rose Maloney. Her dad Danny went to Vietnam. Her grandfather Brian is ex-IRA. Today is Guy Fawkes Night and their collective birthday. From this intimate reunion in Nottingham, England, truth and lies blur, unlikely alliances are formed and a new war is waged within the intricacies of the Maloney family. The Seed opens itself up over and over again until a silent family battle becomes a national story about finding new life amongst the rubble of old wars.

STORY TIME

1F, 2M
Two Acts
A young man and an old man share a jail cell - both guilty of heinous crimes. To forget their own demons, they tell each other the weirdest, wildest fairy tales imaginable and turn their dungeon into a veritable fantasy land. However, fantasy and reality become confused when the young man's sister, convinced that the old man has played a more sinister role in their lives before, becomes hell-bent on pay-back. Story Time deals with the blurred lines of redemption and revenge, loyalty and love.
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TOMMY MURPHY

TRY HARD

1F, 2M
One Act

TROY'S HOUSE

4F, 3M (variable up to 15 roles)
Full length.
The nation's capital forms the backdrop to this story about youthful romance, hope, responsibility and the time immediately after leaving school. Troy's House captures the specific language of teenagers from Canberra.

STRANGERS IN BETWEEN

3M (1 double-up)
Full length.
This play follows the story of Shane as he arrives in Kings Cross, Sydney. He is a boy unsure of his sexuality and even more unsure how to find intimacy. He has been forced out of his family and yearns for another. An unlikely mother figure arises in John, a 50-year-pld single gay man. Small domestic events like running a bath become moments where respect and love are expressed between two men from different generations. A warm, insightful and generous comedy.

HOLDING THE MAN

2F, 4M
Two Acts
Tommy Murphy’s award winning adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s best selling memoir is a breathtakingly honest, achingly funny and a completely heart-wrenching account of a 15-year relationship that weathered disapproval, separation, temptation and, ultimately, death. It's a story, and a celebration, that speaks across generations, sexual preference and cultures.

360 POSITIONS IN A ONE NIGHT STAND
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ANTHONY NEILSON

(For Australian representation only, in association with JT Management Ltd., UK)

THE LYING KIND

3F, 4M
Full length.
Constables Blunt and Gobbel have one last duty to fulfil before they finish their Christmas Eve shift: to tell the old couple at number 58 some terrible news. But what if the shock is too much for them? Maybe they'd be happier not knowing. And maybe the constables would also be better off if they weren't in the middle of a lynching.
Premiered at Royal Court Theatre, London, November 2002.

THE CENSOR

2F, 1M
A gripping brief encounter between a pornographic film actress and the man with the licensing scissors. A moving parable of the critic and artist as a healing, and finally tragic love story.

PENETRATOR

3M
This play thrusts into the male psyche with a rigour and insight which is by turns hilarious and horrific but always compulsive.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

1F, 3M
A funny but ultimately warm-hearted cri de coeur against the Christmas industry.

And others including: The Wonderful World of Dissocia Stitching
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SCOTT RANKIN

BOX THE PONY

(Co-writer with Leah Purcell)
1F
Full length
Semi-autobiographical story of Leah Purcell - or her alter ego Steff - which traces the events of her life growing up in a Queensland mission town. The youngest of 7 children and daughter of a white father and black mother, Steff's life is teeming with lively characters. There is her Nanna, crippled with arthritis, who teaches her the stories and language of her ancestors. There is her mother, who lives it up each pension day. Above all, there is her Grandfather's pony, Steff's vehicle for temporary escape that characterises Steff's life, from her Nanna's prediction that she'll fly away like a Blue Crane 'Bungabura' her aboriginal name, to the many tragedies she manages to avoid. Despite poverty, violence, lack of education and opportunity, Steff's spirit is nurtured through her ingenuity and resourcefulness (in the midst of her family's unspoken love).
Box The Pony contains devastating humour, piercing insight, raw energy and emotion as it tackles many of the pressing issues of our times.

RIVERLAND

3F, 2M (and children)
Full length
In 1956, the River Murray flooded causing chaos. Sheep and cattle drowned, houses were washed away and trees felled. Riverland juxtaposes the story of this historic flood with the lives of a contemporary urban indigenous family. The once mighty river and the lives of three generations of family become bound together in a shared history.
Riverland is the story of 13-year-old Luke and his family who go camping beside the river his Nana remembers swimming in as a girl before the flood. The river has changed - the cod do not swim there any more and the children live in the city. The audience is invited to come camping in a world of storytelling and play, where the real and the imagined combine, where the past and present are one.
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SUE SMITH

THRALL

2 F, 2 M
Kargoolie. The body of an unidentified young woman has been found in an abandoned mineshaft. The discovery brings together a father; a young police officer who has fallen under the spell of both the girl, and the semas of gold in the red and hostile earth; and the fey, tough and secretive madam of The Pink House, one of the only two brothels still standing in this town.
Part whodunnit, part study of beauty and desire, and part elegy to a lost time, Thrall tells the story of Indigo and those who loved her.
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LISA THOMPSON

THE ALLIGATOR SMILE

1F, 1M
2 Acts
A romantic comedy. Two Australians, working in the steamy north-east of Brazil, fall for one another. Michael's a naive, Catholic missionary priest, Carol's a street-wise microbiologist, researching a killer beetle. He gets caught up in some nasty local politics, she gets caught up in the local voodoo scene. It's a tale of forbidden love, science versus religion, Lamb of God versus Headless Chicken; soccer, sex and samba.
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PAUL THOMPSON

THE PICASSO PLAY

2F, 5M
Full Length
Picasso is a very old man when he is visited by an actor dressed as Harlequin. The actor is accompanied by a ragged troupe of traveling players. They insist on performing their play about the painter. They claim to know the truth about his life and times. In six scenes they reveal some shocking secrets and tell some outrageous lies. The Picasso Play focuses upon the death of his sister, the suicide of his friend, his rejection and poverty, his success and celebrity. In a journey through the twentieth century from the pistol to the tank to the atomic bomb, the most famous painter in the world embraces the working class and the struggle for world peace by joining the communist party. But did he really kill all those people? And are these visitors really actors?
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RICHARD TULLOCH

Plays for children and young adults:
Year Nine are Animals
Hating Alison Ashley (Based on the book by Robin Klein)
Midnite (Based on the book by Randolph Stow)
The Cocky of Bungaree
Kaspajack
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EMMA VULETIC

IMAGO

Jon and Sara have just bought a house with no glass in the windows and a view straight across the road. Tim and Cleo, two fiery young lovers, have decided to put on a show. Tim is a pot-head and window washer, he is biologically female but lives and identifies as a male, a very Aussie male at that. As friendships form and relationships develop, Jon and Sara's Great Australian dream becomes an unexpected nightmare. This first play in the Imago trilogy is a moving tale of love, need, coupledom and identity.

HEADSHOT: PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY

Gloria and Ray Philips consult a specialist doctor about their troubled son Clem. Clem is 28, unemployed, addicted to interactive war games and unable to eat at the family table. His 18-year-old sister Candy just thinks he needs to get laid. The doctor starts a profile on the family and prescribes a special family dinner. As each family member defines their relationship to Clem we start to see not only a portrait of a troubled young man, but a deeply troubled family. Headshot is a complex, poignant and ultimately tragic portrait of family, growing up and getting wise. Headshot is the second play in the Imago trilogy.

360 POSITIONS IN A ONE NIGHT STAND

Co-writer. See end of catalogue.
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GREG WATERS

ASH WEDNESDAY

2F, 2M
The sudden death of their mother means Victor Day and his sister, Joan, must take responsibility for their developmentally delayed brother, Ricky. Growing up in this family has left them uniquely ill-equipped to make rational decisions. Together again, the three siblings can't help but reopen old scars. Ash Wednesday is set in a single location.
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DAVID WILLIAMSON

Most plays published by Currency Press.

AFTER THE BALL

6F, 3M
2 Acts
Stephen has, with ill grace, returned home to his mother's deathbed. As he and his sister rake through the family photographs and childhood memories, they find conflicting versions of their parents' unhappy marriage.

AMIGOS

2F, 3M
2 Acts
At the 1968 Olympics, the four Amigos, an Australian rowing team, won a bronze medal. It was lifetime bonding material but 35 years later, only two of the Amigos keep in touch. Jim is a banker with money expensive house and a young, beautiful wife. It seems he has it all but his friend Dick, a heart surgeon, has something that Jim wants: a sterling reputation. The 2 mates and their wives meet up in Queensland with competing personal agendas. And then Steven, the third Amigo, turns up ready to expose all about their past.
A savagely funny play that exposes the subtle aggression and unacknowledged dependencies of male friendship and the angst and irritation created for those on the friendship's sidelines.

BIRTHRIGHTS

4F, 2M
2 Acts
A bittersweet play about motherhood. At 29, Helen has a vital operation that stops her from having what she desperately wants: a child. Her younger sister Claudia gives her a wonderful gift: she bears a child for her sister. However, years later when Claudia finds out that she and her husband Martin can't conceive, she realises that the only baby she will ever bear is Kelly, the child she had for her sister.

BRILLIANT LIES

3F, 4M
2 Acts
Williamson turns his penetrating eye and sharply focused wit to issues of political correctness and sexual harassment. A serious comedy, it is a stimulating contribution to the continuing debate on our changing social values.

THE CLUB

6M
2 Acts
A play about the uses and abuses of managerial power which in 1976 predicted the destruction of Australian football. It has proven even more prescient since the rise and fall of Super League.

THE COMING OF STORK

1F, 5M
1 Act

CORPORATE VIBES

4F, 3M
2 Acts
A real estate developer faces a staff mutiny. When a man who is accustomed to getting his own way finds himself confronted by a softly spoken mediator and a demand for buildings which 'delight the eye' the stage is set for a vintage farce.

DEAD WHITE MALES

6F, 5M
2 Acts
Postmodernism versus liberal humanism - can an older male academic convert a young female student to a post-structural, post-patriarchal view of literature and seduce her at the same time?

THE DEPARTMENT

2F, 8M
2 Acts
A staff meeting of the Engineering Dept in a College of Advanced Education is the occasion in this play for an acute dissection of the workings of bureaucracy and the absurd politicking needed to support it.

DON'S PARTY

5F, 6M
2 Acts
On election night 1969 Don and Kath give a party to watch the results. As the tide turns against Labor the good cheer palls and the faded ideals and disappointed hopes of the characters begin to show.

EMERALD CITY

3F, 3M
2 Acts
Colin, a screenwriter, and his wife Kate, a publisher, move to the 'Emerald City' where fame and fortune are there for the taking but surprises are in store for them both.

FLATFOOT

1F, 2M
2 Acts
Flatfoot (aka Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus) pops up in the 21st Century, enraged to find his ideas have been plundered through the ages by everyone from Shakespeare to sitcom writers. To prove his point, he takes us back to Ancient Rome where he must convince his producer that his new play will be a hit, won't offend the Roman censor and won't give servants ideas about their station. But the play hasn t been written, so Plautus must act it out before the cynical producer, making it up as he goes along. Pandemonium lurks just around the corner as, with a little help from his Greek wife, ex-dancer and seductress extraordinaire, they tackle all ten roles between them. A boisterous comedy for all ages.

THE GREAT MAN

3F, 4M
1 Act
A volatile group gathers to plan the funeral of a Labor Party icon. They all claim to know the truth about him but their recollections are coloured by their own interests.

A HANDFUL OF FRIENDS

3F, 2M
2 Acts
Russell, an academic, and his wife Wendy have recently returned from the US. Mark, a filmmaker, has just released a movie in which his actor/journalist wife, Sally, plays her first major role. Mutual friends believe the main characters are based on Russell and Wendy, and that they are cruelly satirised. Jill, Russell's sister who is devoted to her brother is angry and also resents Sally for incidents in their earlier lives. Old memories and antagonisms surface, triggered by the film, and what at first appears as envy and malice take on a different perspective as the group explode briefly into violence and settle for an uneasy reconciliation. Noone emerges honourably but they share the wisdom of hindsight.

HERETIC

5F, 5M
In 1925, American anthropologist Margaret Mead visited Samoa on a research trip and thought she had discovered a utopian society free of the restrictive social conventions of western societies. Her revelations of promiscuity among Samoan teenagers made her the guru of generations of academics and the 1960s aficionados of sex, rock'n'roll and free speech. In 1983 Australian academic Derek Freeman exposed Mead's findings as fraudulent and revealed the story of how and why the Samoans had duped her. Heretic explores the lifetime obsessions of two remarkable, headstrong protagonists. It also takes us inside the psyche of Derek Freeman, an iconoclast who was prepared to risk his marriage and shatter his career in the pursuit of truth.

INFLUENCE

4F, 3M
Full length
Ziggy Blasco is a talk-back host whose power rests in his influence. He fills Sydney's airwaves with his appeals to common-sense, his hard line with terrorists and his lashings at political correctness. Politicians beg to be on his show. He is courted by the world. A powerful public figure. But in the private sphere Ziggy's influence is fading away. He can barely maintain a conversation with his glamorous young wife Carmela. His daughter swings between truancy and dabbling on the stock market with his money. His sister despises all that he stands for and while Ziggy preaches to the metropolis that there is no such thing as the working poor, his own housekeeper struggles to provide for her family. Now his elderly migrant father reveals a dark family secret and threatens to go to the press. Just how far does Ziggy's influence reach?
A scathing and bitingly funny play about the media personalities that dominate our lives and the divisions that can shatter families.

THE JACK MANNING TRILOGY

Explores community conferencing - a process bringing together the victims and perpetrators of a crime to attempt some kind of reconcilliation:

FACE TO FACE - 4F, 4M 1 Act
Glen comes face to face with the employee who rammed his Mercedes. He must acknowledge responsibility for a series of incidents which helped provoke the crime.

CHARITABLE INTENT - 6F, 2M 1 Act
This play focuses on the contradictions that erupt as workplace values change.

A CONVERSATION - 4F, 6M 1 Act
The family of a rapist and murderer are confronted by the family of his victim.

JUGLER'S THREE

2F, 5M
1 Act

MONEY AND FRIENDS

4F, 5M
2 Acts
Peter, a mathematician who is niceness itself, is in financial trouble because of his brother's bankruptcy. His neighbour Margaret decides he needs help from his friends who spend most of their lives boasting about their wealth.

OPERATOR

3F, 3M
2 Acts
Young, charming and a go-getter, Jake is the ideal candidate for an executive position with a thriving local company. He is welcomed aboard by his hard-working boss, the company's smug CEO and Melissa, Jake's co-worker who has all the intelligence, industry and integrity Jake lacks. But Jake has a secret weapon: his skills at exploiting, manipulating and manoeuvring would put Machiavelli in the shade. He's the Operator.
A contemporary Australian drama with a satirical edge.

THE PERFECTIONIST

2F, 3M
2 Acts
Modern marriage follows a pair of academics from Denmark to Sydney as they blunder along the rival paths of career and parenthood.

THE REMOVALISTS

2F, 4M
2 Acts
A young policeman's first day on duty becomes a violent initiation into law enforcement. Remarkable for its blend of boisterous humour and horrifying violence, the play has built a classic reputation as a statement on authoritarianism.

SANCTUARY

2M
2 Acts
An investigative journalist returns to Australia to retire but a student working on his biography intervenes.

SIREN

2F, 5M
2 Acts
A love story with a difference. Holed up in a Central Coast motel room with three undercover detectives, Liz has been employed to use her sex appeal on Billy Nottle, a local councillor suspected of accepting bribes from developers. Williamson again chooses to examine power games and sexual politics but shows that moral values can still hold true.

SONS OF CAIN

3F, 6M
2 Acts
Against a background of disintegrating marital relationships and emotional greed, a newspaper editor with three investigative journalists takes on the Mr Bigs of the drug trade. The villain proves to be the nature of society itself.

SOULMATES

4F, 2M
2 Acts
The slippery business of books and writing, commerce versus art, serious writing versus popular writing. Set in both Melbourne and New York it is a tale of revenge as the best-selling expatriate author Katie Best engineers a scheme to bring her most craven critic Danny O'Loughlin undone.

THIRD WORLD BLUES

2F, 5M
2 Acts
Williamson has revisited his earlier play Jugglers Three. The result is taut and dramatic with the energy and biting satire of plays like The Removalists and Don's Party.

TOP SILK

2F, 7M
2 Acts
Set in the colourful world of the law, a Legal Aid solicitor and a prominent barrister battle over their individual careers and the future of their teenage son. Painfully they learn that there is a seamy side to justice at both the bottom and the top of Australian society and that occasionally, the young are wiser than their parents.

TRAVELLING NORTH

4F, 3M
2 Acts
A moving homage to old age and the old radicals who changed the course of our history. Soon after Frank and Frances desert their former lives for a northerly bohemian retreat, Frank's mortality asserts itself.

UP FOR GRABS

4F, 3M
2 Acts
Art dealers: parasites or prophets? Simone Allen likes to see herself as the latter but when given the opportunity to sell one of the better Whiteleys, her behaviour becomes less than angelic as the pressure mounts. Driven by greed and aesthetics, Williamson's characters discover how far they will go when more than just a beautiful work of art is up for grabs in this sexy comedy of manners.
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STEVE J SPEARS

WHEN THEY SEND ME 3 AND 4 PENCE

2 F, 4 M
Full length
1963. Robert O'Brien, the future protagonist of The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin runs a fading Dance Academy as Robert's life and the 60's themselves unravel under the deaths of John F Kennedy and Pope John 23rd.
'When in despair, keep dancing.'
. Currency Press.

THE ELOCUTION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

1M
2 Acts
This play deals with the tragic consequences when an aging elocution teacher falls in love with one of his young pupils.
Currency Press.

FROGGIE

4F, 5M
Full length
A wickedly funny and tragic fairy tale for adults.
«A man grows arms for the woman he loves.
Yackandanda Press.

GLORY

2F
Full length
75 year old Gloria Lear rages against the dying of the light in this blackest of Spears' black comedies.
Yackandanda Press.

ROARING BOY

2F, 4M
Full length
William Shakespeare is 32, likes grog, opium, boys, women hustling, money and the theatre. He's the lover of Queen Elizabeth and the toast of London. The problem is he's just written King Lear and everybody thinks its a turkey. The problem is Anne Hathaway wants to divorce him. The problem is he's a secret Catholic. The problem is his beloved son is about the die. The problem is the Queen's going to hang him. Sex and drugs!! The real story of the inglorious first night of William Shakespeare's King Lear. Not published.

PEOPLE KEEP GIVING ME THINGS

1F or M
25 minutes
A simpleton tells his life story.
Published by Outback Press.

A LITTLE THEATRE

1F, 1M
Full length.
One night in the life of Sammy Singer - theatre manager, producer, actor, musician, lover, failure. Can he save his play? Can he save his Little Theatre? Can he save his own life?
Not published.
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