Vanessa Bates

Checklist for An Armed Robber

 Vanessa is an award winning playwright whose plays include:

Every Second, The Magic Hour, Porn.Cake , Checklist for an Armed Robber, Match, The Elephant’s Ark, A Little Bit Each Night and Darling Oscar.

In Australia she has been produced by Deckchair Theatre, Malthouse Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Belvoir B-Sharp, Vitalstatistix, Black Swan, theatre@risk, Tantrum and the Sydney Theatre Company as well as ABC Radio National. 

In London she has had two short plays produced by The Miniaturists: Petunia Takes Tea and At Sea.

In 2012, Vanessa was Playwright in Residence at Griffin Theatre. Her play Every Second was selected (along with Declan Greene's Moth) to be read in Washington DC as part of the National New Play Network's showcase. The play was also selected earlier in the year for the Playwriting Australia New Play Festival in Melbourne.  In 2012 her play The Magic Hour was produced by Deckchair Theatre, directed by Chris Bendall and starred Ursula Yovich.

Vanessa's play Porn.Cake (Malthouse Theatre 2011, Griffin Theatre Independent 2012) was nominated for an AWG award (AWGIE) and was co-winner of the the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Drama (The Nick Enright Prize).

Vanessa has had several plays and monologues published as well as a narrative non-fiction book Legs Up & Laughing. Vanessa also writes for television and is developing a feature length screenplay.

She was Affiliate Playwright with Sydney Theatre Company and a member of the STC Blueprints Literary Program. She received a 6-month Australia council writer’s residency at the Cite des Arts in Paris in 1999 and a Varuna/Playworks Fellowship in 2001. While part of Blueprints she wrote Newton’s Cradle (short listed for the Griffin Award) and Checklist For An Armed Robber (short listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the Griffin Award and the ANPC/New Dramatists Award). In 2006 she won a Theatrelab Playwrights Award for Lakes of Death and Dreamers which was workshopped with Edward Albee.

Vanessa’s plays have been produced by Malthouse Theatre, Griffin Independent, Tamarama Rock Surfers, Deckchair Theatre, Vitalstatistix, True West/Riverside Parramatta, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre’s B Sharp, Black Swan Theatre, Tantrum Theatre, Shakespeare Et Al, Freewheels Theatre, Shopfront Theatre, Always Working Artists and The Miniaturists (London).

Vanessa has also written several plays for ABC Radio including The Elephant’s Ark, Mincemeat, To Fly In The Night Air and the AWGIE Award winning adaptation of Checklist For An Armed Robber.
A writer and arts mentor with national arts company Big hART, Vanessa wrote the AWGIE nominated documentary 900 Neighbours (ABCTV/Big hART 2007).  

Her first book Legs Up & Laughing was published by Murdoch Books in 2007.

Vanessa is a graduate of the NIDA Playwrights Studio.

Noëlle Janaczewska

Fearless N, Theatre Kantanka, 2008. Photo: Nicholas Higgins

Noëlle Janaczewska is a Sydney-based writer of plays, performance texts, radio scripts, lyrics & libretti, monologues, poetry, essays, gallery and on-line explorations. Her work has been performed, broadcast and published throughout Australia and overseas. Working across drama and non-fiction, recurring themes in her work are the history and philosophy of science (especially botany), colonialism and its legacies, narratives of place and migration, and the exploration of language/s.

A graduate of Oxford and London Universities, Noëlle worked with and co-established several theatre companies and contemporary arts groups, presenting work in Britain, Germany and The Netherlands, before moving to Australia. Following 2 years as the Artistic Director of The Performance Space in Sydney, she returned to freelance practice with The History of Water/Huyền Thoại Một Giòng Nước, first produced by the Sydney Theatre Company in 1992, and published by Currency Press in 1995, following productions in London and Canada, Germany and Vietnam.

Noëlle’s numerous nominations, grants and prizes include the 2006 Queensland Premier's Literary Award (Drama Script, Stage) for Mrs Petrov's Shoe (Theatre @ Risk, 2006). Her play Songket, produced by the Griffin Theatre Company and The Studio at the Sydney Opera House to a sell-out season in 2003, won the 2002 Griffin Playwriting Award and the 2001 Playbox Asialink Playwriting Competition. The recipient of a Centenary Medal for radio scriptwriting, an Asialink Literature Residency in Korea, and Fellowships from Varuna Writers' Centre and the Theatre and Literature Boards of the Australia Council, Noëlle’s radio features There's Something About Eels ... and Let’s Go Brazil won AWGIE Awards in 2009 and 2006, as did her radio dramas Random Red, The Rush Hour Carillon, Glissando 24 and Slowianska Street in 2012, 2005, 2001 and 1999. In 1997, she obtained her doctorate from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Recent works include Cloud Cover and Weed Etc for ABC Radio National in 2013 and 2010 respectively, Eyewitness Blues for the BBC, The Hannah First Collection, 1919—1949 for the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, Taishō Chick (Art Gallery of NSW, 2008), Fearless N (Theatre Kantanka/Sydney Olympic Park, 2008), the Movie Extra Award-winning short Duet With A Dictionary (Short & Sweet 2008, Movie Extra 2008), Unrequited (Adelaide Festival Centre OzAsia Festival 2007) and This Territory, produced by the Australian Theatre for Young People in association with the Powerhouse Youth Theatre and the Sydney Opera House in 2007. In 2008 Currency Press published This Territory and Songket in a 2-play edition.

Alongside works for stage and radio, Noëlle has published poems, essays, monologues, flash fiction, reviews and other short pieces in many anthologies, literary journals, newspapers and on-line magazines, including: Jacket, Cordite, extempore, Island, Scan, HEAT, Southerly, Imago, Voices, RePublica and The Weekend Australian. The poems she wrote for Kathryn Millard's film Travelling Light feature on the soundtrack CD, produced by the ABC & Universal Music Australia, and in 2006 Wayzgoose Press published her long poem Dorothy Lamour's Life as a Phrasebook.

Find out more about her work, and read excerpts, essays and poetry at http://noelle-janaczewska.com

Noëlle is represented by Cameron Creswell. Contact them at info@cameronsmanagement.com.au

Catherine Zimdahl

Clark in Sarajevo

Catherine Zimdahl is a playwright, screenwriter and visual artist.

Her credits include the plays Clark In Sarajevo, Family Running For Mr Whippy, Wharf At Woolloomooloo, A Day Too Great, the children’s play The Rocky Road to Riches ( the Australian Museum 1995), and the adaptation of the classic novel Moonfleet (Windmill National Children’s Theatre and Mainstreet Theatre Company 2004). Her radio credits include A World Into A Child, A Child Into the World (2003) and also the adaptations of Clark In Sarajevo(2001), Family Running For Mr Whippy (1995).

Catherine is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Screenwriting and while there wrote the short features Sparks and Life On Earth As I Know It. In 1990 Sparks received Australian Film Institute awards for Best Short Film and Best Short Screenplay, the Gold Plaque Award from Chicago International Film Festival and Le Prix Recherche from the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival. Sparks and Life On Earth As I Know It have both been screened on Channel 4 and at numerous festivals.

Her screenplay Wharf At Woolloomooloo was nominated for the Lexus If Awards Best Unproduced Screenplay in 2004. Her film script The Ego Trip is currently in development.

Donna Abela

Tales From The Arabian Nights

A Walk in the Park 

Olympia and Phoung

Donna Abela has written for audiences of all ages, collaborating across a range of performance genres to write over thirty works.

Her credits include A Cleansing Force (Novemberism Festival of New Writing), A Walk in the Park (Brand Spanking New at the New Theatre) Olympia and Phoung and Oliver Twist Is (The 428 project), Spirit (Griffin Theatre Company), The Greatest Show On Earth (Queensland Music Festival, co-written with Patrick Nolan), The Rood Screen (Darlinghurst Theatre Company) Tales From the Arabian Nights (Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image), The Daphne Massacre (Parramatta Riverside Theatres), Aurora's Lament, Mrs Macquarie's Cello, and Fathom (ABC Radio), Highest Mountain Fastest River (Salamanca Theatre Company), Quest (Pact Youth Theatre), One In A Million (Death Defying Theatre), Circus Caravan and 4 Speed Blenders (Jigsaw Theatre Company), and No Funny Business, More Funny Business, and Lots More Funny Business (New Theatre, head writer).
Donna cut her playwrighting teeth at Powerhouse Youth Theatre, a company she co-founded in 1987 in Sydney's culturally diverse western suburbs. For PYT he wrote Ratbags, Reek Havoc, Was Liverpool Always Full of Headbangers? and Shazam, and devised a number of unscripted works. Donna worked continuously for PYT for seventeen years as it consolidated its practice of community collaboration, and established a base at the Fairfield School of Arts. She chaired the company from 1993 to 2003, and is looking forward to celebrating its 25th birthday in 2012.
Donna has long championed writers and new writing, and has worked extensively as a dramaturge and script assessor. She was on the board of the national script development organisation Playworks, Women Performance Writers Network from 1999 to 2006, acting in the position of Artistic Director in 2002, and chairing the company in its final year.
Donna studied at UTS, UNSW, the NIDA Playwrights' Studio, and the City Art Institute. She is a doctoral student at the University of Wollongong, and teaches scriptwriting at Wesley Institute.

Verity Laughton

The Snow Queen

Verity has written for most forms of theatre including mainstage adult drama, a promenade community event, a musical, plays for child and family audiences, as well as for dance, for puppets, for theatre of image and a ‘neutral script’.

Her plays include The Lightkeeper (Mainstreet Theatre Company and national tour; winner of the 2004 AWGIE for Community & Youth Theatre), The Snow Queen (Windmill Performing Arts), Burning (Griffin Theatre Company and winner of the 2001 Griffin Playwriting Award), Carrying Light (State Theatre of South Australia and Vitalstatistix; winner of the Adelaide Critics Circle Best New South Australian play, 1999) and The Mourning After (Playbox Theatre, 1995/6, Interplay Productions, New Zealand, 2000, and the Riverina Theatre, 2001).

In other writing, Verity’s radio play Fox for ABC Radio National won the 2004 AWGIE for Best Radio Play. She has also written for television and video. She worked as dramaturg on a Japanese-Australian co-production, World of Paper (Hello Maru-Chan), restaged in Australia, in the USA at the Kennedy Centre in Washington in 2006, and at London’s Unicorn Theatre in 2007.

Another work for puppets was Gondwana, for Erth Visual and Physical Theatre at the National Museum, Canberra, in September 2005. Gondwana was re-staged in New Zealand and Sydney in 2008. She followed this with a large scale puppetry adaptation of Patricia Wrightson's The Nargun and the Stars, produced by Erth Physical and Visual and Performing Lines for the Sydney and Perth International Arts Festivals (published by Phoenix Educational and nominated for the Sydney Theatre Awards). Her most recent productions were The Sweetest Thing, produced by Arts Radar and directed by Sarah Goodes at Belvoir Downstairs in November 2010 and A Crate of Souls, produced at the Adelaide College for the Arts and published by Phoenix Educational in December 2010. Her current play The Ice Season/or Spellboud won the 2009 Inscription Open Award. Her poem, The Fox Man was runner up in the 2011 Blake Poetry Prize.

Verity is represented by Anthony Blair at
Cameron Creswell Management.7th Floor, 61 Marlborough Street
Surry Hills
NSW 2010

Tel +61 2 93197199
Fax +61 2 93196866

Ned Manning interviewed in The Guardian Weekly

Ned grew up in rural Australia. His first wife was Aboriginal, and their children grew up strongly identifying with the indigenous community. Ned wrote two plays about the stolen generation, touring them with indigenous theatre groups.
Read Ned's interview in the Guardian Weekly.

Hilary Bell

Wolf Lullaby

Hilary Bell writes for stage, radio, screen and music theatre. Plays include Wolf Lullaby (Atlantic, Steppenwolf, Griffin Theatre), Fortune, The Falls (Griffin), The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch (Vitalstatistix; The University of the South in Tennessee), Shot While Dancing (shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award), Memmie Le Blanc (Vitalstatistix, Deckchair), Open-Cut (WAAPA), The Mysteries: Genesis (Sydney Theatre Company) with Lally Katz, Angela’s Kitchen (Griffin) with Paul Capsis and Julian Meyrick, The White Divers of Broome (Black Swan / Perth International Arts Festival), The Splinter for STC,  Victim Sidekick Boyfriend Me for the National Theatre’s Connections Programme, and Mrs President, composed by Victoria Bond and produced by Anchorage Opera. As well as opera, she has written libretti for musicals (The Wedding Song, comp. Douglas Stephen Rae, dir. Jim Sharman), song cycles (Talk Show, comp. Elena Katz-Chernin, for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir), and for Phillip Johnston’s score to Murnau’s silent film Faust, premiered at the New York Film Festival and performed internationally.

Hilary has been resident at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Conference in the US, the Russian Playwrights' Conference, and the Australian National Playwrights' Conference. She is a member of playwrights' company 7-ON, and a recipient of the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights’ Award, Jill Blewitt Playwrights’ Award, Bug’n’Bub Award, Aurealis Award for Fiction, the Eric Kocher Playwrights’ Award, a Helpmann, an Inscription Award and an AWGIE for Music Theatre. She is a graduate of the Juilliard Playwrights’ Studio, NIDA, and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. She was the 2003-04 Tennessee Williams Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of the South in Tennessee. She is a director on the Griffin Board, part of State of Play's artistic directorate, and on the artistic advisory panel for the Production Company, New York. Hilary also works as a mentor and dramaturg, and as a playwriting teacher.

Coming up next: Do Good And You Will Be Happy, a musical with composer Phillip Johnston, to be workshopped by Merrigong in September. And also in September, the publication by NewSouth of an art/children's/gift book, Alphabetical Sydney, with illustrator Antonia Pesenti.

Hilary is represented by RGM Associates

PO Box 128, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Tel. 612 9281 3911

Hilary's plays can be purchased via Currency Press (Fortune, Wolf Lullaby);The Australian Script Centre (The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch, Conversations With Jesus, Memmie Le Blanc, The Falls, The Seven Needs); and by direct email for everything else: Email Hilary Bell.

AWARDS; FELLOWSHIPS

Inscription Award for 'Memmie Le Blanc' 2007

Tennessee Williams Fellowship, University of the South, Tennessee, USA 2003-2004

Music Theatre AWGIE (Australian Writers Guild) ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch’ 2003

Bug’n’Bub Award for ‘The Falls’, UA 2001

ASK Theatre Projects Writers Retreat, USA 2000

Susan Smith Blackburn Award finalist, 1999

Hegebrook Writers’ Colony, USA1998

Juilliard Playwright Fellow, USA 1997 and 1998

LeCompte du Nouy Award, USA 997 and 1998

Eric Kocher Award, USA 1997

Jill Blewett Playwrights' Award, 1996

Aurealis Award for Young Adult Fiction, 1996

Philip Parsons Memorial Young Playwrights’ Award, 1994

Hilary's work has been developed through the Australian National Playwrights' Conference, 1994 & 2006; the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Conference, USA, 1997 & 1999; and the Russian Playwrights' Conference, 1997. 

Ned Manning

Last One Standing

Ned Manning is a playwright, actor and teacher. He has written eighteen plays all of which have had a production.

His first play, Us or Them, began its life as a co-op, first in Canberra and then at the Griffin Theatre Company. Us or Them’s critical and box office success led to it being the first professional production done by the company. It went on to be produced around Australia and published by Currency Press.

Kenny’s Coming Home, a satire about the Labor Party, was done at the Q Theatre in Penrith.

Milo also began its life as a co-op before being picked up by a number of companies and being published by Currency.
Ned has written two plays about the Stolen Generations, Close to the Bone and Luck of the Draw. Both are published by Currency and have had numerous productions around Australia and overseas.

His latest play for adults is Last One Standing which he acted in as well as producing.

Ned has written many plays for young people. His latest being Alice Dreaming. He is currently commissioned by the Bell Shakespeare Company to write their Actors at Work scripts. He has written nine short plays for the Company.

He is currently working on a number of projects with 7-ON as well as his own projects.

He teaches at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts.