7-ON PLAYWRIGHTS: Monkey… Journey to the West

Monday 6 October 2014

Monkey… Journey to the West

Justin Smith, Aljin Abella, Aileen Huynh and Darren Gilshenan play the motley Buddhist pilgrims

Well, it's been a hell of a journey to get Monkey… Journey to the West to the stage. Six years from concept to production! But what a production! It's a feast! Having played at the Brisbane Festival last week, it's now enjoying a run at the Parramatta Riverside Theatres. If you miss it, don't worry. This production by Kim Carpenter's Theatre of Image will be back next year for a national tour.

Writer: Donna Abela

Directors: John Bell and Kim Carpenter

Composer and lyricist: Peter Kennard

Movement Director: Scott Witt

Cast: Aljin Abella, Darren Gilshenan, Justin Smith, Aileen Huynh, Ivy Mak, Anthony Taufa, Lia Reutens, Troy Honeysett; and Tim Farley, Joshua Tieu and Jair Coronado from Team 9Lives.

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About 7-ON

7-ON Playwrights was established in 2005 by Donna Abela, Catherine Zimdahl, Ned Manning, Noëlle Janaczewska, Vanessa Bates, Verity Laughton and Hilary Bell. Seven minds that don’t think alike but are simpatico in this—our belief in the transformative properties of our artform and its place in Australian culture. With over 200 plays between us, our work has been produced on stages across Australia. Internationally, we have been produced in Botswana, the US, the UK, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, France, Canada, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. We have over 40 awards between us including: 14 Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, 4 Griffin Playwriting Awards, 3 Premiers’ Literary Awards, 4 Inscription Awards, an Adelaide Critics’ Circle Prize, a Phillip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award, a Wyndham Campbell Prize, a Centenary Medal, a Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship, and a Human Rights Award for Drama. As 7-ON we advocate for playwrights, initiate performance and publishing projects, and support and celebrate each other’s work. We create projects that are best served by a multitude of voices. These have included The Seven Needs (Griffin, 2007), Thus Spake Zarathustra (Wollongong University, 2008), Long Shadows (STC workshop, 2009), Platonic (Hothouse development, 2013), We Are The Ghosts Of The Future (Rocks Discovery Museum, 2015), and various works under the banner of Old Texts Revisited (ABC Radio, 2009), I Contain Multitudes (Novemberism Playwriting Festival, 2011) and No Nudity, Weapons or Naked Flames (MayDay! Playwrights’ Festival, 2013) which presented a selection of monologues from our anthology of the same name published by the Federation Press in 2012. We are also included in Currency Press’ anthology of short plays Short Circuit (2009).