7-ON PLAYWRIGHTS: Vanessa Bates

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Vanessa Bates

Ursula Yovich in THE MAGIC HOUR by Vanessa Bates photograph by Jon Green

Relentless energy and humour – THE MAGIC HOUR, written by Australian playwright Vanessa Bates, is full of damsels in distress, but they are bleeding, coarse, filled with rage, hope and hot desire The Guardian

…a mouth-watering confection laced with genuinely biting satire. Funny, disturbing and utterly in tune with the zeitgeist PORN.CAKE is a bold step forward in contemporary theatre.

The Age

Bates’ script (of EVERY SECOND) is compact, nimble, wryly funny and convincingly voiced.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Vanessa Bates is an award-winning Australian playwright.

In 2014 her play The Magic Hour toured Australia. Every Second premiered at the Eternity Theatre in Sydney. Her newest play Chipper was shortlisted for the 2014 Patrick White Award and the 2013 Griffin Award.

A short play The Source was produced by Rock Surfers Theatre. Vanessa was playwright on Diving Off The Edge Of The World produced by Tantrum Youth Arts. She was also Director of the 2014 Playwrights Festival for NSW Writers Centre.

Vanessa's plays include: Chipper, Every Second, The Magic Hour, Porn.Cake, Checklist for an Armed Robber and Darling Oscar as well as monologues and short plays for several multi-playwright shows including: The Blessing, Petunia Takes Tea, Hunger, The Night We Lost Jenny, Confetti, World’s Tiniest Monkey, First Light, A Lightbulb Moment, This Train, HomeMade and WishBone.

Her work has been produced by most Australian companies including Malthouse Theatre, Theatre@Risk, Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, atyp, Belvoir B Sharp, Griffin, Deckchair Theatre, Black Swan, Vitalstatistix, Tantrum, Freewheels, Reginald Theatre (Seymour), True West/Riverside and New Theatre.

Published works: Checklist For An Armed Robber (Currency Press), Porn.Cake (online - Red Door Imprints) Darling Oscar/STC 1 (5 Islands Press), Hunger/Short Circuits (Currency), First Light/The Voices Project (Currency), World's Tiniest Monkey, Nobody Famous, Farmer Frank is In Show Business/No Nudity, Weapons or Naked Flames (Federation Press) Legs Up & Laughing (Murdoch Books)

Vanessa won a 2012 NSW Premiers Literary Award for Porn. Cake. She won an AWGIE award for Checklist For An Armed Robber. She has won Inscriptions awards for Every Second and Lakes of Death and Dreamers, and City Of Newcastle Drama awards for Match and here is the beehive.

Vanessa has been shortlisted for the STC/Patrick White Award (Chipper, A Little Bit Each Night) Griffin Award (Checklist For An Armed Robber, Newton’s Cradle, Porn.Cake, Chipper) AWGIE award (Porn.Cake, 900 Neighbours,)New Dramatists award(Checklist For An Armed Robber) Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (Checklist For An Armed Robber). In 2013 Vanessa was also shortlisted for a Newton John Award at the University of Newcastle for her body of work.

Vanessa worked for several years as an artist to create works with marginalized community members with national arts organization BIG hART on various projects.

Vanessa is a graduate of the NIDA Playwrights Studio.

This play (EVERY SECOND) is the first play I have ever seen and I loved it. And now I want to see more theatre.

Random Audience Member (unrelated)

1 comment:

karen berger said...: Hi Vanessa

Congratulations on receiving the Ozco grant for 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. I was inspired to write because I'm in the process of looking at the book as inspiration for a theatre piece (& have already had lots of fun using the 'Of Reading & Writing' essay) so I was interested to hear what you were up to with it. Potential for collaboration?

Cheers

Karen
karen_berger2002@yahoo.com.au; 31 March 2008 at 12:48

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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).