2010 wrap up from 7-ON

Here we are at the end of 2010 all of a sudden. We thought this was a moment to check back over the year. It's odd really - you find that you've done quite a lot more than you think you have!

VANESSA..."2010 started and ended with mayhem and murder - writing for two TV shows. In the middle bit of 2010 I wrote a piece for Augusta Supple's theatrical omnibus - 'Stories From The 428'. 'Confetti' was directed by Glenn Hazeldine. I also had a play accepted by Playwriting Australia's National Script Studio, which was then picked up by Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre.

PORN.CAKE, directed by Pamela Rabe, will open on April 15th, 2011.

I was a mentor for the Australian Theatre for Young People's 'Fresh Ink' program and a tutor at their end-of-year National Studio in Bundanon. My feature screenplay, 'Love Struck Juliet' was runner-up in the AWG Rom-Com contest; my little boy turned four and I helped deliver my sister's second baby!

CATH..."2010. I fully expected to get nothing done but wait, watch and wonder. I lived in the non-verbal world of the visual arts, painted my mind out and was selected to exhibit in a group show at 'Artsite', a beautiful new space in Newtown. I was then selected for a solo show in June next year at the Chrissie Cotter Gallery. Suddenly there was an unexpected surge of writing - HERENOWTHERETHEN was commissioned for Augusta Supple's Brand Spanking New season; a fiull length play came to me in the space of a month and another is in the works. I've also been commissioned by ABC Radio to write a fifty-minute piece under the theme 'Crime Genre'.

Hope you all have a beautiful break."

VERITY... "2010 started, for me, as it will end, back at the farm at Kangarilla in South Australia. In between those two peaceful bookends it has been a rip-snorter of a year, a game-changer of a year in so many ways, quite a ride. The ABC broadcast a 35 minute play, "Joshua's Books"; I took part in an Inscription workshop headed up by Will Eno, a generous and very bright collaborator; Currency Press published 7-ON's 'Seven Needs' plays as part of their volume of short plays entitled 'Short Circuit'; I taught a playwriting course at the NSW Writer's Centre, as well as my regular classes for the Sydney City Council; I resigned after my fifth year on the National Executive Council of the AWG; spent a month in England and Europe (research, you understand, research...); took part in a workshop run by UK Meissner expert, Scott Williams, which culminated in a reading of a work-in-progress play of mine, 'The Ice Season'; and in the last quarter of the year had one play, 'The Sweetest Thing' produced in Sydney at Belvoir Downstairs and another 'A Crate of Souls' in Adelaide at the Adelaide College for the Arts. 'A Crate of Souls' was published by Phoenix Educational, while 'The Sweetest Thing' is available from the Australian Script Centre.

HILARY... "My year was also bookended - by two trips to Broome, researching my play for Black Swan, 'The White Divers of Broome' (inspired by John Bailey's history of the same name). The transformative part of the year happened in June, with my bunion operation - I now have a lovely left foot. Around that, I worked on the development of 'Take Up Thy Bed And Walk'
with Gaelle Mellis, for which we'll be in residence at Vitalstatistix in 2011; saw 'Beautiful Hands' recorded for ABC Radio; worked with Paul Capsis and Julian Meyrick on 'Angela's Kitchen' at Griffin; pushed 'Do And You Will Be Happy', a musical with composer Phillip Johnston, along to next-draft stage; and had a wonderful week with STC's Residents and puppeteer Alice Osborne workshopping 'The Splinter'. I was a Fresh Ink mentor, and taught many talented writers through Griffin, NIDA, the NSW Writers' Centre, Kambala and Randwick Council. Coming up is a play for the National's Connection's Programme, and a play for Barking Gecko in WA.