7-ON PLAYWRIGHTS: Platonic

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Platonic

Platonic, one of our current 7-ON projects, is part of NIDA's inaugural Independent Program. We're collaborating with Gus Supple as director and producer, and working to develop the project for pop-up and other like spaces. Our plan is to get Platonic on sooner rather than later—by the end of 2012.

What is friendship in our contemporary world? When we’re all on a first-name basis. When parents urge their kids to think of them as friends. When you can have nine-hundred, a thousand Facebook friends? Have we sidelined friendship in favour of currying contacts? Does it matter if your cat or your iPhone is your best friend?

In short plays, monologues, songs, interruptions, and yes, in forms yet to be discovered, 7-ON responds to this theme. Byron may have called friendship ‘love without his wings,’ but 7-ON and Gus are embracing its earthbound nature, and designing Platonic for an intimate setting near you.

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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).