7-ON: GLOBAL DOMINATION

Well, not quite. Not yet. But it's been a big couple of weeks for the 7s in terms of industry recognition.

Working alphabetically, first up we celebrate Donna Abela. She has been working long and hard on ‘Monkey - Journey to the West’, he of the Chinese folktale (familiar from the fabulous ‘70s TV series) with Theatre of Image and Bell Shakespeare. Shows are lined up for 2014 in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. A recent workshop produced this clip, featuring team9lives and the inimitable Darren Gilshenan as Pigsy.

Abela and Bates create a nice alphabetical segue to Triumph #2: Both Donna and Vanessa have plays shortlisted for the Griffin Award, to be announced June 14. They nestle amongst a constellation of other wonderful playwrights Robert Reid, Kate Mulvany and Rosemary Johns. Congrats to all.

The prodigious Bates is also one of the three recipients – along with Patricia Cornelius and Aiden Fennessy – of a coveted spot at Playwriting Australia’s National Script Workshop. Starting this week and running till the end of next week, she is developing her new play ‘Chipper’.

Bell is on the shortlist for Inscription’s Edward Albee Playwriting Scholarship, which I (Hilary here) am very proud to be on with two of my former students, Alison Rooke and Ruth Melville. Winner goes to New York for a month and writes a play!

Janaczewska's play ''Third Person' opens in Melbourne, at the Union House Theatre, next Wednesday, in addition to which, 'Mrs Petrov's Shoe' has just been published by Playlab.

Manning's 'Women Of Troy' will be broadcast on May 21, having been selected for the International Festival of Radio Plays Prix Marulic 2013.

And Zimdahl, our multi-talent, has been selected as a finalist for the international Clifton Art Prize. See her beautiful painting ‘A Tear Magnified to the Power’ here: 

Stay tuned for the outcomes.

On another note, I thought it worth noting just how many Australian plays are on in Sydney as I type this. Upstairs at Belvoir is Tom Holloway’s ‘Forget Me Not’, and downstairs Lally Katz’s ‘Stories I Want To Tell You In Person’. Griffin, the stalwart champion of new local work, is presenting Van Badham’s ‘The Bull, The Moon and the Coronet of Stars’. There’s the MayDay Playwrights’ Festival at the Tap Gallery (last week was wall-to-wall 7-ON).The Ensemble has just opened David Williamson’s ‘Happiness’, and TRS, ‘The Removalists’. At the Sydney Theatre Company is Joanna Murray-Smith’s ‘Fury’. These are what I can think of without resorting to Google. Anything else I should mention? Drop us a comment. And feel free to open it up to the nation at large: what else is on out there? It’s pretty bloody fantastic to see our own stories, told by our own playwrights, on so many stages all at once.