7-ON responds to announcement that PWA is closing its doors

Dear PlayWriting Australia Board,

We were shocked by the PWA announcement last week that the board has decided that it is time to “pass the microphone and leave space for something different”. Your news that staff have been made redundant, and that playwrights are about to be without their only peak body, came without warning, and at a time when we thought that PWA was on the brink of a new phase of a deeper engagement with writers and the industry. This news is monumental. The fact that PWA can keep its current programs ticking over is cold comfort in the face of this inexplicable and sudden loss.

We realise PWA does not have a membership to answer to, but it exists to serve Australian playwrights - does it not? This lack of transparency with the playwriting community is troubling, if not paternalistic, and comes on the back of the unexplained departure of PWA’s previous Artistic Director. We feel frustrated to have been kept in the dark, and shut out of a drastic decision which has a direct impact upon us.

We do not accept the Board's assessment that it is ‘mission accomplished’ for PWA. If this was the case, why did PWA appoint a new AD/CEO within the last year, advertise its Artistic Associate position only months ago, and announce a new batch of programmes?

We were thrilled when PWA appointed the first playwright to ever head up the organisation. With his extensive knowledge of play development both here and overseas, playwrights felt confident that Lachlan Philpott would lead a renewal process - indeed, his initiatives and consultative Playwrights’ Forums suggested he was doing exactly that. We agree that a wide-ranging review of play development in Australia is needed, but was this not what Lachlan Philpott was trying to do?

As far as we know, neither playwrights nor the theatre sector called for PWA to fold. We therefore find it difficult to accept the Board’s reasons for dissolving the only organisation for Australian playwrights. The decision leaves us without a national play development organisation for the first time since 1972. It leaves the bulk of playwrights - notably rural, regional, emerging, mid career, unrepresented, everyone not working for a “major” - without any avenue of advocacy or support.

We are asking the Board to directly address PWA’s playwright constituency to explain your decision. We insist that playwrights are central to the review process, and not marginal to the process of developing what comes next.

Yours sincerely,
7-ON
Donna Abela, Vanessa Bates, Hilary Bell, Noëlle Janaczewska, Verity Laughton, Ned Manning, Catherine Zimdahl