Media Release June 2013

The Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award open for entries

Belvoir’s Literary Manager Anthea Williams with 2012 winner Nakkiah Lui. Photo by Patrick Boland.

Belvoir is now accepting entries for the second Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award. The award is open to all writers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decent.

Last year’s winner, Nakkiah Lui, said: ‘This award supports and encourages me as a writer in so many different ways; from the financial support to focus on my writing through to the encouragement that comes with knowing that I have the support of Belvoir and The Balnaves Foundation. To have a commission from Belvoir and to continue on an exciting trajectory in my career is very encouraging. Telling and sharing our stories empowers our communities and supporting new work and new voices is vital. That is why this award is such an important and innovative step for Indigenous playwrights and Indigenous theatre.'

In 2010 The Balnaves Foundation announced it would partner with Belvoir to support the presentation of two Indigenous works as per year as part of Belvoir’s annual season. To further their commitment to the telling of Indigenous stories through theatre, the Foundation has committed $20,000 per year to an annual award for an Indigenous playwright. ‘Reconciliation is difficult without an understanding of Indigenous issues, culture and history by the non-Indigenous community,’ said Hamish Balnaves. ‘We hope that by supporting Indigenous playwrights these stories will be told.’

The award comprises a $7,500 cash prize and a $12,500 commission to write a new play with the support of Belvoir.

Entries close on Friday 28 June with the winner announced in August.

The judging panel for the award will be the Artistic Director of the Theatre Company, Wesley Enoch, and the Artistic Director of ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Rachael Maza, Belvoir’s Eamon Flack and Anthea Williams and last year’s winner Nakkiah Lui.

For media information contact publicist Elly Michelle Clough [email protected] | + 61 (0)2 8396 6242 | 0407 163 921

Media Release June 2013

Notes for Editors The Balnaves Foundation The Balnaves Foundation is a private philanthropic organisation established in 2006 by Neil Balnaves AO to provide support to charitable enterprises across .

Dispersing over $2 million annually, the Foundation supports eligible organisations that aim to create a better Australia through education, medicine and the arts with a focus on young people, the disadvantaged and Indigenous communities.

Judges Wesley Enoch Wesley is the Artistic Director for Queensland Theatre Company. Wesley has directed for Queensland Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Adelaide Festival of the Arts, State Theatre Company South Australia, Belvoir, Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Malthouse Theatre, Windmill, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Alphaville and the ERTH Festival. As a playwright he has written The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table (awarded the 2005 Patrick White Playwright’s Award), The Sunshine Club, Life of Grace and Piety, Black Medea and he collaborated with Deborah Mailman on The 7 Stages of Grieving. Wesley has been Artistic Director of Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts and Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre, Associate Artist with Queensland Theatre Company, Resident Director at , Director of the Indigenous section of the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games, a Sydney Opera House trustee, a NSW Government Arts Advisory Council member and on numerous other committees.

Eamon Flack Eamon is Associate Director – New Projects at Belvoir. He graduated from the acting course at WAAPA in 2003 and has since worked as a director, actor, writer and dramaturg for Belvoir, Malthouse Theatre, Bell Shakespeare’s Mind’s Eye, ThinIce, Perth International Arts Festival, Darwin Festival, Griffin Stablemates, Playwriting Australia and various other companies. For Belvoir, Eamon has directed Babyteeth, As You Like It and The End (which toured to Malthouse Theatre), co-adapted Ruby Langford Ginibi’s memoir Don’t Take Your Love to Town, with Leah Purcell, and co-devised Beautiful One Day. His dramaturgy credits for Belvoir include The Wild Duck, Neighbourhood Watch, The Book of Everything and Gwen in Purgatory. Eamon’s productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (B Sharp/Bob Presents/Arts Radar) and Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui (Darwin Festival) have both toured nationally. He has adapted and directed Gorky’s Summerfolk (Bob Presents) and his adaptation of Antigone was produced at the Perth International Arts Festival and published by Currency Press.

Nakkiah Lui Nakkiah grew up in Dhurag community in Western Sydney. She believes this is where her passion for writing came from; sharing the contemporary Indigenous experience through performance. She is currently finishing her Arts/Laws at the University of . Nakkiah was an associate playwright at Belvoir in 2012 and a resident in ATYP’s Fresh Ink Playwright Residency 2010, where she wrote for the show Tell It Like It Isn’t. Nakkiah has been the inaugural recipient of both The Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award and the Australia Council’s Dreaming Award. She is currently under commission by Belvoir for her next play, Koorioke.

Rachael Maza Rachael is the Artistic Director of Ilbijerri Theatre Company. She is well known as a television presenter on SBS’s ICAM and ABC’s Message Stick, and for her stunning performances in Radiance and The Sapphires. Most recently, in her role at Ilbijerri Theatre Company, she has directed Jacky Jacky in the Box (Federation Square 2009, Melbourne Museum 2010), A Black Sheep Walks into a Baa… and Black Sheep: Glorious Baastards (Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2009 & 2010) and Chopped Liver (National tours 2008 & 2009). She performs regularly with her sister Lisa in the duo ‘The Maza Sisters’, and together they wrote and performed in the highly successful theatre production Sisters of Gelam, which premiered in Melbourne in 2009.

Anthea Williams Anthea is Literary Manager at Belvoir, for Belvoir she has directed Forget Me Not and Old Man. Prior to working at Belvoir Anthea was the Associate Director at London’s Bush Theatre. While at the Bush she directed Two Cigarettes, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas, suddenlossofdignity.com, Turf and The Great British Country Fete. Prior to working at the Bush she lived in Auckland and was the Co-Artistic Director of SmackBang Theatre Company and the Producer of Massive Company. Anthea trained as a director at the Victorian College of the Arts and the University of New South Wales.