How AUSTRALIAN FEMALE PLAYWRIGHTS are showing international and national audiences the importance of new Australian work.
The likelihood an Australian playwright, let alone a female Australian playwright getting their work on in Australia, let alone internationally is far and few between. However, a new Australian play Dead Skin written by Laneikka Denne, a seventeen-year-old playwright makes its international debut at Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles. First staged in Sydney by independent company White Box theatre, the female led ensemble play explores queer first love, adolescence and the strength of the maternal bond written for teenagers by a teenager.
“I’ve only heard of one other Australian play that has made it to US stages in the last decade, let alone a new Australian work written by a teenage lesbian. It’s nonexistent. Australia’s Main Stage theatre companies won’t often take a chance on new work because it’s not guaranteed to sell well. I know theatre organisations that give new Australian works a paid development with no outcome of ever programming the work just to say they support new Australian work. I sold out Dead Skin to young people because it was for them, I can’t wait to do the same in LA” said Laneikka Denne, playwright of Dead Skin.
Embracing new Australian female voices has been made possible through the generous work of independent theatre companies nationally and internationally that give these works the chance to be shown.
KXT Creative Director Suzanne Millar says: “We’ve seen an industry wide reluctance to take new writing to full production. It’s considered “high-risk”. But how else are we going to invest in the next generation of playwrights? Art should be dangerous, and theatre should be risky. At KXT we’ve been honoured to be able to support young writers like Laneikka ~ bold voices with something important to say. We’re so incredibly proud of the work they’re doing!
Following in Suzanne’s tradition to break boundaries within her programming at KXT Cassie Hamilton, a young queer playwright has recently completed the premiere season of her new Australian queer farce Daddy Developed A Pill also at KXT, and presented by young independent company Snatched Theatre Collective
“The piece takes so many risks creatively, which makes the piece exciting to watch, but terrifying to put money behind,” said Cassie. “As an emerging queer artist I feel I am constantly told by the industry what my work needs to be for it to be supported and produced by the bigger companies. It needs to have representation and diversity whilst still educating and celebrating marginalised communities and however other many buzzwords you want to throw in. It’s restricting what we can say, and telling us that having a queer voice alone does not make your good work worthy of programming. I’m hoping Daddy will evolve that conversation.”
Ally Morgan’s work Not Today also started at KXT and is now nationally touring. “Being able to remount Not Today gave us the opportunity to keep developing the work. The show we toured to Melbourne was not the same show we debuted in Sydney, it was bigger and better than ever. I think remounts give writers the important (and rare) chance to grow and improve. I feel very lucky to have been able to tour this show. ”
“It was a long road to touring, it took a lot of time and people doing lots of work for no money… but in the end, because of the sheer audacity of the team [ independent company Rogue Projects ] I had supporting me we were able to tour Not Today to Melbourne. With more dates on the horizon, we are so thankful that our little show is finally reaching audiences and making big waves.”
It is so refreshing to see new Australian work get a life beyond the page, to receive an Australian debut, to remount internationally. It is only through the fierce effort of a few, encouraging audiences to venture out to find new Australian work that new voices can be heard and discovered.
More information about these new Australian works can be found here:
DEAD SKIN by Laneikka Denne premiered at KXT in 2021, now playing at Zephyr Theatre in LA June https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/7292
Laneikka Denne is Associate Artist at KXT, playwright, and founder and facilitator of The Monologue Collective
DADDY DEVELOPED A PILL by Cassie Hamilton premiered at Kings Cross Theatre June 2022 https://www.kingsxtheatre.com/daddy
Cassie Hamilton completed Daddy Developed A Pill as part of the 2021 Laboratory program at KXT, an artist platform supporting young playwrights in their first work
NOT TODAY by Ally Morgan premiered as part of the KXT Popupstairs program 2021 https://allymorgan.me/projects/nottoday
