Sydney Theatre Company is inviting applications from Australia’s talented playwrights for the 2019 Patrick White Playwrights Award and expressions of interest for the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship.
The Patrick White Playwrights Award has been an annual initiative of the Sydney Theatre Company since 2000. It is held in honour of Patrick White’s contribution to Australian theatre and to foster the development of Australian playwrights. In 2010 an additional prize, the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship, was introduced to recognise and support more established Australian playwrights.
The Patrick White Playwrights Award offers a cash prize of $7,500 for a full-length unproduced play of any genre written by an Australian playwright over 18 years of age. The readers and judges assessing the scripts seek a work that is original and ambitious with strong theatrical potential.
Previous winners of the Patrick White Playwrights Award have included: Mark Rogers (2018), Kim Ho (2017), Lewis Treston (2016), Neil Levi (2015), Debra Thomas (2014), Chris Summers (2013), Anna Barnes (2012), Phillip Kavanagh (2011) and Melissa Bubnic (2010).
The Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship is a position for an established Australian playwright whose work has been produced professionally in Australia within the last four years. The winning playwright receives a total prize package of $25,000 which includes a year-long Fellowship in recognition of their excellent body of work, and a commission to write a new play.
Previous winners of the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship have included Nakkiah Lui (2018), Sue Smith (2017), Andrew Bovell (2016), Tommy Murphy (2015), Kate Mulvany (2014), Angela Betzien (2013), Hilary Bell (2012), Patricia Cornelius (2011) and Raimondo Cortese (2010).
Winners of both the Award and the Fellowship will be announced at an event in April 2020 along with a reading of the Patrick White Playwrights Award winning play. Applications are now open and close on Monday 18 November 2019. For more information, visit: www.sydneytheatre.com.au for details.
Image: Patrick White – courtesy of Sydney Theatre Company