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Best New Australian Play
Subcategory of Matilda Awards
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Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2023

winner Breathe In Georgia Cranko , Brenden Borellini , Alison Richardson , 2023 single work drama

'How would you survive?

'Breathe In is a hauntingly poetic performance piece that explores an alienating, alternate world of existence and the fragile line between connection and isolation.

'Enter through Paxton’s Warehouse doors and be taken into a world filled with live music, poetry and projection as lead performers Georgia Cranko (VIC) and Brenden Borellini (QLD) give you a captivating and also disturbing insight into how they as people who use alternate communication survive in a world that can be at times frightening, unrelenting and inaccessible.'

Source: Production blurb.

Year: 2022

winner y separately published work icon Boy, Lost Katherine Lyall-Watson , 2022 Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2023 25441394 2022 single work drama

'Boy, Lost is a true story of a boy’s lifelong search for his mother.

'Adapted from Kristina Olsson’s award-winning memoir, Boy, Lost is a dynamic new production by Queensland Theatre’s 2020 resident company, Belloo Creative. A true story of a boy snatched from his mother’s arms and their journey back to one another, this is an ultimately uplifting story of survival.

'Travelling down the train tracks of the east coast of Australia and spanning fifty years, the play ricochets from post war Brisbane to Cairns and Sydney as it follows one boy’s life long search and a family’s journey from loss to redemption.

'Told in Belloo Creative’s signature style of fluid storytelling and physicality, Boy, Lost combines dramatic storytelling and nuanced music theatre to create a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.

'From the book by Kristina Olsson
'Adapted for the stage by Katherine Lyall-Watson' (Production summary)

Year: 2019

winner A Girl's Guide to World War Katy Forde , Aleathea Monsour (composer), 2018 single work musical theatre

'Based on true events, “A Girl’s Guide to World War” follows the adventures of ‘lady doctors’ during World War 1.'

Source: Musical Theatre Australia.

Year: 2017

winner y separately published work icon Blue Bones Merlynn Tong , Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2017 11978357 2017 single work drama

'When a woman finds scars left by her ex-boyfriend of many years etched into her bones, she begins a turbulent journey to unpack her past and discover how he got under her skin. Based on the true story of two teenagers' romance as it blossoms then warps in the heat of bustling Singapore, Blue Bones is a one-woman show told with incredible honesty by Merlynn Tong. With multiple characters, song and arcade dance games, Blue Bones is a whirlwind of love and sex, violence and courage, with the wreckage continuing to be felt across the years. Against the backdrop of Singapore with all its beauty, rigidity and insistent chaos, Blue Bones will enchant and disturb, and perhaps even wake the stories dormant in your bones.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2016

winner y separately published work icon Bastard Territory Stephen Carleton , 2015 Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2016 8902697 2015 single work drama

'Russell’s ghosts were kind of at rest. He was at peace with it all, even the fact that he didn't know who his biological father was. His mother, Lois, disappeared when he was eight, leaving him to be raised by Neville, a stalwart of the no-nonsense Regional Right.

'It’s Darwin, 2001, and Russell and his partner Alistair have transformed Russell’s childhood home into the ‘Tectonic Plate’; ‘hip urban café and art gallery by day, queer cabaret dive by night’.

'When three separate events over the course of two weeks start to churn things up, the ghosts from Russell’s past begin to intrude on his present and he embarks on a quest to determine his identity.

'The search transports him back to the bohemian world of his childhood; Darwin, 1975, and beyond to his conception; PNG, 1967, where bored ex-TAA hostie, Lois, has tired of Neville’s conservatism and joined the ‘Moresby Arts Theatre’, where she soon starts courting liaisons with members of the community positioned more dangerously at its anarchic edges.

'To a soundtrack of Suzi Quatro, Shirley Bassey and Nana Mouskouri, Russell pieces together the events leading to that fateful night when his favourite Abba record was broken and everything else fell apart.' (Production summary)

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