AustLit
Latest Winners / Recipients
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Year: 2022
winner Let Bleeding Girls Lie 2021 single work drama'let bleeding girls lie examines the unexpected intimacy between Grace, Juice, and Lou, three strangers donating plasma at a Melbourne city blood bank during the Manchester Arena attack. Live carnage unfolds on the news, forcing private lives into public space as the women seek strength in each other.'
Source: La Mama Theatre.
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Year: 2021
winner Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands 2020 single work drama'The biggest popstar of the Philippines has been kidnapped, and it’s up to a ragtag squad of fans to bring her back. They’ll brave rooftop chases, mystic rituals, knife fights in the back of speeding jeepneys and underwater shoot-outs to liberate their idol from a conspiracy that threatens to tear their country apart.
'Over one explosive night this vigilante crew of pop obsessives, misfits and outsiders race the streets of Manila, careening between street beauty pageants, political protests, underground hip-hop battles and senator’s homes.
'And then there’s the music: this blistering action epic is set to 40 years of Filipino pop, vaulting from 1970s peace anthems to contemporary Filipino hip-hop, from viral YouTube techno to iconic Pinoy power ballads. The fast and the fabulous face off in the dizzying thrill-ride that results.
'A neon-drenched action adventure set in a nation on the brink, Are You Ready To Take the Law Into Your Own Hands has zero political relevance to current events. None. At all.'
Source: Arts House.
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Year: 2020
joint winner World Problems 2018 single work drama'One woman lists real and imagined memories of life on Planet Earth, shifting between personal memories and world events unfolding over a century. What results is a gradual accumulation of the tragic and joyful moments shaping global consciousness, and the tentacular connections that make a life.'
Source: Author's website.
joint winner y Them 2019 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2021 18380405 2019 single work drama Five people try and survive the shelling of an unnamed city, where escape is almost as dangerous as staying. -
Year: 2019
winner Bighouse Dreaming 2018 single work drama'Mr. Anand. Has your client spent what could reasonably be called a significant portion of any one week of the last two years at school? Or is it the case that your client attends school when he feels like it to utilise the free lunch service when none of his so-called family will house, feed or clothe him?
'RACE. CLASS. SEX. DRUGS. VIOLENCE. INCARCERATION. POVERTY.
THE PSYCHIC MAELSTROM OF COLONISATION.'PICTURE Ned Flanders' race porn fetish. WITNESS a prison officer's smutty underage liaison. BEHOLD a land-grabbing Legal Aid lawyer. SEE a messianic youth-worker's nasty ketamine habit.'
Source: Melbourne Fringe.
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Year: 2018
winner Merciless Gods 2017 single work drama'From migrant camps to pill-popping hipster dinner parties, from prison cells to gay saunas and porn shoots, Merciless Gods is a vicious and tender portrait of contemporary Australian society, capturing the haunting aspects of the human psyche.
'Multi award-winning Christos Tsiolkas is one of the most significant writers in Australia. This first ever stage adaptation of his short story collection, Merciless Gods, takes you deep into worlds both strange and familiar, introducing you to characters who will never let you go and situations that will haunt you forever.
'Told from diverse cultural perspectives, Merciless Gods by award-winning playwright Dan Giovannoni is urgent, dirty, glorious theatre.' (Production summary)