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Queensland Premier's Drama Award (2002-)
or QPDA
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

'The Queensland Premier’s Drama Award is a development award assisting writers and performance makers to grow their first drafts, pitch documents, sample scenes, or creative development findings into a production-ready text. If you have an idea for a show that Australian audiences need to see on our stages, we want you to enter. This national award is open to individual artists and collectives of all levels of experience working across different performance practices.' ( http://www.queenslandtheatre.com.au/QPDA)

Notes

  • This award was initiated in 2002 and the award winning script is produced by Queensland Theatre Company .

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2022-2023

winner Drizzle Boy Ryan Enniss , 2022 single work drama

'Drizzle Boy is autistic. Drizzle Boy is poked, prodded and diagnosed by a world that wants to change him and a family who doesn’t understand him. Then he meets Juliet — his very own star-crossed love. Could she be a safe space for a man who just wants a calm centre to his universe?

'Join Drizzle Boy as he takes back his story from a world of misunderstandings with irreverence and audacity. It’s a biting satire blending magical realism with a Kafkaesque journey of self-discovery. If you are neurotypical then you’re about to take a theatrical cold shower in the world of neurodiversity.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

Year: 2020-2021

winner y separately published work icon Return to the Dirt Steve Pirie , 2021 Brisbane : Playlab , 2021 20802056 2021 single work drama

'In a year spent tending to the dead, a young man learns to live.

'Steve never imagined he’d end up working in the funeral industry. But when he finds himself living back home in Toowoomba to save up for his wedding, it’s the only job he can get.

'The year he spends working among the dead opens his eyes to what awaits us at the end and what it means to live.

'With respect, wit and a nod to pop-culture, Steve takes us on a journey that celebrates finding your place in the world, the power of personal redemption and humility in the face of the big questions.

'It’s a refreshing, honest and surprisingly uplifting invitation to start the conversations we all try to avoid.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

Year: 2018-2019

winner The Holidays David Megarrity , 2020 single work drama

'The Holidays are on holiday: 12-year-old Oliver has been pulled out of school for an unexpected road trip with his mum and dad, en route to grandad’s seaside shack. But grandad, an eccentric artist, is not there. In this unkempt place stuffed with memories, it seems that the Holidays - instead of getting away from it all - have taken a lot with them.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

Year: 2016-2017

winner y separately published work icon Rice Michele Lee , 2014 Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2016 9703058 2014 single work drama

'Rice explores the business of global food production, namely rice, and women in business. There are two main characters. The central character is Nisha. She’s 28, a young and precocious corporate hotshot working as the Executive Officer of Golden Fields, Australia’s biggest rice company. She’s a second generation Indian. Yvette is 61, Chinese; she’s a cleaner in the Golden Fields building. Golden Fields is in Melbourne; Nisha and Yvette play all the other characters.

'Nisha is close to sealing a confidential contract with the Indian government, which would see Golden Fields taking over India’s public food distribution systems – rice is a major staple distributed through this system. This secret contract is worth billions. When a flood in one of the southern states in India looks to distract the government and delay the deal, Nisha decides that she needs to go to India to finalise the contract in person, taking with her Graeme, the CEO, and Tom, the marketing manager that Nisha has romantic feelings for.

'Yvette’s daughter, Sheree, is facing charges for a protest that resulted in the assault of the CEO of Coles.'

Source: Author's website (http://www.michelevanlee.com.au/current-projects/rice/) (Sighted: 12/07/2016)

Year: 2014-2015

winner y separately published work icon Oedipus Doesn't Live Here Anymore Daniel Evans , 2015 Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2015 7896507 2015 single work drama

'What if Oedipus lived next door? What if the whole street knew what he’d been up to with his own mother, because of the word daubed in fluorescent letters on his garage door?

'Queensland Premier’s Drama Award winner Daniel Evans brings the drama and horror of an Ancient Greek myth to the sleepy cul-de-sacs of modern Australian disturbia in this wild, wonderful ride spinning off from Sophocles’ 2500-year-old Theban plays. Evans (The China Incident, I Want to Know What Love Is, I Should Have Drunk More Champagne) shines a blacklight into the bedrooms and basements of the most infamous family in mythology by reimagining them as the unseen but most gossiped-about family on the block.

'In this dark and savagely funny play we’re led by a chorus of quirky characters into the secret, tragic, desperate lives of a family cursed to be the centre of attention. Evans asks what devils lurk in our own backyards? How do tight-knit communities cope with unspeakable tragedy? How do we point the finger when there’s nowhere to lay the blame? And who ends up playing the monster?

'Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is the story of a tragedy no one saw coming, but everyone wants to talk about.' (Production summary)

Works About this Award

Full Score for Fractions Fiona Purdon , 2010 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 1 December 2010; (p. 20)
Writer on a Role Debra Bela , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 28 - 29 October 2006; (p. 15)
Playwright Recognised 2006 single work column
— Appears in: Westside News , 3 May vol. 4 no. 8 2006; (p. 48)
From the Heart 2004 single work column
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 14 - 20 July no. 499 2004; (p. 5)
Playwrights Set the Scene Debra Aldred (interviewer), 2004 single work interview
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 30 June 2004; (p. 26)
The 2004 Queensland Premier's Drama Award finalists speak about the challenges they faced becoming playwrights.
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