No playing with the NSW Premiere’s awards
From Currency Press:
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist was announced last Wednesday with one notable exception – there was no shortlist for the Play Awards category. The action is up to the judges’ discretion but could they not find a single play worthy of nomination in the last year?
In his Australian Literary Review blog, Stephen Romei commented, ‘Now this strikes me as a sad state of affairs. Are we saying that in the 12 months to October 2009 no Australian wrote a play worth the ticket?’.
As a performing arts publisher we are curious about this. The eligible plays include Poor Boy by Matt Cameron and Tim Finn, Pig Iron People by John Doyle, Realism by Paul Galloway, Concussion by Ross Mueller, Savage River by Steve Rodgers and Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah by Alana Valentine. And they are just the ones we publish (or will).
Playwright, Matt Cameron, said the decision was, ‘ A disheartening day for Australian playwrights with not one play deemed worthy of this year’s award. I hasten to add this is not about my own work but the bigger picture. Prizes in the arts always risk being akin to comparing sunsets – that is, somewhat impossible. And yet they do remind us of the value of celebrating at least one sunset a year. I thought I saw some rather glorious ones…’
The NSW government did make it clear they intended to keep money reserved for playwrights. ‘Rather than having the $30 000 forfeited, it goes to literary pursuits in the field – a grant for playwriting to support Australian playwrights’, said Premier Kristina Keneally. But isn’t it a little odd that a prize for work done has turned into a grant?
Last year Currency Press founder Katharine Brisbane criticised the lack of dramatic literature included in the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. In an article to Crikey she said, ‘When we founded Currency Press in 1971 it was with the aim of building a dramatic literature in print and returning the Australian accent to the stage. And by degrees we succeeded. But still our playwrights are excluded from high-profile recognition. And we are going backwards.’ Keneally said the awards were established to, ‘Perpetuate a cultural legacy in our state; a legacy of ideas, imagination and history.’ Is this a legacy that, once again, calls into question the place of dramatic art?
