Sydney
Theatre Company is inviting applications from Australia’s talented playwrights
for the 2012 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and Patrick White
Playwrights’ Fellowship. The prizes are designed to benefit both emerging
and established writers and have a total prize pool of $32,500.
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 great
potential for staging.
The
Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship is
a career advancement opportunity for an established Australian playwright whose
work has been produced professionally in Australia within the last four years.
The winning playwright receives a $12,500 prize in recognition of their body of
work and previous artistic achievements, as well as a commission from Sydney
Theatre Company, worth $12,500.
In
2010 STC increased its contribution to the development of Australian
playwriting with the introduction of the new Fellowship which recognises and
supports established Australian playwrights. The Fellowship runs in addition to
the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, which has been an annual initiative of
the STC since 2000. The inaugural Fellow was Raimondo Cortese and in 2011
Patricia Cornelius won the prize. Both winners participated in a range of
activities at STC including running master classes and mentoring emerging
playwrights.
Previous
winners of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award include Phillip Kavanagh
(2011), Melissa Bubnic (2010), Ian Wilding (2009), Nicki Bloom (2008), Angus
Cerini (2007) and Wesley Enoch (2005).
The
closing date for entries to both the Award and the Fellowship is Friday 9
November 2012. Winners will be announced at a special event as part of the
Sydney Writers’ Festival 2012 along with a reading of the Patrick White
Playwrights’ Award winning play.
Further
information about the Award and the Fellowship can be found at the STC website: