Erin Thomas Playwright Fund Announced
We are very happy to announce the successful applicants for the ERIN THOMAS PLAYWRIGHT FUND 2022!
The Erin Thomas Playwright Fund commemorates playwright Erin Thomas’ optimism, her creative talent and furthers her generous contribution to the arts by helping emerging regional writers to pursue their dreams.
With the support of the Thomas family, the Fund can support regional playwrights either:
- via a travel bursary to connect with the wider Australian theatre industry to occur between; or,
- to pursue a deep creative connection over a period of time with a mentor dramaturg or development director as the playwright develops a new play.
The maximum support per playwright is $2,000.
The program was open to National applicants living in a regional area, priority focus on early-career playwrights.
ERIN THOMAS: Click here to learn more about the Erin Thomas Playwright Fund.
A submission snapshot is included below.
MEET THE 2022 RECIPIENTS:
NICOLA WATSON
Since becoming a mother, award-winning songwriter Nicola Watson has turned her creative attention to poetry, and writing for the stage and screen. Her first screenplay, ‘Welcome to the Bunker Baby‘, won Best Script in the 2020 Lord Mayor of Melbourne Creative Writing Award for unpublished writers, as well as being shortlisted for a Screen Australia Generate grant. Moving with her family to the rural South Australian countryside in 2021 prompted the concept and development of her upcoming play, ‘The Great Resignation‘: an exploration of the contrast between city life and country living, between schools both private and public, and an interrogation of what it means to aspire to home ownership in a country with a housing unaffordability crisis.
ROSEMARY CANN
Rosemary Cann is a pākehā writer, musician and actor based in nipaluna, lutruwita. Rosemary holds a BA in Theatre, English Literature and Anthropology, and a Masters in Creative Writing, specialising in Script and Screen. She was shortlisted for Playmarket’s ‘b4 25’ award for her play Wellington Hill Drinking Society (2015), and nominated ‘Best Newcomer’ at the NZ International Comedy Festival for her debut solo show Chapstick (2016). Following graduation, Rosemary toured as a performer for eighteen months, before moving to Australia, where she has participated in Carclew’s Writing Place residency, Blue Cow’s Future Proofing the Page program, and ATYP’s National Studio. She has performed in local productions Eurydice, HerStory (2019-2020) and The Campaign (2018), and has just completed the Fresh Ink National Mentoring Program (ATYP and Archipelago Productions). Rosemary is passionate about representative, intelligent art that touches audiences and brings queer and feminine narratives to the forefront.
SUNNY GRACE
Sunny Grace is an award-winning writer, director and creative producer who tells female driven stories about people defying societal norms in the fight for equality. For the past twenty years she has produced award winning short films and content. iIn 2015 she decided it was time to tell her own stories and completed a MFA in Performance Writing at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts. Her feature film Never the Bride was a finalist in the 2021 AACTA Regional pitch competition. She was longlisted for the AWG Monte Miller award with her TV pilot, The Angelica Complex. In 2020 she won the AACTA mini short film pitching competition for her short film Charging that premiered at Screenfest 2020. She directed, produced, and wrote the short film Trigger Happy, which won an Award for Excellent at Global Shorts and was shortlisted for the AACTA social shorts award. Her screenplay, The Bower Girl, was long listed for the AWG Insite award and recently revised through the Screenworks/Australian International Screen Forum Write from Home programme. Her play, The Angelica Complex, premiered at The Kings Cross Theatre in Sydney in 2016 and has been published by APT. In 2018 she was awarded The Rex Cramphorn Artist in Residency at Sydney University. She lives in Ballina NSW with her husband and likes to visit her adult sons in Sydney where she enjoys going to the theatre and yum cha.
Submission Snapshot
There were twelve submissions recieved for the 2022 Erin Thomas Playwright fund. Below is a snapshot of the communities reflected in these applications:
Culturally & Linguistically Diverse: 2
Female-Identifying: 8
Male-Identifying: 2
Non-Binary: 2
