KATHERINE LYALL-WATSON

Katherine is the co-artistic director of the female-led theatre company Belloo Creative. She graduated with a doctorate in Creative Writing from UQ in 2013, the same year she was shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwright’s Award for her doctoral play, Motherland. Motherland won numerous awards for its premiere season in 2013 and went on to tour nationally in 2016.

Katherine is the writer of HANAKO (with Caroline Dunphy, Brisbane Festival 2016), Rovers (Brisbane Festival 2018), House in the Dunes (Japan 2020), Hot Mess Mama (with Emma Dean, Brisbane Festival 2020), Phaedra* (Queensland Theatre 2020), AKIRUNO (Tokyo Tokyo Festival 2021) and Boy, Lost (Queensland Theatre 2021).

In 2008, Katherine was one of three finalists for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Awards. Her work has been selected for Playwriting Australia’s National Script Workshop and read at the National Play Festival. She was an Associate Artist at Queensland Theatre Company in 2015 and Belloo was Company in Residence at Queensland Theatre from 2019 to 2020.

Katherine has a long history in theatre having worked as an actor, director and theatre reviewer before starting playwriting. She regularly mentors younger and emerging writers and was the chair of Playlab Theatre from 2014-2019.

*Phaedra was a casualty of COVID-19 and didn’t premiere in 2020.