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Artwork for NEXT (ON) STAGE

NEXT (ON) STAGE

with Declan Furber Gillick, Melissa Reeves & Chris Summers

Friday 29 March, 4PM

Southbank Theatre, The Lawler

Join us as we share fresh new works from our 2019 NEXT STAGE Writers-In-Residence.

Approximately 70 minutes, with no interval

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Join us as we share fresh new works from our 2019 NEXT STAGE Writers-In-Residence.

Declan Furber Gillick, Melissa Reeves and Chris Summers have been working on three new Australian plays over the past six months. Literary Director Chris Mead sits with each of them to discuss their playwriting journeys, what they are writing and why. Hear a short excerpt from each read by the Cybec acting ensemble.

Accessibility

  • Wheelchair Accessible

Artwork for Declan Furber Gillick

Declan Furber Gillick

NEXT STAGE Writer-In-Residence

Declan Furber Gillick is an artist, writer and performer based on his own country, Mparntwe (Alice Springs), with a practice spanning theatre, television, prose, poetry, music, rap and visual arts. Declan's works for stage include Bighouse Dreaming, Scar Trees and The Great Emu War. He is currently working on a television adaptation of Melissa Lucashenko's Miles Franklin Award-Winning Novel Too Much Lip. Declan has worked as an educator, mentor and co-writer with Desert Pea Media, University of Melbourne Student Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Peoples Young Artists Program and Victorian College of The Arts. He has had work published with Fine Print, Affirm Press, Australian Poetry Journal, University of Queensland Press, Southerly Journal, Redroom Poetry, Magabala Books and Kill Your Darlings. He was Melbourne Athenaeum Library’s 2022 Playwright in Residence and is a resident studio artist at Watch This Space, an Artist Run Initiative in Mparntwe. He holds a Masters in Writing For Performance from Victorian College of The Arts (2017).

 

Artwork for Chris Summers

Chris Summers

NEXT STAGE Writer-In-Residence

Chris Summers graduated from NIDA in 2012 with a Grad Dip in Dramatic Arts (Playwriting) and in 2013 was Affiliate Writer with Griffin Theatre Company and Writer in Residence at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre. Chris has won the Max Afford Award for Pedagogy (2016), the Patrick White Play Award for King Artur (2014), the University of Melbourne Union House Theatre Script Development Award (2009), the St Martins National Playwriting Award (2008) and the Sydney Theatre Company Young Playwrights Award (2005).

Commissioned plays include No Place Like (Union House Theatre, 2011), Crossed (La Mama, 2011), which was also included in PlayWriting Australia’s National Play Festival, and Burnt (ATYP, 2011), a monologue published by Currency Press. Rat had a sell-out season at La Mama in March 2012 and Sandstone, developed through a JUMPMentorship with Tom Holloway, had a workshop at the Sydney Theatre Company in December 2012. In 2013, Chris participated in Canberra’s You Are Here festival with a self-performed piece, Not About You, a monologue, Dessert, as part of Tamarama Rock Surfers’ Bondi Feast at the Bondi Pavilion, and a short work, Paper Trails, at Manchester’s 24/7 Festival (on an Australia Council ArtStart grant).

Chris also holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) / Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne and a Masters of Secondary Teaching (Teach for Australia) from Deakin University.

Melissa Reeves

Melissa Reeves

NEXT STAGE Writer-In-Residence

Melissa Reeves is a Melbourne playwright. Her plays include: Happy Ending (MTC Lawler); Furious Mattress (Malthouse); The Spook (Belvoir, Malthouse); Sweetown, In Cahoots and Storming Heaven (Red Shed Co.); Great Day (Melbourne Workers’ Theatre); Road Movie (Back to Back Theatre); and Salt Creek Murders (Mainstreet). She has co-written a number of plays for Melbourne Workers’ Theatre including: Magpie, with Richard Frankland; Who’s Afraid of the Working Class and_ Fever_, both with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Christos Tsiolkas and composer Irine Vela. Melissa also co-wrote the screenplay for Blessed. She was recently awarded a two year fellowship by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council. Previous awards include the Jill Blewitt Playwright’s Award (Sweetown, 1993); Queensland Literary Award for Best Play, two Best New Play AWGIES and the Jill Blewitt Playwrights Award (Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, 1999); and the Louis Esson Prize for Drama, Victorian Premier’s Awards, and two Best New Play AWGIES (The Spook, 2005).

Chris Mead

Chris Mead

MTC Literary Director

Chris is Literary Director of Melbourne Theatre Company. He has been the inaugural Artistic Director of PlayWriting Australia; Literary Manager of Company B Belvoir; Curator of the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference; Festival Director of the International Festival for Young Playwrights; and Wharf 2LOUD Producer and Literary Manager of Sydney Theatre Company. His recent directing credits include Ian Wilding’s Rare Earth (NIDA 2011) and Quack (Griffin 2010); and Damien Millar’s The Modern International Dead (Griffin 2008), which won Best New Play at the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Awards and the WA Premier’s Literary Award, as well as being shortlisted for the NSW, Queensland and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Chris has a PhD from Sydney University, was awarded an inaugural Dramaturgy Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2004 and was selected to attend New Visions New Voices at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center in 2008. His monograph What is an Australian Play? on institutional racism and outreach strategies was published by Currency House in June, 2008; and he has recently written introductions to Currency Press volumes by Lachlan Philpott and Lally Katz.

In 2009, Chris was named as one of Sydney’s 100 Creative Catalysts as part of the Creative Sydney Festival. He sat on the steering committee for the 2011 Australian Theatre Forum and on the Board of Arena Theatre Company from 2008-13, is on the artistic directorate of Hothouse Theatre, and has just joined the Board of Theatre Network Victoria.

Shareena Clanton

Shareena Clanton

Cast

Peter Houghton

Peter Houghton

Cast

Lachie Pringle

Lachie Pringle

Cast

Charles Purcell

Charles Purcell

Cast

Naomi Rukavina

Naomi Rukavina

Cast

Nikki Viveca

Nikki Viveca

Cast

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The Lawler

140 Southbank Boulevard

Southbank, Victoria 3006