Stephen Carleton Takes 2015 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting

Tonight at SBW Stables, Griffin Theatre Company awarded Brisbane playwright Stephen Carleton the 2015 Griffin Award for his new work The Turquoise Elephant.

For nearly forty years Griffin Theatre Company has been Australia's new writing theatre. Griffin exists to bring new writing for the stage to national and international attention. Now in its eighteenth year, the prestigious national Griffin Award recognises an outstanding play that displays an authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice.

Carleton was awarded $10,000, while all shortlisted plays received a $1,000 cash prize, supported by Copyright Agency Limited. The prize was announced after five actors (Fayssal Bazzi, Jeanette Cronin Meredith Penman, Govinda Roser-Finch and Georgia Wilde) read excerpts of work from the five shortlisted plays: Home Invasion by Christopher Bryant (Melbourne) Looking Glass by Louris van de Geer (Melbourne) Ozymandias by Julian Larnach (Sydney) The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver (Sydney) and The Turquoise Elephant by Stephen Carleton (Brisbane).

148 new plays were entered in the competition this year and were read by the 2015 Griffin Studio Artists, facilitated by Griffin Artistic staff, Lee Lewis and Ben Winspear. The 2015 judges include John McCallum, Theatre Critic, Academic and creator of Griffin's Script Club, Hilary Bell, playwright, teacher and author, and director Andrea Moor.

Griffin Artistic Director, Lee Lewis says "The Turquoise Elephant is a shockingly funny and black, black, black farce. It is an accomplished political comedy from a very clever, very wicked playwright who sees all our hypocrisies about climate change and the environment and turns them into his weapons in the fight for the planet.

At a time when excellence in the arts is a focus of conversations, the Griffin Award is proving to be a beacon in the industry for the discovery of great talent, extraordinary plays and the source of excellent theatrical experiences on our Main Stage. Griffin Theatre Company is making an extraordinary contribution to the building of the Australian canon with successful productions of award-winning plays - bringing great plays to the audiences they are written for. This year we are thrilled to discover The Turquoise Elephant - we are sure you will be too."

The Griffin Award has a long history of unearthing new talent and building the careers of Australian writers. Brendan Cowell's first play Rabbit won the Award in 2003. Debra Oswald's Mr Bailey's Minder won in 2004 and successfully toured the country - she is also the creator of Offspring. Aidan Fennessy won with Brutopia in 2010 - the production of his play The House on the Lake ended an incredibly successful season at Griffin last week. Past winner Mary Rachel Brown's play The Dapto Chaser comes to Griffin next week as part of Griffin Independent. And the 2014 Griffin Award winner Angus Cerini is in rehearsal for the production of his winning play The Bleeding Tree - starts previewing from July 31 - don't miss it!

Stephen is a Brisbane-based playwright, and bases his work equally in Brisbane, Darwin and Cairns. He is co-founder of The TENT (Brisbane) and Knock-em-Down Theatre (Darwin).

His full length plays include: Hotel Beche de Mer, Bastard Territory, The Narcissist,

Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset and Choking in the Comfort Zone.

Companies he has worked with include Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Darwin Theatre Company, Brown's Mart, JUTE, Tamarama Rock Surfers, La Mama and the Gold Coast Arts Centre.

Awards: 2006 New Dramatists Award, New York residency. 2004/5 Patrick White Playwrights' Award (Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset)

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