STC Patrick White Playwrights' Award Winner & Fellow Revealed

Kate Mulvany has been announced as the latest recipient of STC's Patrick White Playwrights' Fellowship at a special event at The Wharf on Friday 22 May. Now in its fifth year, the Fellowship is a position for an established playwright whose work has been produced professionally in Australia within the last four years. Mulvany receives $25,000 in recognition of her body of work and previous artistic achievements. As well as including a commission from STC which she will develop during the year-long tenure, the Fellowship provides opportunities for her to share her skills with other playwrights and artists.

STC Artistic Director, Andrew Upton said: "I'm delighted that Kate Mulvany will be the Patrick White Playwrights' Fellow for the next year. She is a writer who is respected by fellow writers and audiences alike. She has a remarkable nose for story, be it a deeply personal one, like The Seed, or an adaption of a cherished novel like Jasper Jones. Kate's ability to dramatise tragic events with humour and empathy makes her a very special writer. We look forward to welcoming Kate to The Wharf!"

Angela Betzien, the outgoing Fellow, said: "I'm thrilled to vacate my fellowship seat for the tremendously talented Kate Mulvany. I hope she'll be as inspired by this opportunity as I have been. The Patrick White Playwrights' Fellowship is a unique and vital investment in Australian playwrights and plays."

Also at the event, Debra Thomas was announced as the winner of the Patrick White Playwrights' Award for her play, The Man's Bitch. The evening culminated in a rehearsed reading of the play to a full house at STC as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival. The actors involved included Tina Bursill, Andrea Demetriades, Darren Gilshenan, Josh McConville, Ash Ricardo, Helen Thomson and Elizabeth Wymarra.

Of The Man's Bitch, Andrew Upton said: "This exceptionally clever play satirises the rise and fall of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in order to examine the treatment of women in public life. Making a respectful nod to Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, the play highlights how little the world has changed for women since Churchill's play was written in 1982. Meticulously plotted and sophisticated in its use of form, this is a play of both craft and inspiration. Like many of the plays that did well in the competition this year, The Man's Bitch is fiercely political. It is heartening to know that political playwriting in Australia is as vibrant as it always has been."

For the Award, 105 scripts were anonymously submitted to readers and judges, who aim to acknowledge a playwright whose play is ambitious, demonstrates skilful application of craft and reveals great potential for a stage production. As the winner, Debra Thomas receives $7,500 as well as the opportunity to work with STC Richard Wherrett Fellow, Paige Rattray, and actors for a rehearsed reading of the play. Verity Laughton received a commendation from the judging panel for her play What Has Been Taken.

Kate Mulvany is an Australian actress, playwright, librettist and screenwriter.

As a writer, Kate has written and produced over 25 plays and screenplays, including the critically acclaimed and award-winning autobiographical piece The Seed, which is currently being developed as a feature film. Other plays include The Web, Blood & Bone, Story Time, Vaseline Lollies, The Danger Age, adaptations of Jasper Jones and Medea and musicals Embalmer (co-written by Pip Branson), Somewhere (co-written by Tim Minchin), Masquerade and the new Australian ANZAC oratorio Towards First Light with composer Iain Grandage.

As an actor, Kate has performed in many plays for companies including Sydney Theatre Company (The Crucible, King Lear, Proof, A Man with Five Children, Rabbit), Bell Shakespeare (Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Tartuffe), Melbourne Theatre Company (The Beast), Griffin Theatre Company (Mr Bailey's Minder, Beached), and Belvoir (Burried Child, The Seed, Blasted). Television appearances include The Chaser's War on Everything, Chandon Picture, My Place, The Underbelly Files - The Man Who Got Away, Winter and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Feature films include The Final Winter, The Turning, Griff the Invisible, The Little Death and The Great Gatsby.

Debra is a Melbourne-based writer, actor, dramaturg and publishing professional. She completed her Master of Fine Arts (Writing for Performance) at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2014, under the tutelage of Stephen Sewell, where she completed her first full-length work The Man's Bitch. Recent credits include Home Invasion (dramaturg, LaMama), Little Bitch (co-writer & dramaturg, NIDA) as well as work created with Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts. Debra has written and performed in independent theatre across Australia, and is currently working on several projects, including her novel The Dragon Keepers (working title), play Delirium and is in pre-production for her web series, The Matriarchs. Debra's main focus is the fostering and development of women's stories in theatre and literature, which has driven her to co-create Melbourne-based theatre collective Lady M Theatre Company, which will premiere its first production in 2015. Prior to NIDA, Debra completed her post-graduate Diploma in Publishing and Editing at RMIT in 2012, whilst working in publishing with Australian and international authors. Debra also completed her Bachelor of Arts (hons) in Drama & Theatre Studies and Creative Writing at Monash University in 2009.

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