Sydney Theatre Company Reveals the 25th Patrick White Playwrights Award and Fellowship

Acclaimed playwright Sheridan Harbridge has been named Sydney Theatre Company’s next Patrick White Fellow, a year-long role that will see her develop a new work for STC and mentor participants in STC’s Watershed: Writers program. The announcement follows Harbridge’s recent success at the Green Room Awards, where the musical My Brilliant Career, for which she co-wrote the book with Dean Bryant, garnered five awards.

Karolina Ristevski is the 25th Patrick White Playwrights Award winner for her play, River Was Here, which was showcased as a rehearsed reading last night at Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf 2 Theatre. In equal parts joyous, devastating, and confounding, River Was Here is an accomplished portrait of human trauma. Threading together writer’s block, the death of River Phoenix, and a workplace incident with hallucinatory flashbacks, the play explores how the past can both be haunting and defining. Expertly embracing varied theatrical form including meta-theatrics, misdirect, and farce, this play is an archaeological dig into the life of an artist.

Sydney Theatre Company’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO, Mitchell Butel said: “Marking the 25th Patrick White Playwrights Award is both a celebration and a moment of reflection, an opportunity to honour the bold voices that have carved out new paths in Australian theatre over the past quarter-century. It’s a great privilege to announce Sheridan Harbridge as Sydney Theatre Company’s new Fellow and Karolina Ristevski as the recipient of this year’s Award. Their work continues Patrick White’s legacy of championing Australian storytelling, and I am eagerly awaiting to see how these extraordinary artists will continue shaping the theatrical landscape.”

Sheridan Harbridge said that the Fellowship was like being invited to join a family, “When Mitchell Butel asked me to be STC’s new Patrick White Fellow, it felt like I was being invited home. As an actor, we throw ourselves into these intense, fleeting families when making a show and then it’s over. I’m so grateful join this family and this Company. Making work for STC feels like a beautiful challenge, and I’m so excited.”

Playwrights Award winner, Karolina Ristevski said: “This award is not just a recognition of one play, it’s fuel for my fire. River Was Here is the most vulnerable, ambitious, rawest and riskiest thing I’ve written, I had to crack myself open to write it. So, to have it acknowledged in this way is both humbling and empowering, not only for me, but for other playwrights taking risks and trusting that bold, intimate work has a place. It tells me there is a space for writing that is formally daring. I feel compelled to push further, from stories that unsettle and remake us to stories that bring joy, absurdity, and tenderness. This award has given me a renewed sense of purpose and now, I can open the treasure trove that is my bedside drawer and begin excavating the buried stories that have been waiting to be unearthed.”