By Lachlan Williams:

At the first NSW Premier’s Award dinner, held at the newly-opened Intercontinental Ballroom in 1970, the assembled guests hurled dinner rolls at each other – and visiting speaker Morris West – as he attempted to warn his audience of the approaching danger of left-wing terrorism. When Currency Press and Currency House founder Katharine Brisbane recounted this to those gathered to protest the lack of a 2010 NSW Premier’s award for playwriting, the contrast was stark.

This year’s gathering, in the Raval room of Sydney’s Macquarie Hotel, was a more earnest, nervous affair, if equally defiant. If you’ve not been following the brouhaha over this year’s Premier’s Award for Playwriting, the situation is thus: “anonymous” judges are chosen each year to compile a shortlist and decide a winner for the Award, which recognises one scripted dramatic work from a major playwright, often one reaching the peak of his or her powers.

In 2010 the judges elected not to compile a shortlist, instead directing that the grant be rolled into a development fund for emerging playwrights. This did not sit well with the Australian theatrical community, who’d spent a great deal of the previous 12 months, writing, refining, funding, producing, directing and presenting the works the judges deemed uniformly unworthy of the shortlist.

The Raval forum was hastily organised by a group of young playwrights (some of whose work had been submitted for consideration for the award). Three leading figures from the Sydney theatre community – Katharine Brisbane, Oz critic and UNSW academic John McCallum, and Tamarama Rock Surfers Artistic Director Leland Kean – addressed the gathering. Messages of support from Australian playwrights unable to attend the evening were read out. A UK contingent comprising Suzy Miller, Van Badham and Ben Ellis sent a strongly-worded message of support and solidarity, pointing out that outside their home country, Australian playwright are respected and rewarded. The fact that so many leave Australia for more fertile fields abroad speaks to this.

Primary among the concerns voiced was that the judging process was flawed and lacked transparency. John McCallum said that although the judges were “anonymous”, their identity was common anecdotal knowledge in the theatre community. The notion that they had to be “unaligned” damaged the award, said Brisbane, since it disqualified the most qualified judges – people who are part of the artistic community. The notion that these people might not judge honestly was misplaced, she said, since the arts are at their best when they are collegiate, rather than competitive.

Both McCallum and Brisbane argued against the notion that the judges need to see shows in order to be able to properly evaluate them. The play, argued Brisbane, has to be judged as a text when it’s considered for a playwriting award. McCallum put it simply – “It’s not hard to read plays”. While plays don’t survive as productions, they live on as scripts, he said. When productions are forgotten, the Premier’s Award is one way to ensure that they play is remembered.

All of the speakers (and most of those in attendance) were disturbed by the “function creep” implicit in the placement of the prize funds in a development pool. Since the play was meant to be awarded to an established playwright for a remarkable piece, it is inappropriate to shift funding into development for emerging artists, which is notionally funded separately through state and federal funding bodies.

The evening’s final speaker was Leland Kean, whose company Tamarama Rock Surfers produces a huge amount of new Australian writing. He countered the notion that there is no domestic market for Australian writing, pointing out that the Old Fitzroy Theatre, where TRS are based, had increased its audience base 10% over the past 12 months, while the rest of the economy felt the effects of the GFC.

He told of his conversation with the manager of a major UK theatre, who said they felt plays like “Savage River” and Ross Mueller’s “Concussion” represented a the dawning of a new era in Australian playwriting. These were two of the plays deemed unworthy of consideration for this year’s award.

Kean summed up the sentiments of the crowd when he described the decision as a “slap in the face” to the NSW and Australian theatre communities. And given the speed with which the event was organised, how well it was attended and reported, and the outpouring of support by those not able to make it, NSW artists seem ready to slap back. And let’s hope they do. As Katharine Brisbane said, “Artists don’t make enough noise these days.”

Lachlan Williams is a Sydney-based writer, comedian and musician and has worked with Australian independent live theatre for a number of years.

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