This is a wildly broad topic and as you will see there is a huge range of writers and plays recommended by our playwrights as essential reading.

Looking though them though, there are certain names that come up a few times.

Read more ...

British playwright Caryl Churchill is recommended by quite a few playwrights, as is Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter and that Shakespeare fellow. Two of our playwrights, Michael Gow and Louis Nowra,  are also on the essential reading list, especially for their iconic plays Away and The Golden Age. I would extend that, to encourage young playwrights to read as many Australian plays as possible. Read and marvel at the rich ocean of past Australian theatrical culture and then knit your brow and perhaps even purse your lips a little as you ponder the downturn in opportunity for productions of new Australian works. But then, decide that you will be part of the upturn.

Look out for the chance to buy the script of a new play, usually incorporating the program, when you go to see a production.

Try to read the script of ANY play you see staged. Even if you thought it was dreadful, get hold of the script and find out for yourself WHY. Was the dialogue wooden, were the characters unbelievable, was the structure too complex, did the play have no dramatic action, or did it in fact have all these things but the actual production didn’t do it justice?

Reading the play as well as watching the play is a very helpful way of finding out what works dramatically (or doesn’t work) for you.

Below is the list as contributed by the playwrights and dramaturges. It may seem a little daunting but you could consider following the example set by playwright Suzie Miller:

Read everything and anything – there is something about learning to read a play that really informs your career as a playwright. I went through a period for just over a year where the rule was “Read a Play a Day” that was my most informative year – you can really do it – many of those were on public transport – it doesn’t take that long to read a play!

• anything by Caryl Churchill (especially Far Away)
• anything by Harold Pinter (especially The Homecoming and Betrayal)
• Good Works and The Venetian Twins (Nick Enright)
• Cloudstreet (Enright and Justin Monjo)
• Wolf Lullaby (Hilary Bell)
• Hysteria (Terry Johnson)
• No Sugar (Jack Davis)
• Away (Michael Gow)
• The Golden Age, Summer Of The Aliens and Cosi (Louis Nowra)
• Diving for Pearls (Katherine Thomson)
• The John Wayne Principle (Tony McNamara)
• Back to the Wall (Martin Crimp)
• Blasted (Sarah Kane)
• The 7 Stages Of Grieving (Wesley Enoch)

Read more ...

The Government Inspector (Gogol) Tissue (Louise Paige) A Rat's Mass (Adrienne Kennedy) Agammemnon, East (Steven Berkoff) Information for Foreigners (Gambarro)  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(Edward Albee) Arcadia (Tom Stoppard) Our Country's Good (Timberlake Wertenbaker)   anything by Euripedes, Shakespeare, Chekhov (especially The Seagull), Tennessee Williams(especially A Streetcar Named Desire), Ibsen (especially) and Joe Orton The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) Angels in America (Tony Kushner)   The Insect Play (The Capek brothers) plays/writings by Mac Wellman, Heiner Muller, Tadeusz Kantor and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.  Also Japanese Noh plays, Jacobean drama, performance texts by Laurie Anderson and Forced Entertainment … The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Copenhagen (Michael Frayn) Anything by Richard Maxwell. Anything by Kroetz, Buechner, Alan Ayckbourn, Jack Hibberd (especially A Stretch Of The Imagination), Dorothy Hewett (especially The Chapel Perilous) David Williamson