Alana Valentine

Fresh Perspectives: Alana Valentine is the first in a series of extended interviews with Australia’s leading playwrights and theatremakers. In this two-part in-depth interview, Alana Valentine talks about her start in theatre,  the difference between working on commissioned pieces and personal projects, her process and practice as a playwright, particularly in the field of verbatim theatre and her contemporary classics Run Rabbit Run and Parramatta Girls, and her latest work, Grounded.

BIOGRAPHY

Alana Valentine is an Australian playwright, whose writing has been nominated for 2011 Queensland Premier’s Award for Best Drama Script, 2007 Helpmann Awards for Best New Australian Work and Best Play, awarded the 2004 Queensland Premier’s Award for Best Drama Script, the 2003 NSW Writer’s Fellowship, the 2002 Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Award and an International Writing Fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.

She also received a 2001 commendation for the Louis Esson Prize, a 1999 AWGIE Award, a residency at the Banff Playwrights’ Conference in Canada, the ANPC/New Dramatists Award in NYC and a Churchill Fellowship, the NSW Premier’s Award and a Centenary Medal. Alana is well known for her rigorous use of research within the community she is writing about. This is evident in her popular 2004 play Run Rabbit Run about South Sydney League’s Club’s fight for survival and 2007′s sell-out season of Parramatta Girls at Belvoir Street Theatre about the infamous Girls Training School, Parramatta.

Her other stage plays include: Student Body (Boobook Theatre), Head Full of Love (Darwin Festival), Lost Illusions (NIDA),The Modest Aussie Cozzie (St Ignatius’ College, Riverview), Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah (Alex Buzo Theatre Company), Watermark (Katherine Regional Arts), Ratticus and Reidar(Hyde Park Barracks), Eyes to the Floor (Outback Theatre for Young People), Singing the Lonely Heart (New Theatre), Love Potions (New Theatre),Butterfly Dandy (Women on a Shoestring), Covenant (Powerhouse Youth Theatre), The Prospectors (Monkeybaa/STC, ANMM), Titania’s Boy (Riverina Theatre Company, Wagga Wagga and Griffith), Savage Grace (Steamworks/La Mama, Performing Lines, Subiaco Arts Centre, Blue Room, Religion, Literature and Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival Centre), The Conjurers (Playbox, La Boite), Ozone (Brisbane Festival), Spool Time (Vitalstatistix),Swimming the Globe (Freewheels, Northern NSW Tour, Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival, Malaysia).

Her short films are Mother Love (1994), The Witnesses (1995), and Reef Dreaming (1997) She is the author and producer of 15 original works for radio broadcast, 4 of which have received AWGIE nominations. Her multi-media work includes an installation at the Museum of Sydney and a water screen installation in Sydney’s Darling Harbor. Alana has also received a Centenary Medal for her work on the Centenary of Federation.

Find out more about Alana at www.alanavalentine.com