Stephen Carleton wins the 2015 Griffin Award

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Featured pic- 2015 Griffin Award winner Stephen Carleton

Brisbane playwright Stephen Carleton was awarded the 2015 Griffin Award, with a prize of $10,000, supported by the Copyright Agency Limited, for his new work THE TURQUOISE ELEPHANT at the SBW Stables Theatre on Wednesday evening.

Now in its eighteenth year, the prestigious national Griffin Award is given in recognition of an outstanding play that displays an authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice.

Carleton’s play was selected out of a pool of five shortlisted plays that were each given a brief- one scene- reading on the night. Five very fine local actors- Fayssal Bazzi, Jeanette Cronin Meredith Penman, Govinda Roser-Finch and Georgia Wilde- delivered excellent readings of the scenes after a mere mornings’ rehearsal.

The four other playwrights- Melbourne playwright Christopher Bryant for his work Home Invasion, another Melbourne playwright Louris van de Geer for her play Looking Glass, Sydney playwright Julian Larnach for his play Ozymandias, and another Sydney playwright Kendall Feaver for her play The Almighty Sometime each received a $1,000 cash prize, again supported by the Copyright Agency Limited.

148 new plays all were entered in the competition and were read by the 2015 Griffin Studio Artists, facilitated by Griffin Artistic staff, Lee Lewis and Ben Winspear.

Griffin’s ebullient Artistic Director Lee Lewis was overflowing in her praise of all the interesting new Australian playwriting that had been received. The 2015 judges included John McCallum, Theatre Critic, Academic and creator of Griffin’s Script Club,  Hilary Bell, playwright, teacher and author, and director Andrea Moor.

Of the winning play Lewis said, ‘THE TURQUOISE ELEPHANT  is a shockingly funny and black, black, black farce. It is an accomplished political comedy from a very clever, very wicked playwright who sees all our hypocrisies about climate change and the environment and turns them into his weapons in the fight for the planet.’

Over the years Carleton has built an impressive body of work. His full length plays include Hotel Beche de Mer, Bastard Territory, The Narcissist, Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset and Choking in the Comfort Zone.

Carleton has worked with a diverse range of theatre companies including the Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Darwin Theatre Company, Brown’s Mart, JUTE, Tamarama Rock Surfers, La Mama and the Gold Coast Arts Centre.

The strong influence of the Griffin Award on the Sydney theatre scene is indicated by the next two plays that are coming up at the SBW Stables theatre.

The next play coming on at the Griffin is a past Griffin Award winner, Mary Rachel Brown’s The Dapto Chaser  which commences at the Griffin next week as part of the Griffin Independent season.

The Dapto Chaser  is followed by the 2014 Griffin Award winner, Angus Cerini’s play THE BLEEDING TREE, is currently in rehearsal and will start previewing from July 31.