I might also add that because AWOL is on google groups it has to be an invitation only gig, but you can request an invite yourself by going to the group AWOLnow – as some members have done! It is truly inspiring to be reminded of the intelligent, thoughtful and articulate women that are in the Aus theatre community! I am here in London (with Van Badham) and others are in NY – so it is a time zone challenged discussion, but gathering much momentum.

I wrote up something for Currency recently, in regards to ‘Lost plays’, and thought I’d post a little relevant part of it below.

[BTW – As you know, I’ve just been through an intense and valuable development process with the QTC (through QPDA) and really everything I say below holds. In the process model as set down, I struggled most with my porous, open, bendy nature, my urge towards collaborative peace and pleasantness, my ‘sometimes’ lack of confidence, and how my play moved beyond more traditional structures of form and process. During the process, it actually helped me a great deal to recall this Playworks research and remember that what I was experiencing was not uncommon. I learnt huge things about myself and my process because of this amazing, fast-tracked development experience with my second play.]

Extract from my ‘Lost plays’ Currency rant:
“I’ve always felt that female histories are important, but I only really valued this in a personal way when I was doing some recent research and re-looked at a Playworks resource Playing with Time (which should be available in the National Library’s archives, along with all of the Playworks plays and resources that were archived there in 2007). This book looks at research from 1985-1995 examining women playwrights; collecting stats and harnessing statements about their common experience.

Aspects of my approach and practice that I had taken for granted leapt out of the pages of that book (and a few others) and suddenly I could see the impact of my female paradigm and what that meant to my own work. Some broad aspects and commonalities that resonated with me were around stated preferences for collaboration, writing from place or landscape, experimenting with form and cross-arts practice, struggles with pay parity and art/life obligations, difficulties projecting perceptible confidence (leading to visibility issues) and a passion for working with marginal voices and in community.

Seeing oneself through this collective mirror is so important in terms of understanding my strengths, anticipating my external and internal barriers and naming and celebrating my uniquely female point of view.

In a time when there were more working structures for support for women in the arts (through mandates and programs through the Australia Council, Playworks and other organisations) reading research from the time is, well, downright depressing. Not because of the negativity of the work, but rather because so many people at the time seemed so optimistic about the support and change to come. If we’re to get very honest and rigorous about it though, nothing much has changed and, in fact, many support structures have been dissolved but the disparity hasn’t. I think this 1995 quote, a fifteen year old quote, says it all:

‘The Playworks survey does show that all companies think seriously about the issues of developing new Australian work, and work by women writers. There is awareness about their responsibilities to encourage the building up of an Australian repertoire. The companies responding to our survey present a number of ideas to develop a performing arts culture and in which woman played a significant part…’

So that’s fifteen years of thinking and awareness, and probably a fair bit more before it, but where’s the action, where are the outcomes, where’s the change?”

(http://www.currency.com.au/LostPlays.aspx)