WHAT THE….? “MEDIA RELEASE: No Richard Burton Award for New Plays to be awarded in 2011”
- October 17th, 2011
- Posted in Commentary
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I’ve had my head down the last few weeks in rehearsal for WOMEN POWER CULTURE season (A festival designed by Louise Fischer to celebrate women playwrights and directors) – and I’m also busy reading plays right now for Playwriting Australia… so apologies for the delay IN MY OUTRAGE!!!
WHAT THE…? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
“No outstanding work could be identified this year that they felt was deserving of this major award.”
I am absolutely… I am… I am completely… (shakes head slowly in wonder, mouth open staring into the middle distance)
If this award is to, as it claims it wants to “develop new work by rewarding our most unique and gifted playwrights.” It has a funny way of showing it and I don’t think declaring that there will be no award for 2011 really sends a message of support or re-enforce the idea that “The Award will encourage our great storytellers from all over Australia.”
I know for a fact that there are some brilliant playwrights living, breathing, working in Australia. I know FOR A FACT there are plays floating about out there that deserve a production. That deserve money. That deserve recognition and encouragement. I would like to say that such a message to our playwrights – who already do it tough in an industry that favours curriculum-friendly programming and the classics adapted by actors, an industry that seems to think a “development” or residency is “near enough” to being “good enough” for the development of plays, and playwrights – is absolutely… (opens and closes mouth like a goldfish slowly shaking her head)
Plays are hard to read and assess. Many are blueprints for space and sound and light and the true experience of seeing a script transform can sometimes only happen in production. If anyone knows how hard it is , it’s me. But really, I think the panel show an aching lack of imagination if they can’t find writing worthy of supporting and encouragement.
Judging art is hard. In fact I think it’s a bit pointless – but if you are ballsy enough to have a prize or a competition to see which bit of art is better – have the balls to make a decision, take a punt. Back your taste. The playwrights of this country don’t need yet ANOTHER residency/development program… they also don’t need more prize money thrown at the ever-perennial “emerging” sector.
Our playwrights need support. Our playwrights need production. Our playwrights need money. Come on, now. Is this really the best we can offer them? We say we’ll nurture them and then claim that they’re not good enough to be nurtured or celebrated? Come on, now.
THE MEDIA RELEASE
The judging panel for the second annual Richard Burton Award for New Plays has announced that this major national award for Australian playwriting will not be awarded in 2011.
The Richard Burton Award for New Plays was established to celebrate the career of Richard Burton, one of the great actors of stage and screen, and to encourage great storytellers from all over Australia to develop new work. The competition is open to full length, unproduced plays which have been written in the 12 months leading up to the closing date of the Award.
As in 2010, over 100 submissions were received for the Award in 2011. However, the judging panel was unanimous in stating that no outstanding work could be identified this year that they felt was deserving of this major award.
Sally Burton said, “I was extremely proud of the plays that came out of the 2010 Richard Burton Award for New Plays and I am disappointed that the panel was unable to identify an outstanding entry in 2011. I am committed to the Richard Burton Award for New Plays as an annual award into the future. I am currently considering how this year’s funds might best be used towards a development program for playwrights and will also work with Black Swan to review the Award guidelines prior opening the 2012 Award for submissions.”
Kate Cherry, Black Swan State Theatre Company’s Artistic Director commented, “I am disappointed that the Richard Burton Award for New Plays will not be awarded in 2011. New Australian work is at the core of my creative agenda for Black Swan, and the establishment of the Richard Burton Award for New Plays is a wonderful initiative by Sally Burton to support playwriting in Australia. The fact that there will be no winner of the Award this year highlights the ongoing need to support emerging playwrights in Australia, and Black Swan is committed to doing so through our ongoing commissioning program and work with emerging artists.”
Awards and prizes are strange beasts—as anyone who has entered them or judged them knows. You submit your work in a ‘you’ve got to be in it to win it’ frame of mind; sometimes you’re lucky and make the short-list and sometimes you don’t.
But there are 2 things that trouble me about Black Swan’s decision. A decision I find rather mean-spirited. Their press release says they will look at using the prize money to support ‘development’. When you win one of those prizes that comes with a cheque, the playwright gets the money and they can use it as they see fit. In this ‘development’ scenario, the theatre company will control how the money is spent. The other things that bothers me here is that our arts culture is increasingly a prize orientated whereby one winner is rewarded for the weeks and months spent creating a new work and any number of others are not. This is an increasingly important issue as the slow creep of prize culture replaces the steady development of new work across various fronts.
Competitions are a potential minefield. No doubt the judging panel for the Burton Award have reasons for their decision but I do find it hard to accept that out of all the playwrights across Australia who would have entered there wasn’t one that was worthy. Still, we’re not on the panel so I guess, unless they tell us more, we just have to take their word for it. Perhaps this year WAS a year of weak submissions. Perhaps all the good writers didn’t have anything new. Perhaps they had all starved to death waiting to get their previous good plays produced whilst lesser talents…no, no – lets not go down that road.
I am reading plays for a particular competition myself at the moment and there are good plays, some very good plays, that will not win because they don’t meet the particular guidelines of the particular award. Difficult as that is, that’s the way it is.
The organisation/people/person hosting any award quite justly have their criteria and if a play doesn’t meet the criteria it usually doesn’t get onto the shortlist let alone win. Sad but valid fact.
But still, to go back to the Burton, I agree with Noelle J that this decision does seem a touch mean-spirited. I’m glad I didn’t have a submission in this year – I’d be feeling quite discouraged now! And can someone explain this piece of logic from the media release to me: “The fact that there will be no winner of the Award this year highlights the ongoing need to support emerging playwrights in Australia…”? So…by not supporting anyone we are highlighting the need to support, is that it?
And don’t get me started on the constant support for ’emerging’ artists thing. Tiresome.
Thanks for writing in Noelle,
I always find it interesting when the word “development” is bandied around with wild abandon – because isn’t everything an artist experience in life a part of their development as an artist? And I think play/script development is different and particular.
It might be worth asking – are we developing PLAYS or PLAYWRIGHTS? Are we judging the potential of the PLAY or the potential of the PLAYWRIGHT?
I personally think that judging and assessing scripts is VERY relative and as soon as one commits to present a prize – that prize is for any given year’s submissions – the field as it stands.
What is this magical play (or who is this magical playwright) who can fulfill the needs, tastes, wants of a judging panel? Surely any true concensus when judging anything will result in mediocrity?
If the decision was too hard for the judging panel due to taste – I say too bad. Why does a judging panel get off so easy? Playwrights don’t. Yeah, its a tough job – I think impossible and sometimes arbitrary- to judge plays. I personally think it’s cowardly not to make a choice.
Thanks for your response Noel,
I agree with you that if the plays submitted don’t meet the criteria they shouldn’t be shortlisted.
But often play judging criteria are very vague/esoteric measures – they use emotive words – afterall this is art – this is literature it is subjective (yes it is technical as well) but not all selection criteria can be measured and weighed.
I find it inconceivable that not one play (NOT ONE) out of 100 showed prize-worthy promise.
As far as the emerging question goes – I think that focus is lazy shorthand for “it’s because they are young that these plays aren’t very good.” I would argue its because playwrights in this country are not given constant and consitent work – they don’t get to practice being produced. They get practiced at being developed or they practice “emerging” but they don’t get to flex their muscle on stage in as fully supported context.
Because of this infantalising of our writers – they are forever viewed as “emerging.” I really absolutely think, that is the industry’s reponsibility to stop this focus on labelling artists as “emerging” – it creates self-consciousness, creative/artistic subserviance and can also effect the work (thematically is dark, depressed, depressing, existential and lonely). I beleive there is absolutely a co-relation between how a writer is treated/regarded and the themes/quality of their work. Supported, well-resourced writers (I reckon) make braver, more confident plays.
If the Burton panel couldn’t find a worthy play (which I reckon, still, in my naievity) that’s because we’ve failed our writers – NOT the writers failing us.