The pen is mightier than the sword. In 2024, a bigger, better Griffin Award!
For over 25 years, the prestigious Griffin Award has served as one of Australia’s premier playwriting competitions—heralding the arrival of future classics like The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini, Prima Facie by Suzie Miller and Mr Bailey’s Minder by Debra Oswald.
In 2024, the Griffin Award is back and better than ever, with the winner receiving a full play commission prize of $17,400 thanks to the generosity of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund—and we want to mark the revamped Award with a very special occasion.
This year, we are thrilled to announce the inaugural Griffin Award Keynote speaker! We’ll be handing the microphone over to Award-winning Australian playwright—and Griffin Award alumni—Angus Cerini to speak on the current national theatrical and artistic landscape.
The Griffin Award Keynote will serve as a clarion call for the artform of Australian storytelling—not to mention, the afternoon is a fantastic way to connect with Griffin’s Artistic community and the theatrical community at large.
Time
Sunday 28 July, 3pm
Venue
National Art School, Cell Block Theatre
2024 Special Events Pricing
(Jailbaby + Griffin Award Keynote)
| Jailbaby | Keynote | ||
| Full | Standard | $79 | $35 |
| Preview | $64 | ||
| Senior | Standard | $74 | $35 |
| Preview | $59 | ||
| Concession | Standard | $62 | $35 |
| Preview | $49 | ||
| Under 35 | Standard | $44 | $35 |
| Preview | $39 | ||
Subscribe to Griffin 2024 to receive priority access to the Griffin Award Keynote!
Angus Cerini
Best known at Griffin as the writer of smash-hit Australian gothic murder ballad The Bleeding Tree, Angus Cerini is renowned for his lyrical and epic stage poetry that tackles our greatest societal problems. His latest play Into the Shimmering World awed sold-old audiences at Sydney Theatre Company earlier in the year, and his work has played across the country at Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Arena Theatre Company as well as Theatre de Béthune and Mann Haast in France. Angus has won a slate of prestigious awards including; the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (twice), the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, a Helpmann Award for Best Play, an AWGIE Award for Best Play, a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Play, multiple Green Room Awards, the Griffin Award, the David Williamson Prize and RE Ross Trust Awards, and both The Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and The Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship.
It is with utmost excitement that we announce the three finalists and their plays (and two Highly Commended plays!) for the 2024 Griffin Award. Congratulations to these talented creatives—their plays were identified as innovative and exciting examples of new Australian playwriting.
This year’s Griffin Award winner will be announced at a ceremony on Sunday 28 July.
Parallel Play by Christopher Bryant
Christopher Bryant is an award-winning playwright, performer, and disability advocate. He has worked with a range of companies including the State Library of Victoria, fortyfivedownstairs, Griffin Theatre, ATYP, and La Mama.
Recent work includes the “brilliantly engrossing” New Balance (Suzy Goes See, 2023), his “coup of pop culture [and] social satire” Home Invasion (The Buzz from Sydney, 2018), and a role as the disability consultant for The Lewis Trilogy (Griffin Theatre Company, 2024). In 2023 took part in Accessible Arts NSW’s NEXT LEVEL development program, completing a mentorship attached to Merrigong Theatre.
He completed his Ph.D. in disability & radical adaptation through Monash University under the supervision of Jane Montgomery Griffiths (2020), and has taught playwriting at institutions around the country.
About Parallel Play
Parallel Play is an absurd comedy about a young man in hospital, rebuilding his life after a violent car crash. By exploring the way that two people can affect each other from bed, it asks audiences to question our society’s messaging around disability.
Shoulder by Michele Lee
Since 2008, Michele Lee has been writing for stage, audio, live art and screen. Her practice is characterised by a deep commitment to complex portraits of Asian Australian people, people of colour and women. Selected theatre works include How Do I Let You Die? (2023), Security (2022), Single Ladies (2022), GOING DOWN (2019) and Rice (2017.) Selected live art and audio works include An Assistant’s Guide for a Pandemic (2018), The Naked Self (2018, 2016), Talon Salon (2014, 2013, 2012) and See How the Leaf People Run (2012). Screen credits include White Fever (2024), Soar (2022), Hungry Ghosts (2020) and Retrograde (2020). Michele is under commission from Melbourne Theatre Company and RMIT Capitol.
Michele’s works have been recognised through development and production grants, and she has been awarded a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Australian Writers’ Guild Award (Stage and Radio), Malcolm Robertson Prize, Betty Burstall Commission and was a 2022-23 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow. She has been nominated for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Nick Enright Prize and Patrick White Award.
About Shoulder
A woman goes on a #vanlife journey to a banana farm called The Shoulder where her dad’s last funeral rites will happen but before she arrives, the journey starts again, and again, and again – a play about grief, anger, a lifetime of regrets and saying sorry in time (but it’s a funny play, I promise!).
My Dad Never Saw The Beatles by Jules Orcullo
Jules Orcullo (she/they) is a playwright, songwriter, and dramaturg. She currently works as Dramaturg at Sydney Theatre Company where she co-facilitates the Watershed Writers program. She also works as Dramaturg for ILBIJERRI Theatre Company’s BlackWrights program. Her debut musical Forgetting Tim Minchin premiered at Belvoir’s 25a dir. Amy Sole in 2023. She has held education roles at NIDA, Belvoir, and ATYP and producing roles at ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Belvoir, Co-Curious, and Contemporary Asian Australian Performance. Jules has worked as a performer and director on independent new works across Australia and the UK. She is an alumna of writing programs at APRA AMCOS, Hayes Theatre, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, National Theatre of Parramatta, AFTRS, Playwriting Australia, ATYP, The Royal Court, Soho Theatre, and the Lyric Hammersmith. Jules is a proud founding member of Kallective, developing theatrical works for the Filipinx diaspora.
About My Dad Never Saw The Beatles
My Dad Never Saw the Beatles is a musical, mythic retelling of an untrue event set in the Philippines in 1966—by a daughter desperate to fulfil her Dad’s dreams. Because in this very real timeline, he sacrificed everything to help fulfil hers.
Highly Commended
Jurassic Bark by Erica Brennan
The Mountain Remembers by Daley Rangi
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