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HotHouse Artistic Manager Receives Queensland Premier’s Literary Award
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Albury Wodonga is now home to one of Australia’s leading playwrights. HotHouse Theatre’s new Artistic Manager Campion Decent, who moved from Sydney to take up the position, has been busy getting on planes ever since to receive accolades for his other love, playwriting. As the author of the 2006 HotHouse Theatre /Sydney Theatre Company play Embers about the devastating North East Victorian bushfires of 2003, Campion has already become well known to many people throughout the fire-ravaged towns of the North East, as he travelled collecting their stories for the moving and authentic verbatim play Embers.
Campion this week travelled to Brisbane to receive the Queensland Premier’s Literary (Drama Script – Stage) Award from Premier Peter Beattie, the last official duty of the outgoing Premier. The award’s citation referred to Embers as
“…a beautifully interwoven texture of voices, emotions, opinions and stories … The play speaks directly to audiences of important concerns for our contemporary society. … it presents challenges about community, citizenship, the environment and our public responsibility for managing it. … In an Australia where people feel alienated, wedged, and in danger of losing a sense of how communities operate, this play builds debate and presents evidence for the resilience and creative power of social structures and co-operation.”
The Queensland award, which carries prize money of $15,000, comes hot on the heels of another prestigious award also for Embers. On August 31 Campion won the Australian Writer’s Guild (AWGIE) Award at a glittering 40th annual presentation night in Sydney, in the Community and Youth Theatre category. These major awards are the only awards in Australia where writers vote on the work of other writers.
Embers also received a nomination in the 2007 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
When accepting the Queensland Premier’s Award on Tuesday night Campion thanked many people in Albury Wodonga and North East Victoria.
“I’d like to acknowledge Les Hume from the Upper Hume Community Health Service…who was so instrumental in the research phases of the project; and a wonderful cast and creative team that brought the script to life… HotHouse Theatre…commissioned and then championed this play over the three years it took to research, write, develop and produce… Finally – and most importantly – I’d like to thank the people of North East Victoria who opened their doors, and hearts to me, to share their stories at a time of immense personal challenge. Without them there would be no Embers. I like to think in honouring this script tonight you really honour them.”
HotHouse Theatre is currently in negotiations with presenters throughout Australia for Embers to tour widely in 2009, taking the play to other regional areas and large cities affected by more recent fires.
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