Kruckemeyer wins Seaborn award

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award 2010

On Tuesday 30 November at the Seaborn Broughton and Walford Foundation
(SBW) Christmas Party held on the terrace next to the Stables Theatre
the winner of the 2010 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award was announced.
Gaz Simpson, one of the Trustees of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights
Trust, announced that 29 year old award winning author FINEGAN
KRUCKEMEYER’s play This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does
Nothing had won this year’s award.

The $20,000 award for the development of a play or other approved
performing arts project attracted 56 submissions from across Australia.

This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing is an
entirely new work for a child audience aged 10 and above. It attempts
to harness the conventions of the classic fairytale and marry them with
an original journey that is accessible to modern children.

It begins with a fairytale like premise; 12 year-old triplet sisters are
left in the middle of a forest by their woodcutter father (as instructed
by an archetypal evil stepmother). From this point of great sorrow and
uncertainty, three positive resolutions are made. One sister resolves
to walk one way, one the other, and the third to stay right where she
is. In the journeys that follow, the three are seen going through their
early lives and experiencing many great magical, metaphorical and
realistic events.

FINGEAN KRUCKEMEYER

Finegan was born in Ireland and moved with his family to Australia at
age 8. Finegan has had 46 commissioned plays performed; in 2011,
fifteen plays will have seasons on five continents. His plays have been
part of 31 (inter)national festivals, two Sydney Opera House seasons
(with a third next year) and a three-month season with The Actors' Gang
in LA. In 2010, 'The girl who forgot to sing badly' (the ark/theatre
lovett) was the first children's work ever selected for the prestigious
Re:Viewed programme in the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Finegan received the 2009 AWGIE Award for best children's play in
Australia, and the 2009 Young Tasmanian Artist Award, 2008 Best
Children's Theatre Playwright and 2007 Best Playwright Oscarts, 2006
Jill Blewett Playwright's Award, and 2003 Colin Thiele Scholarship. In
2010, 'Man Covets Bird' received the Best New Work Ruby Award, and Best
Work (Comedy) Curtain Call Award.

Finegan is part of the ASSITEJ Next Generation, 25 young theatre makers
selected worldwide, and has spoken on panels or delivered papers at
theatre festivals/conferences in Australia, Europe and South America. He
lives in Hobart, with his wife Essie.

When receiving the Award Finegan said “I am committed to making
strong and respectful work for children, which acknowledges them as
astute audience members outside the plays, and worthy subjects
within.”

He went on to say “I have been inspired to write this work now after
being invited by Solange Perazzo, an Argentinean director, to produce
the script first in translated form to an Argentine child audience, and
then to bring it to Australia. Solange Perazzo is a highly regarded
director of children’s theatre, and we have already garnered support
from the Australian Latin American Foundation, the Australian Embassy in
Argentina, and ASSITEJ, the world children’s theatre organisation. By
winning the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award I am hopeful this play and
its future seasons, may become a reality.”