The 7-ON playwrights: how to sustain a collective for 20 years

Members of playwrights collective 7-ON discuss their new anthology, and how they’ve operated successfully for two decades to date.
A scene from 'The Past is a Wild Party' by Noelle Janaczewska, one of the 7-ON playwrights. The photo depicts a female-presenting actor with blonde hair and wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and red trousers. Her arms are outstretched, her head tilted back and her mouth open as if she is exclaiming ecstatically. She holds a closed book with a red cover, perhaps a play script, in her left hand.

Collectives don’t always exist harmoniously, let alone for 20 years. 7-ON A Collection, out through Currency Press, celebrates the 20th anniversary of playwrights’ collective 7-ON with seven newly published plays.

The seven members of 7-ON – Donna Abela, Vanessa Bates, Hilary Bell, Noëlle Janaczewska, Verity Laughton, Ned Manning and Catherine Zimdahl – have had over 200 plays produced in Australia and around the world between them, since the collective was established in 2005. Collectively, they have also accumulated more than 40 writing awards over that time.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts