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.

7-ON A Collection features ‘plays that are special to us, that have not been published [previously] or they’re brand new,’ explains 7-ON collective member, playwright Catherine Zimdahl, though her colleague, playwright Ned Manning, quickly adds that a number of the plays in the collection have previously been produced.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's former 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 early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts