Script-writer and dramatist.
Elizabeth Coleman wrote her first television scripts for The Flying Doctors in 1986. She followed this two years later with her first, single-act play, Sometimes I Wish I Was Jana Wendt, which she wrote while attending the NIDA Playwrights Studio in 1988. Her first full-length play was It's My Party (And I'll Die If I Want To). It debuted
at La Mama as part of the 1993 Melbourne Comedy Festival and toured nationally in 1995. In 1999 it was produced off Broadway, with
F. Murray Abraham.
In the interim, Coleman was continuing to write scripts for television programs. Her television work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included work on at least eleven episodes of Home and Away (1989); work for the Australian Children's Television Foundation's series Lift Off (1992); episodes of the sit-coms Acropolis Now (1992), All Together Now (1991-1993), and Newlyweds (1993-1994); and scripts for medical drama GP (1993).
In 1995, Coleman was one of the Australian script-writers who worked on Americna production Flipper: filmed in Australia, the program drew heavily on Australian cast and crew, and soon had few active American crew members. Between 1995 and 2000, Coleman worked on police procedural Police Rescue (1995), spoof soap opera Shark Bay (1996), crime drama Good Guys, Bad Guys (1997), teen drama Heartbreak High (1997-1998), and pioneering drama SeaChange (1998). She also co-wrote, with Matt Ford, the comedic romance Diana & Me (1997).
She was also continuing to write playscripts, including the highly successful Secret Bridesmaids' Business, which followed a highly successful Melbourne tour with a 2002 television adaptation (directed by Lynn-Maree Danzey for ABC Television).
Since 2000, Coleman has concentrated largely on television, with scripts for Something in the Air (2000), Always Greener (2001), The Secret Life of Us (2001-2002), Blue Heelers (2005), All Saints (2005), McLeod's Daughters (2005-2006), Whatever Happened to That Guy? (2009), and Bed of Roses (2008-2011).
Her most recent scripts have been for Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012) and Tricky Business (2012).
Her most recent playscripts have been This Way Up (2002) and Almost With You (2012).