R. E. Ross Trust Playwrights' Script Development Award
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

The R. E. Ross Trust Playwrights' Script Development Awards foster Victoria's theatre industry by helping Victorian writers develop scripts.

These awards provide writers with grants to enhance their scripts through workshops with a Victorian-based theatre company or group, director or dramaturg.

The R. E. Ross Trust is a perpetual charitable trust established in Victoria in 1970 by the will of the late Roy Everard Ross. Since its inception, The R. E. Ross Trust has distributed more than ninety million dollars in grants for charitable purposes in Victoria.

The awards came to a close in 2014.

Source: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-community/literary-awards-competitions/r-e-ross-trust-awards Sighted: 29/11/2013.

Notes

  • 'The R E Ross Trust Playwright Script Development Awards offer up to $30,000 in prize money to Victorian-based playwrights for the development of play scripts that have not been produced. The aim is to support the development of plays as works-in-progress. The prize money is available to fund workshops or support further work with a director, dramaturg, script editor and/or actor(s).' Source:http://www.rosstrust.org.au/index.html (Sighted 27/07/2005).

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2013

winner Didem Caia for Vile
winner Trudy Hellier for Just Perfect
winner Mari Lourey for Dirt Songs
winner Tobias Manderson-Galvin for The Unknown Man on Somerton Beach

Year: 2012

Year: 2010

joint winner In Ward B Ward B Xenia Hanusiak , 2010 single work drama '"Ward B: explores the situation of a Chinese man and what it means to be innocent and incarcerated... On the other hand, what does it mean to be guilty and incarcerated? Are you insane or do you become insane? Source: www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/ (Sighted 22/03/2012).
joint winner A Kind of Fabulous Hatred Barry Dickins , 2010 single work drama
joint winner Boy Out of the Country Felix Nobis , 2010 single work drama

Year: 2009

joint winner Rhonda Is in Therapy Bridgette Burton , 2012 single work drama 'After an unimaginable accident, Rhonda takes flight from reality and seeks refuge in a delusional world - searching for emotional and physical relief. The powerful and explicit text, finely balanced with an edge of humour, mines the depths of Rhonda's imagined world and the relationships with her husband, daughter and lover.' Source: www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/ (Sighted 25/07/2012).
joint winner Save for Crying Angus Cerini , 2011 single work drama

'Well-known Melbourne playwright Angus Cerini continues his odyssey into the inner world of the dispossessed. His hallmark poeticism and savagery combine with an extraordinary lightness in this new work.'

Source: Judges' Report, The RE Ross Trust Playwrights' Script Development Awards: Winners 2009 website, www.slv.vic.gov.au/ross (sighted 23/06/2009)

joint winner Pompeii, L.A. Declan Greene , 2009 single work drama

'A rumbling, growling work of high-camp comedy and Sewellesque despair. This is outrageous, incorrigible, opinionated and disorienting.'

Source: Judges' Report, The RE Ross Trust Playwrights' Script Development Awards: Winners 2009 website, www.slv.vic.gov.au/ross (sighted 23/06/2009)

'A spectacular tribute to Hollywood's highs and lows, Pompeii, L.A. plummets into the anxieties and hysteria of silver screen culture.

'Meet the child star. You know the one. Used-up, spat-out and on the fast-track to self-destruction. As his life unravels after a terrible accident, Pompeii, L.A. follows his damaged young mind as it folds inwards and scrambles for an escape. Instead of relief, what he finds is a world in which reality and nightmare collide - a schizoid universe populated by Judy Garland and a host of ex-child stars who are all grown up with nowhere to go.' (Malthouse Theatre website)

Selected for the 2010 PlayWriting Australia National Script Workshop.
joint winner Raging in the Name of the Dead Thomas Henning , 2009 single work drama

'This project is written by a member of one of Melbourne's most interesting theatre collectives; Black Lung. Constructed entirely of film quotes, the script ... is the beginning of an investigation into the nature of text and narrative in live performance. It is dense and bewildering. It's also very funny ...'

Source: Judges' Report, The RE Ross Trust Playwrights' Script Development Awards: Winners 2009 website, www.slv.vic.gov.au/ross (sighted 23/06/2009)

Year: 2008

winner Return to Earth Lally Katz , 2008 single work drama
— Appears in: Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd & Return to Earth 2012; (p. 77-127)

'Sometimes ponies eat the flowers that grow in the gardens and then they're naughty. Or sometimes they eat the roses, but not the thorns. And then they're clever.' Alice Waster has returned to her parents' home in the small Australian coastal town of Tathra, where she grew up. She's returned to earth. From which, apparently, she's been gone for a long, long time.

For Alice's parents Wendy and Cleveland, their adult daughter's return means the possibility of once again being a whole family unit. The way it was when their children were young. For Tommy, Alice's brother, her return means the chance to save the life of his terminally ill little girl, Catta. For her old school friend Jeanie, Alice's return means the chance to once again believe in the magic hidden beneath the surface of everyday reality. For Alice, her return means the chance for redemption. And the possibility of falling in love.

Alice is different than she used to be. For one thing, she eats her food slower. She's also interested in other people. It seems she is trying hard to be considerate. Like a grown-up. However, a suspicion hangs in the air. The people Alice has returned for remember the cost of believing in her magic. The cost of believing in Alice. And they can't shake the feeling that there's something Alice isn't telling.' (Abstract for the 2009 reading)

Source: www.nationalplayfestival.org.au (Sighted 20/01/2009).


'Alice returns home to the sleepy seaside town of Tathra and everything seems just as she left it. So why does it seem so unfamiliar? It's as if she's forgotten everything she's ever known, everything she needs to make a settled, simple life. Her family try to help her out and she wants to settle down - really she does - but some part of her still floats way up there in the blue. Gravity's insistent tug. Welcome to the fresh and off-centre world of award-winning playwright Lally Katz, making her MTC debut with a play that looks deeply to the strangeness within. ' (Abstract for the 2011 performance)

Source: Melbourne Theatre Company website, www.mtc.com.au (sighted 29/9/10)

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