Our People

Alana Valentine

Alana first worked with Steamworks Arts in2001 when Savage Grace was presented at the Blue Room in Perth. The popularity and critical acclaim for the production saw the season remounted at the Subiaco Arts Centre in 2002, and later, toured by Performing Lines to theDarlinghurst Theatre in 2003 and La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in 2005. In 2001the playscript was commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards,shortlisted for the Griffin Award in 2002 and was the co-winner of the RodneySeaborn Playwrights Award in 2002.

In the 20 years since, Alana Valentine has established herself an acclaimed playwright, librettist and director to multi-award winning acclaim. Most recently BARBARA AND THE CAMP DOGS which she co-wrote with Ursula Yovich, was awarded four 2020 Green Room Awards, including Best Music Composition and Sound Design and Best Writing for the Australian Stage. In 2019 BARBARA AND THE CAMP DOGS won four Helpmann Awards including Best Original Score and Best Musical. First produced in 2017, Belvoir toured Barbara and the Camp Dogs to Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Wollongong as well as a return season at Belvoir in 2019. The play with songs was also was nominated for two Sydney Theatre Awards – Best New Australian Work and Best Original Score, for the Nick Enright Prize for Playwrighting in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in the Drama Category.

In 2019 Alana worked with composer Sandra France on FLIGHT MEMORY an original song cycle and Alana also works with Bangarra Dance Theatre, as dramaturg including on their Helpmann Award winning  best new Australian work BENNELONG. Also on PATYEGARANG,DARK EMU, and ID (in BELONG). Her play THE SUGAR HOUSE is scheduled for production at the Finborough Theatre in London in 2021, her collaboration with The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra NOTRE DAME and her Belvoir commissioned verbatim theatre work WAYSIDE BRIDE have both been postponed to 2021.

She has more than 20 published works including two books of non-fiction, BOWERBIRD: The art of making theatre drawn from life (2018) and DEAR LINDY: A Nation Responds to the Loss of Azaria (2017) as well as been part of numerous short story and short play anthologies and collections.  

In 2019 the Seymour Centre in Australia presented Made To Measure, a commission from the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, where Alana was Writer in Residence. In 2018, Ear to the Edge of Time, winner of the 5th International Playwrighting Award, premiered at Seymour; Letters to Lindy, first produced by Merrigong Theatre Company in2016, completed a National tour; The Sugar House premiered at Belvoir and was nominated in the 2018 Sydney Theatre Awards for Best New Australian Work.

Alana is the recipient of two Tasmanian Theatre Awards 2017 for The Tree Widows, which received the Best Writing in a Professional Production Award and the Judges Award for 'creative integration of community, culture and heritage’. Alana was also nominated for best director for a Professional Production for that work. Alana has been awarded four Australian Writers Guild awards and a Churchill Fellowship and she previously worked with six First Nations singers on the narrative concert Barefoot Divas: Walk A Mile In My Shoes. She has also received a Centenary Medal for her work on the Centenary of Federation, a Cultural Leadership Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts and a Literature Fund Fellowship.

Steamworks Arts acknowledges the Traditional Owners of this country across Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures; and to elders both past, present and emerging.

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