The Writer
Tickets on sale 8 May
Book NowAbout the show
By Ella Hickson
Directed by Zoë Hollyoak
Australian Premiere
"Does it scare you that the future might speak a language that you can’t understand?"
A young female playwright and an older male director find themselves alone in an empty theatre. She wants a new form of theatre that dismantles capitalism and overturns the patriarchy. He’s turned on by the commercial potential of her rage.
He flirts. She stares him down. She wants to do things her way. She wants to change the shape of the world. And without warning it does, revealing stories nested within stories like Russian dolls, each more brilliant and daring than the last.
The Writer premiered at the Almeida Theatre in 2018 and takes aim at the business of making art – the compromises it demands, the people it chews up, and the endless ways in which patriarchal power can infect . It rocks the very foundations upon which theatre is built.
Ella Hickson is one of the UK’s most exciting award-winning young playwrights whose work has been performed throughout the world. Her plays include Boys, Wendy & Peter Pan, and Oil.
Zoë Hollyoak is a director and creative producer. She is the Artistic Director of essential workers, a Sydney-based theatre company that presents and produces new works. Her recent works include Collapsible (Red Line Productions), Antigonick (NIDA), Slutdrop (Multiple Fringe World Winner) and Cotton Wool Kid (State Theatre Centre of WA). Zoë is the Program Producer for Performance Space at Carriageworks, and has worked in producing roles for Black Swan State Theatre Company of WA and Belvoir St Theatre. She is a graduate of NIDA Master of Fine Arts (Directing).
About the writer
Ella Hickson is an award-winning writer whose work has been performed throughout the UK and abroad.
Her work includes: Swive [Elizabeth] (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, 2019); Anna (National Theatre, 2019); The Writer (Almeida Theatre, 2018); Oil (Almeida Theatre, 2016); Wendy & Peter Pan (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2013 and 2015; Tokyo, 2021); Riot Girls (Radio 4); Boys (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton/Headlong Theatre/HighTide Festival Theatre, 2012); The Authorised Kate Bane (Grid Iron/Traverse Theatre, 2012); Rightfully Mine (Radio 4); Precious Little Talent (Trafalgar Studios/Tantrums Productions, 2011), Hot Mess (Arcola Tent/Tantrums Productions, 2010) and Eight (Trafalgar Studios/Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, 2008/9).
About the director
Zoë Hollyoak is a director and creative producer who has worked across a range of organisations including Belvoir, Performing Lines, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and Black Swan State Theatre Company of WA. She holds a Bachelor of Performing Arts (Performance Making) from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and a Master of Fine Arts (Directing) from NIDA.
Zoë is currently the Program Producer for Performance Space, Australia’s leading organisation for the development and presentation of experimental art. Zoë combines her significant producing and project management skills with an extensive artistic background that includes theatre and film projects for PICA, triple j Unearthed, Belvoir, The Blue Room Theatre, The Old Fitz and the State Theatre Centre of WA. Zoë also runs essential workers, a Sydney-based theatre company that presents and produces new works.
Zoë’s recent projects include Collapsible (Red Line Productions), Never Closer (25a), Horses (25a) Antigonick (NIDA), Slutdrop (Multiple Fringe World Winner) and Cotton Wool Kid (State Theatre Centre of WA).
