Alana Valentine – May 8 2016

International Astronomy Day – May 14 2016

Alana is a multi-award winning, critically successful Australian playwright. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney and writes plays that engage with the real-life stories and voices of Australian communities. Her other plays include The Conjurer, Swimming the Globe, Rot Guts, Multiple Choice, The Mapmaker’s Brother, Bones of the Beast, The Story of Anger Lee Bredenza, Redfern Heights, Run Rabbit Run and Parramatta Girls. Her short films include Mother Love, The Witnesses and Reef Dreaming. Alana is also the author and producer of 15 original works for radio broadcast, including her adaptation of Dorothy Porter’s brilliant detective novel-in-verse The Monkey’s Mask. Her play, Savage Grace, explores issues around euthanasia via a visiting American HIV specialist brought before an Australian hospital ethicist board.

Sample image

Ear to the Edge of Time
100 minutes; 2 female 2 male
2012 Winning Script, 5th Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration (STAGE) International Script Competition
Performance rights available through Creative Representation http://creativerep.com.au
When a poet writes a contentious poem about the life of a contemporary radio astronomer, he sends her into a desperate crisis about attribution, gender politics, and the role of team work in 21st century science. The play deals with the fascinating machinations of astronomical physics, as well as the dilemmas, compromises, and culture that are part of scientific discovery. Ear to the Edge of Time concerns the fascinating intrigues of astronomical physics, as well as the dilemmas, compromises and culture that are part of scientific discovery.

Sample image

Tales of Galileo
Australian Script Centre, 2009
30 minutes; 1 female, 3 male
These three short plays (Observation, Revolution and A Leap of Faith) are conversations between Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and Caroline Herschel about astronomy and the politics of science that challenges religious orthodoxies. The visionary Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Galileo speaks disbelievingly with renowned English naturalist Darwin about his theory of natural selection. He inspires Isaac Newton to discover the laws of motion and is finally persuaded by Caroline Herschel, the first English woman to officially make her living as an astronomer, that women can also be remarkable, perceptive and highly accurate chroniclers of the magnificent heavens.