Elise Hearst – January 21 2018

International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust – January 27

Elise is a Melbourne based playwright. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from Melbourne University where she co-produced and wrote various shows for independent company KumQuat Theatre. Elise attended World Interplay 2005 and won a Monash University National Playwrights’ Competition award in 2006 for her play Apple. While attending the Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writers’ Programme in London, readings and performances of her work were shown at Trafalgar Studios, The Soho Theatre, The Hampstead Theatre and Theatre 503. Upon returning to Melbourne, her play Dirtyland was included in the 2009 National Play Festival, and premiered with a full production at the New Theatre in 2011. Elise’s other plays include Pick Up, a short play in one act; She’s a Little Finch; The Sun Room; Delight and The Mesh. Elise was writer-in-residence with Griffin Theatre in 2010.

Sample image

Bright World – co-written with Andrea James
Australian Script Centre, 2016
75 minutes, 3 female, 2 male (writers played themselves in original production; Indigenous characters and roles)
Bright World is a collision between Jewish and Aboriginal history that invokes two traumatic legacies: the industrialised murder of six million Jews and the horrors inflicted on Indigenous Australians (during and after colonisation). In 1938, 77 year old Aboriginal activist and leader, William Cooper, led a march of Australian Aborigines League members to the German consulate in Melbourne, denouncing the Nazi government’s treatment of Jews in the wake of Kristallnacht. It was the only private protest of its kind in the world. Elise Hearst, whose Jewish grandparents fled Europe to avoid persecution, joins forces with Andrea James, a Yorta Yorta woman and descendant of Cooper’s, to explore this moment of empathy between their ancestors. (Based on Sydney Morning Herald article, Cameron Woodhead, April 8 2016.)

The Sea Project
Sydney Premiere by Arthur and Griffin Independent, 2012
Full length; 1 female, 2 male
Things are washing up on the shore: suitcases, spectacles, hair and then Eva. She has lost all but the memory of her name and how she takes her tea. And she’s missing a finger. When Bob finds Eva on the beach it’s not long before she is in his kitchen and he’s falling in love. But Eva is haunted by a past she can’t remember. Who is she and why does she scream in the night? When the mysterious rogue Maciek appears, Bob is terrified he’ll steal Eva away. Eva is terrified of what he may reveal.
‘The Sea Project is a tale of memory, migration and love inspired by the World War II experiences of [Elise’s] Polish grandmother.’ – Jewish News