Hannie Rayson – February 26 2017

Rare Disease Day – February 28 2017

Hannie is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of Arts and has worked as a freelance journalist and editor in addition to her primary award-winning career as playwright and screenwriter. She co-founded the St Kilda community theatre group, Theatreworks, and has been writer-in-residence at Geelong’s Mill Theatre, Playbox Theatre, La Trobe University (which awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Letters), and Monash University. Hannie made playwriting history when Life after George was the first play to be nominated for the Miles Franklin Award. Her first major success, Hotel Sorrento, appears in university courses and on the high school syllabus and has been made into a film. Her other plays include Falling from Grace, Scenes from a Separation (co-written with Andrew Bovell), Competitive Tenderness, Inheritance, The Glass Soldier and The Swimming Club. Hannie’s funny and candid memoir, Hello, Beautiful!, was published in 2015.

Extinction
Australian Script Centre, 2013
100 minutes; 2 female, 2 male
The death of an endangered tiger quoll is the critical backdrop to an Australian story about our very survival. Andy Dixon is a vet who believes strongly in preserving the environment and our natural resources. When his lover, the determined conservation biologist Dr Piper Ross, agrees to undertake research paid for by the CEO of a mining company, he begins to question her methods and his feelings toward her. Little does she know that Andy has been diagnosed with a rare illness, and his life is in as much danger as the species she is trying to save.

Two Brothers
Currency Press, 2005; ISBN 9780868197814
Full length play; 3 female 5 male
The Benedict brothers are on opposite sides of the political divide. Eggs is the Minister for Home Security and prime minister-in-waiting. Tom is a refugee advocate and the head of a charitable foundation. The brothers have a relationship based on affection and respect. And in the jumble of family life they have managed to accommodate their ideological differences. But on Christmas Day an Indonesian fishing boat packed with refugees goes down in the Indian Ocean. Two hundred and fifty people drown, and one man survives. What happens when two powerful, passionate and socially-committed brothers encounter deadly conflict?