Kate Mulvany – January 31 2016

World Cancer Day – February 4 2016

Kate is an award-winning playwright and actress. She has written over 25 plays including Father O Friendly, Derek Drives a Datsun, Vaseline Lollies, Blood and Bone, Naked Ambition, Storytime, The Danger Age, Somewhere and The Rasputin Affair. She has adapted Kit Williams’ picture book, Masquerade, for the stage and co-written Medea with Anne-Louise Sarks. Kate holds a Bachelor of Arts from Curtin University and has been writer-in-residence at the Naked Theatre Company and a recipient of the Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship. Born with a form of kidney cancer, Wilms’ tumour, Kate’s plays often deal with issues of warfare, genetics and politics. The Seed, in particular, touches a chord with many parents of children who also suffer the potential results of chemical warfare.

The Web
Currency Press, 2012; ISBN 9780868199115
Full length play; 2 female, 2 male
Is a person still isolated if their friends are make-believe? Fred is a shy, isolated 16-year-old living on a farm without stock or crops and dealing with the death of his father. When charismatic head boy Travis takes Fred under his wing to help him with a social studies assignment, it triggers an intriguing chain of events that ends in a vicious attack. As the police investigate, it becomes clear that nothing is straightforward in the collision between the virtual and real worlds of the teenage imagination. A whodunit for the modern age, The Web, is a fascinating exploration of rural isolation, friendship, suicide and the dangers of cyber space when social experiments go frighteningly wrong.

The Seed
Currency Press, 2008; ISBN 9780868198262
Full length play; 1 female, 2 male
Meet Rose Maloney. Her father went to Vietnam and her grandfather is ex-IRA. Today is their collective birthday. After a 30 year hiatus, they reunite in a small apartment in England. A silent family battle becomes a national story about finding new life amongst the rubble of old wars. Inspired by her own family, Kate’s father being a Vietnam vet, and her own cancer, like Rose’s, having a potential link to Operation Agent Orange, this play has a very special kind of honesty and humour which explores the repercussions of war and sorts the great lies we buy into from the reality we live.