Katherine Thomson – 4 December 2016

International Volunteer Day – December 5 2016

Katherine is a playwright and screenwriter. Her theatrical involvement began as a teenage actor with the Australian Theatre for Young People. Later she helped found Theatre South in Wollongong and acted in many of their productions. She has been writer-in-residence for the Sydney Theatre Company, also serving as a member of its board, Vice-President of the Australian Writers’ Guild and President of Sydney PEN. Katherine’s published stage plays include Fragments of Hong Kong, Harbour, King Tide, Navigating, This Hospital is My Country, Tonight We Anchor in Twofold Bay and Wonderlands. In addition to Diving for Peals, which has been set as an HSC text, her young adult plays include Barmaids and Kayak. Other plays performed by leading theatre companies include A Sporting Chance, Darlinghurst Nights and A Change in the Weather. Katherine has written extensively for television where her credits include Grass Roots, Blackjack, Wildside, Fallen Angels, Halifax fp, GP, Something in the Air and the television series Answered by Fire (co-written with Barbara Samuels). She has written one screenplay, Unfolding Florence – The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst. Katherine is one of the writers featured in the ‘What I wrote’ series, available on DVD.

Mavis Goes To Timor
Publisher Currency Press, 2003; ISBN 9780868197029
Full length play; 3 female, 0 male; young adult – adult
Based on a true story, this play is about an 86-year-old retired haberdasher from regional Victoria who is stung into action by the suffering of the East Timorese and decides to make a difference. Along with her daughter, Mavis takes her sewing machines to Timor and sets in motion her practical contribution. Twenty-three sewing centres later, more than 119 tonnes of donated household goods have made their way from Mavis’s place in Yarrawonga to the newly independent nation of Timor, and the sewing co-operatives continue today.

Diving for Pearls
Currency Press, 1992; ISBN 9780868193236
Full length play; 3 female, 2 male; young adult – adult
Set against the background of 1980s economic rationalism, this play presents a realistic view of the trauma faced by families in coastal towns dependent on disappearing industries. In place of the old community of steel-workers, a glossy tourist resort grows. Two ordinary people, the resentful Den and doggedly optimistic Barbara, whose mildly intellectually disabled daughter has been in an institution for much of her life, struggle to adjust to the changes.