Melissa Reeves – March 19 2017

Melissa is an award-winning playwright. She has recently completed a two-year fellowship awarded by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council, and her latest play, The Zen of Table Tennis, won the 2016 Griffin Award for new Australian writing. Melissa’s other produced plays include The Sign of the Phantom, produced in 1995 with Australian Theatre of the Deaf, and Sweetown. Her other published works include Salt Creek Murders and Furious Mattress, both based on true events, In Cahoots and The Real World. Melissa’s collaborative works include Tough Girls with original music by Irine Vela; Magpie with Richard Frankland; and Who’s Afraid of the Working Class and Fever, both with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas, composer – Irine Vela. She co-wrote the screenplay for the film Blessed, based on Who’s Afraid of the Working Class. In the words of Tom Healey, Melissa’s plays are ‘peopled by characters who are, either consciously or unconsciously, bucking the machine…’ and they are always drawn with compassion and humour.

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Road Movie, 1996 co-production with Back to Back Theatre (http://backtobacktheatre.com/) and Melbourne Workers’ Theatre (1987-2012)
Script available by permission of the author – contact me.
One act; minimum 3 female, 3 male (total 22 roles)
‘Mr Whippy’ and a van. A hostage and a stowaway. A couple of driving lessons then a grand finale show-ring motorcycle jump. Join the hilarious escapades of quirky Karen and laid back Louie, two sheltered workshop employees, on the run from the cops after unwittingly becoming involved in a bungled payroll hold-up – now fugitives from justice.

The Spook
Currency Press, 2005; ISBN 9780868197685
Full length play; 6 female, 6 male
‘It is the 60s and the threat of Communism hangs over the world. Martin, a young fitter and turner, has been co-opted to infiltrate the South Bendigo branch of the Communist Party of Australia and report back on its goings-on: plans, problems, personal dirt, anything that could prove useful in the fight against such a dreaded and dangerous enemy. Based on a true story, The Spook clearly shows the paranoia that permeated the world during the Cold War and the subsequent repercussions, both tragic and absurd. Melissa Reeves’s play manages to walk a fine line between the drama and the comedy so that the parallels with today are both clear and frightening.’ ABC Radio National’s Airplay, 2006.