Wendy Beckett – March 21 2021

Forced Adoptions Apology – March 21 2013

Photo: William Yang

Wendy is a theatre writer/director whose plays have been produced in different languages and cities around the world. She has written biographies, radio plays, books, libretti, articles of academic study and journalism, and has conducted radio interviews with some of the best minds of our time such as Gore Vidal and Leonard Bernstein. At 22, Wendy founded the theatre company, Colours Inc, in Adelaide and she currently owns Pascal Productions. She holds a Diploma of Education, Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Psychology and has lectured at universities in the areas of theatre, creative writing, literature and psychology. Wendy has a passion for writing and staging biographical plays such as Anais Nin: One of her Lives, about the French-Cuban-American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica; Claudel, about the rebellious young sculptor who studied and worked with the Rodin; Isadora Duncan – Without Limits, a dance–theatre piece about the American born dancer/choreographer; Hester, about Australian painter Joy Hester; and Modotti, about photographer Tina Modotti and her life as a revolutionary. Wendy’s other areas of interest in playwriting range from domestic dramas to artistic, psychological and political dramas such as Love Therapy, a glimpse behind the closed doors of a junior therapist; Losing My Religion, a story that asks us to break with everything we believe in; Refugees, a play that sets out to diffuse the fear of the foreigner and instead discover the joy of inclusiveness and getting to know the other; and The Philosopher’s Steamship, about the escape from Nazi Germany of several now famous psychologists and philosophers.

Image: Theater Row NYC

A Charity Case
World premiere 2011
3 female, 0 male
A play about our most sacred of relationships – the one we all have with our mother. A Charity Case examines the triangle of birth mother, adoptive mother and dislocated child. The journey is both blessed and cursed but the outcome is unforgettable. From WWII to the Sexual Revolution, morality was such that children born out of wedlock were adopted. Was this for the good of the child? Adoption is usually examined from the point of view of the relinquishing or adoptive mother. A Charity Case takes us into the psyche of the child. Dislocation, loss and fear lead the three characters into unknown territory. The journey is mysterious, shocking, cruel and emotionally tender.

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For the Love of Alma Mahler
Australian Script Centre, 2005
65 minutes, 4 female, 4 male
A unique theatre/music hybrid about the life and times of composer Gustav Mahler and his legendary wife Alma. The play, set in Vienna, is an accurate historical account of the period in which Mahler met and married Alma Schindler, a bold young woman with a sparkling intellect. It shows the inner struggles and profound inspiration of a musical career and marriage, as Alma dedicates herself to her husband, sacrifices her own career for the sake of his, but still manages to transform herself into a woman of substance. The play is designed to include songs and symphonies of Gustav Mahler as well as compositions by Alma Mahler. The music does not merely underlie the drama, but rather stands on its own, alone and magnificent, yet integral to the overall structure of the theatrical work.
“Wendy Beckett, writer/director of the play Mahler, is a playwrights’ director and a director’s playwright.” – The Sydney Morning Herald