The Playwrights Database
LEAH PURCELL
Nationality: Australian
email: n/a Website: n/a
Literary Agent: n/a
Leah Purcell is a proud Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri woman from Queensland. She is an actor, writer and director. Her directing credits for Belvoir include Radiance (in which she also starred), Brothers Wreck and Dont Take Your Love to Town (which she also co-adapted and starred in). Her other theatre credits as an actor include The Dark Room, Stuff Happens, Parramatta Girls, The Marriage of Figaro and Box the Pony (which she also co-wrote) (Belvoir); King Lear (Bell Shakespeare); Blood Wedding (Sydney Theatre Company); The Story of the Miracles at Cookies Table (Griffin Theatre Company/HotHouse Theatre); and Beasty Girl: The Secret Life of Errol Flynn (Melbourne International Arts Festival). Leah co-directed this years acclaimed ABC series Cleverman and has just completed directing a new 7 Network/Screentime series called The Secret Daughter. She is also known for her writing and directing across Redfern Now Series 1 and 2, the childrens TV series My Place, and the award-winning short films She.Say and Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun. Her film and TV credits as an actor include Janet King, Black Comedy, Mary: The Making of a Princess, House of Hancock, Love Child, Last Cab to Darwin, The Darkside, My Mistress, Jindabyne, Lantana, The Proposition, Redfern Now, My Place, Love My Way, Starter Wife and Police Rescue. She is also a best-selling author for her anthology Black Chicks Talking, which was turned into an IF Award-winning documentary. Leahs other awards include the 2014 Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwrights Award, a 2013 AACTA Award for Best Female Actor in a TV Drama for Redfern Now, a Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Play and Matilda Awards for Best Actress and Director for The Story of the Miracles at Cookies Table, a Film Critics Circle Award and an IF Award for Lantana, two Actor of the Year and one Singer of the Year Deadly Awards, the inaugural Bob Maza Fellowship, and the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship for her artistic endeavours, community philanthropy and cultural activism. Leah is a proud member of Actors Equity.
Research: https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/9322
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below is a list of Leah Purcell's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Black Chicks Talking Box the Pony Drover's Wife, TheBlack Chicks Talking
Synopsis:
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Notes:
First a documentary and a book, this is the stage production of Leah Purcell's project
1st Produced:
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, South Bank, QLD
2002
Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/74205
Top of PageBox the Pony
Semi-autobiographical story of Leah Purcell - or her alter ego Steff - which traces the events of her life growing up in a Queensland mission town. the youngest of 7 children and daughter of a white Father and black mother, Steff's life is teeming with lively characters. there is her Nanna, crippled with arthritis, who teaches her the stories and language of her ancestors. there is her mother, who lives it up each pension day. Above all, there is her Grandfather's pony, Steff's vehicle for temporary escape that characterises Steff's life, from her Nanna's prediction that she'll fly away like a Blue Crane - Bungabura - her aboriginal name, to the many tragedies she manages to avoid. Despite poverty, violence, lack of education and opportunity, Steff's spirit is nurtured through her ingenuity and resourcefulness (in the midst of her family's unspoken love). Box the Pony contains devastating humour, piercing insight, raw energy and emotion as it tackles many of the pressing issues of our times.
Notes:
written by Scott Rankin And Leah Purcell
1st Produced:
Playhouse (Sydney Opera House), Sydney, NSW
12 Sep 1997
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Hodder Headline Australia 1999 978-0733610691
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Short Play One Act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/11617
Top of PageDrover's Wife, The
Tarantino meets Deadwood in this full-throttle drama of our colonial past, written by the indomitable Leah Purcell. Henry Lawson's story of the Drover's Wife pits the stoic silhouette of a woman against the unforgiving Australian landscape, staring down a serpent - it's our frontier myth captured in a few pages. In Leah's new play the old story gets a very fresh rewrite. Once again the Drover's Wife is confronted by a threat in her yard in Australia's high country, but now it's a man. He's bleeding, he's got secrets, and he's black. She knows there's a fugitive wanted for killing whites, and the district is thick with troopers, but something's holding the Drover's Wife back from turning this fella in& A taut thriller of our pioneering past, The Drover's Wife is full of fury, power and has a black sting to the tail, reaching from our nation's infancy into our complicated present.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Organisations:
Belvoir in association with Oombarra Productions
1st Published:
Currency Press, Australia (2016) >>> 978-1-92500-571-4
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
thriller
Parts:
Male: 7 Female: 1 Other: doubling possible
Further Reference:
https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/118252
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