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Westralian Drama Festival Award
or Western Australian Drama Festival Award
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

This competition was held as part of the West Australian Drama Festival. The competition was open to all Australian writers or writers resident in Australia for the prior year. One play was accepted, for which a fee of £25 was paid, and a similar fee was paid for any other play that was accepted for presentation. A royalty of £5/5/ was paid for any play presented for one night. (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41931180

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 1943

winner Comets Soon Pass Dymphna Cusack , 1950 single work drama
— Appears in: Three Australian Three-Act Plays 1950; (p. 1-87)

Year: 1942

winner y separately published work icon Morning Sacrifice Dymphna Cusack , 1940-1943 (Manuscript version)x400877 Z43153 1940 single work drama

'Set in the staff room of an all-girl school, 'Morning Sacrifice' interrogates the stifling sexual morality of post-War Australia. The all female cast are divided by the conflict between a waning Victorian sensibility and the sexual freedom of the coming age.

'The play is a powerful critique of how women’s sexuality was controlled by law, and hostility between women formed a barrier to emancipation.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

Year: 1941

winner y separately published work icon Quiet Night Dorothy Blewett , 1941 Sydney : RAAF Educational Services , 1943 Z561856 1941 single work drama

'Setting her action in a large hospital, Miss Blewett has undertaken no simple task in dealing with nursing from both its practical and psychological aspects, complicated in two cases by individual emotional strains. The play covers the hours of one hectic night in the hospital, in which the emotional preoccupations of several of the staff intrude on their professional duties' ('Australian Play' Argus 10 March 1941, 6).


Characters

SISTER MURPHY of the day staff at St. Agnes’

PROBATIONER

SISTER RANKIN (FRANCES)

NURSE RUTH SINCLAIR 3rd Year

NURSE JEAN SPARROW 1st Year

NURSE WILLIAMS 1st Year

NURSE PATSY CURTIN Junior

NURSE SMITH

NURSE ROBERTS

RUSSEL KEANE A Patient

DR. ANGUS MACREADY Resident Doctor at the Hospital

MRS. LEILA CLAYTON A patient

THE MATRON

DR. RICHARD CLAYTON

Year: 1940

winner y separately published work icon Penalty Clause Katharine Susannah Prichard , 1940 (Manuscript version)x401412 Z952200 1940 single work drama

Year: 1939

winner (Australia-wide play contest) Royal Mail Alexander Turner , 1944 single work drama
— Appears in: Royal Mail and Other Plays 1944; (p. 15-78)
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