Playtime Winner Announcement
Gasworks Arts Park is thrilled to announce the winner of Playtime 2018. Playtime Staged Readings is an initiative presented by Gasworks Arts Park in partnership with Midsumma Festival. This development program aims to identify, support and develop new playwriting talent and get queer issues out there for mainstream audiences to consider and enjoy. The LGBTQIA+ community is diverse, exciting and full of stories and ideas that deserve to be heard on the stages of performing arts venues throughout the country.
Four applicants from across Victoria were selected to participate in the Playtime Staged Readings, which were held during this year’s Midsumma Festival. From these four works, one has been selected by an industry panel and audience feedback to go on to receive support and development to become a full scale work and be presented at Midsumma 2019.
The ultimate aim of Playtime is to tour the work nationally to expose it to a wide range of metropolitan, regional and rural audiences. We are delighted to announce that the selected work is Become The One by Adam Fawcett. From the showing and audience feedback on the night we are sure this work will be a successful fully staged production with the ability to generate significant conversation.
Winner Adam Fawecett reflects, “As a first-time playwright, the opportunity to connect with audiences passionate about queer themes was an incredible experience for me. Listening to their considered responses and hearing their supportive feedback has only strengthened my resolve to continue developing this work through to a presentation. To be able to do that with the support of the wonderful people at Gasworks Arts Park and Midsumma is the kind of opportunity you dream of as a playwright.”
Become the One is an intense look at the budding romance between a closed bisexual footballer and a young queer man, examining our toxic culture of masculinity and the circumstances from which it might be broken. A celebration of queerness, a celebration of difference, and an examination of what it takes to do the right thing – as a lover, as a high profile sports star, as a human being – to Become The One.
The teams from Gasworks Arts Park and Midsumma Festival will now work with Adam Fawcett to develop this timely piece of theatre into a full-scale work to be presented during Midsumma Festival in 2019.
