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HANNIE RAYSON is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from La Trobe University, and is a Fellow of the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. Rayson was a cofounder of Theatreworks, and has served as writer-in-residence at the Mill Theatre, Playbox Theatre, La Trobe University, Monash University, VCA and New Writing North (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK).
Her plays have been performed extensively around Australia and several have been produced overseas. For Theatreworks she wrote Please Return to Sender (1980) and Mary (1981). Leave It Till Monday (1984) was first produced by the Mill Theatre. Room to Move (1985) won the Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE Award for Best Original Stage Play. Hotel Sorrento (Playbox / Theatreworks 1990) also won an AWGIE, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Green Room Award for Best Play. A feature film of Hotel Sorrento (1995) won two Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Screenplay. Falling from Grace (Playbox, 1994) won a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Age Performing Arts Award. Scenes From A Separation, co-written with Andrew Bovell, was produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company in 1985, the Sydney Theatre Company in 2004 and The Orange Tree Theatre UK in 2005. Her satire on the deregulation in local government, Competitive Tenderness, premiered at Playbox in 1996. Her examination of the corporatisation of universities, Life After George (2000) enjoyed separate productions by the Melbourne Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company. It was nominated for the NSW and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, and won a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the Green Room Award for Best New Australian Play, and two Helpmann Awards for the Best New Australian Work and for Best Play. It was also the first play ever to be nominated for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award. Life After George has also had major productions on the West End (2002), in Montreal (2003), Vienna and Frankfurt (2004) and The National Theatre of Slovenia (2004). Hannie’s rural saga Inheritance (MTC 2003) played in Melbourne and Sydney, winning the Helpmann Awards for Best Play and Best New Australian Work. Two Brothers (MTC/STC 2005) played to capacity houses at the Melbourne Arts Centre and the Sydney Opera House and then toured in NSW. Hannie’s most recent play, The Glass Soldier, premiered at the MTC in 2007
Rayson has also written for newspapers and magazines and in 1999 she won the Magazine Publishers’ Society of Australia Columnist of the Year Award for her column in HQ Magazine. Her television scripts include Sloth (ABC, Seven Deadly Sins) and she co-wrote two episodes of the award-winning series SeaChange (ABC/Artists Services).
Hannie is currently writing a feature film The Glass Soldier, based on her stage play, for Hot Road Productions
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