Currency Press is a leading performing arts publisher and its oldest independent publisher still active. Their list includes plays and screenplays, professional handbooks, biographies, cultural histories, critical studies and reference works.

History

Currency Press was founded by

Katharine Brisbane Katharine Brisbane AM (born 1932) is an Australian journalist and publisher, well known for her writings as a theatre critic. Early life and education Katharine Brisbane was born in Singapore in 1932, to David Williams, a civil engineer, ...

, then national theatre critic for ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

'' newspaper, and her husband Philip Parsons, a lecturer in Drama at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

. After Philip's death in 1993, Katharine remained at the helm of the company until she retired as Publisher in December 2001 to devote her energies to Currency House, a non-profit association dedicated to the Australian performing arts. Currency press is currently run by her son Nicholas Parsons

Description

Currency Press is a leading Australian specialist performing arts publisher, and its oldest independent publisher still active. It is located in the

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

suburb of Redfern.

Awards

In 2011, Currency Press received the Dorothy Crawford Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession at the

AWGIE Awards The AWGIE Awards is an annual awards ceremony conducted by the Australian Writers' Guild, for excellence in screen, television, stage and radio writing. The awards began in 1967. The awards are judged by over 50 writers, most of whom are previo ...

Selected titles

Plays

* '' Away'' by Michael Gow (1986) – winner of the 1986

New South Wales Premier's Literary Award The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, t ...

– Play Award *''

Blackrock BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...

'' by Nick Enright – It's Toby Ackland's birthday party down near the surf club – and that means grog, drugs and fun; by the morning a young girl is dead – raped and bashed with a rock. Included by the

Australian Society of Authors The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) was formed in 1963 as the organisation to promote and protect the rights of Australia's authors and illustrators. The Fellowship of Australian Writers played a key role it its establishment. The organisati ...

in its list of Australia's 200 best literary works * ''

The Chapel Perilous ''The Chapel Perilous'', Dorothy Hewett's third full-length play, was written in 1970. The play is Expressionist in style, where the theatrical spectacle dominates the plot. It introduces Sally Banner, a picaresque heroine moving without succes ...

'' by

Dorothy Hewett Dorothy Coade Hewett (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed ...

– expressionist/epic drama. A defiant young poet engages in a quest for love and freedom, while oppressed by authority figures and disappointed by unsatisfactory lovers, ultimately finding only a limited fame. * '' Cloudstreet'' by Nick Enright & Justin Monjo (1999) – an adaptation of

Tim Winton Timothy John Winton (born 4 August 1960) is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the Miles Fr ...

's classic novel, and winner of the 1999 Gold AWGIE Award * '' The Club'' by

David Williamson David Keith Williamson AO (born 24 February 1942) is an Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays. Early life David Williamson was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 24 February 1942, and was brought ...

– a play set behind the scenes of a football club; a head-on tackle of brawn versus bureaucracy * '' Così'' by Louis Nowra – winner of the 1992 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award – Play Award * ''

Dead Heart ''Dead Heart'' is a 1996 Australian film. It was written and directed by Nick Parsons, and starred Bryan Brown, Angie Milliken, Ernie Dingo, Aaron Pedersen and John Jarratt. As a play, the piece was staged by Belvoir St Theatre, directed by ...

'' by Nick Parsons – winner of the 1994 Australian Human Rights Award, the 1993 NSW State Premier's Literary Award – Play Award and the 1993 AWGIE Award for Drama * ''

Diving for Pearls Diving for Pearls was an American melodic rock band founded in 1984 whose self-titled debut album was released in 1989. A follow-up album, ''Texas'', was issued in 2006 without much fanfare. The band takes its name from a line found in the 1983 E ...

'' by Katherine Thomson – winner of the 1991 Victorian Premier's Award – Louis Esson Prize for Drama * '' Don's Party'' by

– on the night of the 1969 election, guests drink heavily and snipe about their failed aspirations and the emptiness of their lives * '' The Ham Funeral'' by

Patrick White Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was a British-born Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987. White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, ...

(1948) – part lyric poem, part gothic drama, a dark and vulgar investigation of he human condition * ''

Holding the Man ''Holding the Man'' is a 1995 memoir by Australian writer, actor, and activist Timothy Conigrave. It tells of his 15-year love affair with John Caleo, which started when they met in the mid-1970s at Xavier College, an all-boys Jesuit Cathol ...

'' by Tommy Murphy (2007) – an adaptation of

Timothy Conigrave Tim Conigrave (19 November 1959 – 18 October 1994) was an Australian actor, activist and author of the internationally acclaimed memoir, ''Holding the Man.'' Education and career Conigrave was born in Melbourne, and attended the Jesuit-run Xav ...

's best-selling memoir * ''

Hotel Sorrento ''Hotel Sorrento'' is a 1995 Australian drama film directed by Richard Franklin. Three sisters reunite in the sleepy Australian town of Sorrento after a ten-year hiatus. One of the three has written a book called ''Melancholy'' which is a thin ...

'' by Hannie Rayson (1990) – winner of the 1990 AWGIE Award – Stage Award, 1990 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Drama and the 1990

Green Room Award The Green Room Awards are peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, drama, fringe theatre, musical theatre and opera in Melbourne. The awards were started in 1982 when Blair Edgar and Steven Tandy formed the Green Room Awards A ...

for Best Play. * ''Macquarie'' by

Alex Buzo Alexander John Buzo (23 July 194416 August 2006) was an Australian playwright and author who wrote 88 works. His literary works recorded Australian culture through wit, humour and extensive use of colloquial Australian English. Biography Ear ...

– traces the decline of Governor Lachlan Macquarie's authority in the infant colony of New South Wales; it was the first play published by Currency Press * The Man from Mukinupin by

(1978). Romantic romp through Dark and Light in a Western Australian wheatbelt town * '' No Sugar'' by Jack Davis – winner of the 1992

Kate Challis RAKA Award The Kate Challis RAKA Award is an arts award worth , awarded annually by the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia to Indigenous Australian creative artists. It is awarded in a five-year cycle, each year in a different area of the arts: ...

for Drama and the 1987 WA Premier's Book Awards – Special Award * '' Norm and Ahmed'' by Alex Buzo shows race prejudice as a profoundly irrational force in the behaviour of ordinary Australians * '' Out of the Ordinary'' by Alex Vickery-Howe * '' The Removalists'' by

– winner of the 1972 AWGIE Award – Best Stage Play and Best Script, as well as the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. Included by the

in its list of Australia's 200 best literary works * ''The Rivers of China'' by Alma De Groen (1987) – winner of the Premier's Award in both NSW and Victoria * '' The Season at Sarsaparilla'' by

– neighbours are held by their environment, waiting with determination, but little expectation, for the inevitable cycle of birth, copulation and death * ''Speaking in Tongues'' by Andrew Bovell (1996) – winner of the 1997 AWGIE Award – Stage Award; this is the play upon which ''

Lantana ''Lantana'' () is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in ...

'' was based * '' Stolen'' by Jane Harrison – this tender and moving story brought the tragic history of the Stolen Generations to the Australian stage; winner of the 2002 Kate Challis RAKA Award * '' Summer of the Seventeenth Doll'' by Ray Lawler (1955) – a defining moment in Australian theatre history, and a beacon in the Australian dramatic canon * '' The Time is Not Yet Ripe'' by

Louis Esson Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson (10 August 1878 – 27 November 1943) was an Australian poet, journalist, critic and playwright. He was a co-founder of the Pioneer Players. His second wife, Hilda Esson (nee Bull), had a career in theatre besides work ...

– a political comedy from 1912 in which the forces of socialism, feminism and conservatism fight out an election and an engagement to marry *''The Woman in the Window'' by Alma De Groen – supported by the Literature Board of the

Australia Council The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austr ...

and short-listed for the 1999 NSW Premier’s Award for Drama Seven of these plays have been included in the Australian Society of Authors' list of Australia's 200 best literary works.

Screenplays

* '' Blue Murder'' by Ian David – a powerful and frightening story about police corruption and Sydney's underworld * '' Chopper'' by Andrew Dominik – goes inside the mind of Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read, one of Australia's most notorious criminals * '' Muriel's Wedding'' by

P. J. Hogan Paul John "P. J." Hogan (born 30 November 1962) is an AACTA Award-winning Australian film director and writer. Early life Hogan was born in Brisbane, Queensland. As a teenager, he lived on the North Coast of New South Wales and attended Mt S ...

– Muriel, an unhappy young woman in dismal surroundings, sets out to overcome obstacles such as her family, her joblessness, and her obsession with 70s glam rockers ABBA * ''

Rabbit Proof Fence The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from t ...

'' by Christine Olsen – three Aboriginal girls are forcibly removed from their outback families in 1931 to be trained as domestic servants as part of official government policy * '' Strictly Ballroom'' by

Baz Luhrmann Mark Anthony Luhrmann (born 17 September 1962), known professionally as Baz Luhrmann, is an Australian film director, producer, writer and actor. With projects spanning film, television, opera, theatre, music and recording industries, he is re ...

and

Craig Pearce Craig Pearce is an Australian screenwriter and actor. Pearce's acting credits include a regular role in soap opera ''The Restless Years'' in 1981, guest roles in '' Bellamy'', '' E Street'' and '' G.P.'', and film roles in ''I Can't Get Started ...

– an exuberant story about the struggle for love and creativity in a world limited by greed and regulation

References

External links

*
Guide to the Records of Currency Press
National Library of Australia {{Authority control Arts in Australia Australian Plays Book publishing companies of Australia Performing Arts in Australia Theatre in Australia