Currency Press

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, then national theatre critic for ''The Australian'' newspaper, and her husband Philip Parsons, a lecturer in Drama at the University of New South Wales. 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 suburb of Redfern.

Awards

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

Selected titles

Plays

* '' Away'' by Michael Gow (1986) – winner of the 1986 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award – Play Award
*''Blackrock'' 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 in its list of Australia's 200 best literary works
* '' The Chapel Perilous'' by Dorothy Hewett – 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's classic novel, and winner of the 1999 Gold AWGIE Award
* '' The Club'' by David Williamson – 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'' 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'' by Katherine Thomson – winner of the 1991 Victorian Premier's Award – Louis Esson Prize for Drama
* '' Don's Party'' by David Williamson – 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 (1948) – part lyric poem, part gothic drama, a dark and vulgar investigation of the human condition
* '' Holding the Man'' by Tommy Murphy (2007) – an adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's best-selling memoir
* '' Hotel Sorrento'' 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 for Best Play.
* ''Macquarie'' by Alex Buzo – 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 Dorothy Hewett (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 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 David Williamson – 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 Australian Society of Authors 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 Patrick White – 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'' 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 – 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 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 – 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'' 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 and Craig Pearce – 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 of Australia