From a pool of 92 entries for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award 2018-19 (QPDA), Brisbane writer David Megarrity has won with his tender and lyrical family-oriented play, The Holidays.
Megarrity’s work was selected ahead of fellow finalists Hannah Belanszky for don’t ask what the bird look like and Anna Yen’s Slow Boat. Delivered through Queensland Theatre, the QPDA is a prestigious and important award for Australian theatre that guarantees the winning entry a professional production.
The Holidays introduces us to 12 year old Oliver Holiday and his parents who are on their way to his grandfather’s beachside cottage. However, as more clouds loom, it appears that the holidays, instead of getting away from it all, have taken on a burden – or a legacy – they are unsure how to manage. Queensland Theatre Artistic Director Sam Strong, on the judging panel of the awards, describes the play as disarming meditation or mortality, and father-son relationships. “It’s a delicious combination of high-tech ambition and low-fi theatricality,” said Sam. “David’s unique imagination and command of all of the elements of storytelling will create a deeply affecting sensory experience for audiences when we bring it to the stage.
“The QPDA sits at the centre of Queensland Theatre’s ambition to lead from Queensland in the nurturing of new stories and new talent. This cycle of the award featured a wonderfully diverse range of works from writers from all around the country, including an all-Queensland shortlist of an impressively crafted debut play from Hannah Belanszky, and an epic multi-disciplinary historical story from Anna Yen. Congratulations to all the artists who contributed to and worked on the award. We’re also thrilled to announce that to even better reflect the importance of new stories to Queensland Theatre, we will be presenting a full production of The Holidays as part of our 50th Anniversary season in 2020.”
David Megarrity, who was also a finalist the 2012-13 cycle of the QPDA is an experienced theatre practitioner, writer, composer, musician and academic. Describing his winning play, Megarrity said, “this visual theatre piece combines live performers, projection, audience participation and music to explore the impact of dementia, as experienced by one family, focusing on the connections between son, father and grandfather – told through the eyes of a young person.”
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