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ALMA DE GROEN (1941 - ) |
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Nationality: New Zealander Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: RGM Artist Group |
Alma De Groen was born in New Zealand in 1941 and moved to Australia at the age of twenty-four. De Groen is the author of many plays, of which The Rivers of China is probably the best known. It won the Premier's Literary Award for Drama in both New South Wales and Victoria. In 1998 De Groen became the first playwright to receive the Patrick White Literary Award for her contribution to Australian theatre. Other plays published by Currency are The Girl Who Saw Everything, Going Home, The Joss Adams Show, Vocations, Wicked Sisters and The Woman in the Window.
Plays by Alma de Groen
After-Life Of Arthur Cravan, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Jane Street Theatre, Sydney | 1973 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9115 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 14 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | doubling possible | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The story of Arthur Craven - Oscar Wilde's nephew - poet and boxer | |||||
Further Reference: | Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.austlit.edu.au >>>, | |||||
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Available Light | ||
| 1st Produced: | ABC | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Published, 1993 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9116 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Radio Play | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | can be played with Invisible Sun as single play | |||||
Synopsis: | Rose's daughter Mary speaks from within a nursing home for the mentally ill. Whilst in Egypt, she entered a tomb that had not been opened in 4000 years and had an experience she can't rationally explain. Believing that her art can pass beyond the reality observed with the human eye, Rose hits the wall - literally - in her photography, and begins to question her entire existence | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Chidley | ||
| 1st Produced: | Grant Street Theatre, Melbourne | 1976 | ||||
Company: | Melbourne Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Theatre Australia", January, Sydney, 1977 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9117 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | doubling possible | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Examines the life of Australia's tragic eccentric William James Chidley and his attempts to reform Australian dress, diet, lifestyle and attitudes to sexual intercourse. Considered deranged because he refused to stop publishing and preaching his ideas on sexual practices and other matters relating to health, he was incarcerated in Callan Park where he committed suicide in 1916 at the age of fifty-six. Chidley's vision rises above his flawed theories. He is gifted with moments of metaphysical perception in which he seems to transcend the material world, and these glimpses of something beyond ordinary reality mean everything to him. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Girl Who Saw Everything, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne | 1991 | ||||
Company: | Melbourne Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | Sydney : Currency Press, 1993 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9118 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Thriller | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Liz Ransom, a forty-seven year old feminist historian, publishes a controversial social history of women which attributes their suppression to biological determinism. Trying to escape the furore she has created, Liz retreats to a cottage in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Her husband Gaz, driving to join her, stops to help a terrified young woman by the roadside and is horrified when she is suddenly run down by another car. The girl had been multiply raped. Gaz becomes obsessed with her, and is shocked by his own behaviour when he develops a relationship with Carol, the driver of the car that killed the Girl. The predicaments of Liz and Gaz are contrasted with the opportunistic philosophies of their artist friend Saul, and the unexpected wisdom of his flippant young partner, Edwina. The foundering marriage of Liz and Gaz reaches a reconciliation.perhaps under the steady gaze of the dead Girl, who Carol and Gaz believe is watching everything that happens. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Going Home | ||
| 1st Produced: | St Martin's Theatre, Melbourne | 1976 | ||||
Company: | Melbourne Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9119 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Poignantly examines the domestic confusions of Australian artists abroad. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Invisible Sun | ||
| 1st Produced: | Upstairs Theatre, Townsville | 1994 | ||||
Company: | Belle Tournure Theatre Collective, Townsville | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9120 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | can be played with Available Light as single play | |||||
Synopsis: | Rose Shelley has fallen into a pit of total meaning after hailing a taxi on a rainy night and coming in contact with a new age cult. She explains to a dismayed audience of academics at a literary lunch that now that she has the dazzling benefits of "Spontaneous Divination" to explain the tragedies of the world around her, she is no longer a poet. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Joss Adams Show, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Stratford Shakespearean Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario | 1970 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9121 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| The bicentennial celebrations in 1970 of the arrival of Captain James Cook aroused a new interest in Australia's history and culture. The plays in this volume were landmarks in the development of a rough new all-Australian theatre which celebrated the rude colour of Australian language and mores. It was a period of comedy and satire; but as these plays show, beneath the larrikinism was a sharp social criticism at work which saw ordinary people living alienated, exploitative and largely unexamined lives. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Perfectly All Right | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sheridan Theatre, Adelaide | 1973 | ||||
Company: | Theatre Go Round | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9122 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This is a one act version of "The Sweatproof Boy" | |||||
Synopsis: | A one-act play imaging the frustration of Viv, a housewife whose life is limited to domestic activities and who tries to make her life meaningful by constantly rearranging the furniture in an obsessive-compulsive manner. The arrival of a young visitor, Len, provokes a crisis.Influenced by Pop Art, minimalism and Claes Oldenberg's ideas of giving equal weight to people and objects in a theatrical performance. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Rivers Of China, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Wharf Theatre, Sydney | 1987 | ||||
Company: | Sydney Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | in Australian plays, Currency Press, Sydney | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1-85459-056-5 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9123 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | doubling | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| In the early 1920's, the writer Katherine Mansfield (Prelude, Bliss, The Garden Party) travelled to the compound of Guru G. I. Gurdjieff at Fontainebleu in France, hoping that he might "cure her soul" before she died of Tuberculosis. In present day Sydney, a young man awakes in a hospital to find a dystopic world dominated by women. As each protagonist struggles to discover their true identity, the stories interweave in an unconventionally structured narrative. The play uses carefully plotted juxtapositions to depict a lone woman's spiritual journey through psychological territory that (traditionally) is only confronted with a male guide. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Sweatproof Boy, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Nimrod Theatre, Sydney | 1972 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9124 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 3 acts Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.austlit.edu.au >>>, 1968 | |||||
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Vocations | ||
| 1st Produced: | Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne | 1982 | ||||
Company: | Melbourne Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney, 1983 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9125 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | doubling | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| A comedy of coupledom in which two talented women - Vicki, an actress, and Joy, a writer - seesaw between professional achievement and domestic conditioning as their men, in two very different ways, compete for newly assigned domestic roles. Challenges the notion that there are some vocations appropriate to one gender and not to another, and explores issues such as marriage and dependency, child-bearing and parenting, belief and integrity in one's vocation, the relationship between life and art, the silencing and suppression of women, and nuclear and other environmental threats to the planet. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Wicked Sisters | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Australia, Dec 2003 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-0868197227 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9126 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Full-Length 100 mins Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | (in their mid-fifties) | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| The latest comedy/drama from eminent Australian playwright Alma De Groen brings together Meridee, Judith, Lydia and Hester; four old friends reunited at Meridee's house in the Blue Mountains after the death of her genius husband Alec. The "fifty-something" women discuss the paths their lives have taken; divorces, lovers, dementia. . . Meridee describes Alec's inexorable descent into Alzheimer's disease, and confronts her friends with the astonishing secrets Alec divulged in his decline. Wicked Sisters explores the harsh realities of relationships, and the strengths and weaknesses of four wise (but vulnerable) mature women. This is a witty and honest play with female characters in their fifties, which flirts with but defies stereotypes, and is filled with delicious revelations. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Woman In The Window,The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Australia, July 1999 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-0868195933 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #9127 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 2 Acts Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| In Stalin's Russia, the great poet Anna Ahkmatova is forbidden to write. Her work is memorised by women friends who for thirty years have risked their lives to preserve her words. In a future, sterile world, where individual creativity is not seen as economically viable, the poetry archives are seldom accessed any more and are about to be switched off. Rachel, a young Australian woman searching for what is missing in her life, risks her own safety to rescue poetry for future generations. The play's premise is that when nature as we know it vanishes, then art and creativity will vanish with it. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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