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Alma de Groen

ALMA DE GROEN

  (1941 - )
Nationality:    New Zealander
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

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.

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below is a list of Alma de Groen's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         After-Life Of Arthur Cravan, The         Available Light         Chidley         Girl Who Saw Everything, The         Going Home         Invisible Sun         Joss Adams Show, The         Perfectly All Right         Rivers Of China, The         Sweatproof Boy, The         Vocations         Wicked Sisters         Wildheart         Woman In the Window,the
After-Life Of Arthur Cravan, The

Synopsis:
the story of Arthur Craven - Oscar Wilde's nephew - poet and boxer

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Canberra, Canberra, ACT     04 Mar 1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  14            Female:  1            Other:  doubling possible

Further Reference:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.austlit.edu.au, http://www.austlit.edu.au >>>,

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Available Light

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

Notes:
can be played with Invisible Sun As single play

1st Produced:
Abc    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Published, 1993   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Radio Play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Chidley

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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Grant Street Theatre, Melbourne     1976

Organisations:
Melbourne Theatre Company

1st Published:
in "Theatre Australia", January, Sydney, 1977   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  1            Other:  doubling possible

Further Reference:
-

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Girl Who Saw Everything, The

Girl Who Saw Everything, The
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne     11 Nov 1991

Organisations:
Melbourne Theatre Company

1st Published:
Sydney : Currency Press, 1993   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Thriller

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Going Home

Going Home
Poignantly examines the domestic confusions of Australian artists abroad.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
St Martins Theatre, South Yarra, VIC     11 Mar 1976

Organisations:
Melbourne Theatre Company

1st Published:
in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Invisible Sun

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.

Notes:
can be played with Available Light As single play

1st Produced:
Upstairs Theatre, Townsville     1994

Organisations:
Belle Tournure Theatre Collective, Townsville

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Joss Adams Show, The

Joss Adams Show, The
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stratford Shakespearean Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario     1970

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Perfectly All Right

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.

Notes:
This is A one Act version of "the Sweatproof Boy"

1st Produced:
Sheridan Theatre, North Adelaide, SA     15 May 1973

Organisations:
Theatre Go Round

1st Published:
in "Going Home and other Plays", Currency Press, Sydney, 1977   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rivers Of China, The

Rivers Of China, The
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay, NSW     09 Sep 1987

Organisations:
Sydney Theatre Company

1st Published:
in Australian plays, Currency Press, Sydney   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Sweatproof Boy, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Nimrod Street Theatre, Darlinghurst, NSW     1972

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
John McCallum, Belonging, Currency Press, Sydney, 2009   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
3 acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.austlit.edu.au, http://www.austlit.edu.au >>>, 1968

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Vocations

Vocations
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Australian National University, Acton, ACT     May 1981

Organisations:
National Playwrights Conference

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney, 1983   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
comedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Wicked Sisters

Wicked Sisters
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stables Theatre, Darlinghurst, NSW     11 Apr 2002

Organisations:
Griffin Theatre Company,

1st Published:
Currency Press, Australia, Dec 2003   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Full-Length 100 mins Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  4            Other:  (in their mid-fifties)

Further Reference:
-

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Wildheart

Synopsis:
This exploration and contrast of animal and human behaviour...Wildheart is a physical explosion of passion and drama.

Notes:
Composer: Ken Francis. Dvised by Alma De Groen and Nigel Jamieson

1st Produced:
Wharf 2 Theatre, Walsh Bay, NSW     06 Dec 1994

Organisations:
Legs On the Wall

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Woman In the Window,the

Woman In the Window,the
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Fairfax Studio, Melbourne, VIC     20 Feb 1998

Organisations:
Melbourne Theatre Company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Australia, July 1999   

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
2 acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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