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 ''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 gatewat ...

'' 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 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 Away may refer to: Film and television * ''Away'' (2016 film), a 2016 British film * ''Away'' (2019 film), a 2019 animated silent film * ''Away'' (TV series), a 2020 science fiction drama on Netflix Literature * ''Away'' (play), a 1986 play by M ...

'' by Michael Gow (1986) – winner of the 1986 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award – 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 tri ...

'' 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 ''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 ''Cloudstreet'' is a novel by Australian writer Tim Winton published in 1991. It chronicles the lives of two working-class families, the Pickles and the Lambs, who come to live together in a large house called Cloudstreet in Perth, Western Aust ...

'' 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 Mile ...

'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 up ...

– a play set behind the scenes of a football club; a head-on tackle of brawn versus bureaucracy * ''

Così ''Così'' is a play by Australian playwright Louis Nowra which was first performed in 1992 at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Set in a Melbourne mental hospital in 1971, ''Così'' is semi-autobiographical, and is the sequel to his pr ...

'' by

Louis Nowra Mark Doyle, better known by his stage name Louis Nowra, (born 12 December 1950) is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist. He is best known as one of Australia's leading playwrights. His works have been performed by all o ...

– 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

– 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'' by Tommy Murphy (2007) – an adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's best-selling memoir * '' Hotel Sorrento'' by

Hannie Rayson Hannie Rayson (born 1957) is an Australian playwright and newspaper columnist. She is recognised as one of Australia's most significant playwrights. Biography Rayson was born in Melbourne, Victoria and graduated from the University of Melbourn ...

(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 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 Ea ...

– 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 ''The Man from Mukinupin'' is a musical play by Dorothy Hewett. It was commissioned in 1978 to mark Western Australia's sesquicentenary, and is her most popular and successful play. It is a romantic comedy in two acts covering the periods 1912 to ...

(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 ''Norm and Ahmed'' is a 1968 Australian play by Alex Buzo. Plot A middle aged war veteran, Norm, has an encounter with a Pakistani student Ahmed, at a bus stop one night Censorship controversy The play script originally ended with the line "fucki ...

'' 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 ''The Removalists'' is a play written by Australian playwright David Williamson in 1971. The main issues the play addresses are violence, specifically domestic violence, and the abuse of power and authority. The story is supposed to be a microco ...

'' 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 Australian Society of Authors in its list of Australia's 200 best literary works * ''The Rivers of China'' by

Alma De Groen Alma De Groen is an Australian feminist playwright, born in New Zealand on 5 September 1941. Biography Alma Margaret Mathers, born in Manawatu, grew up in Mangakino, a small township founded to serve a hydro-electric power station in the North ...

(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 ...

'' 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

– 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 – 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 th ...

'' 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 ''Strictly Ballroom'' is a 1992 Australian romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Baz Luhrmann in his feature directorial debut. The film is the first in his " Red Curtain Trilogy" of theatre-motif-related films; it was followed by 199 ...

'' 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 – 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