Kit Lazaroo wins Wal Cherry Play of the Year
19 April 2006
Kit Lazaroo, has won the Wal Cherry Play of the Year 2005 for her deeply personal play Asylum.
Lally Black is a psychiatrist who struggles to keep the lid on her own self doubt and worries about her lack of compassion. Her efforts double when Yu Siying enters her office, deftly searching for a way in to Lally’s heart. It is 1993 and the four year protection visa bestowed upon Chinese students by the Australian government is soon to expire. Afraid of China’s judgment, Siying who has contracted HIV whilst in Australia, has one last chance to claim asylum, and believes Lally is the key to her appeal.
The work of Kit and her collaborator, director Jane Woollard, has been described by Liz Jones of La Mama as “having an almost magical quality”. This is evident in Asylum, with the play’s already powerful premise further enhanced by the use of puppet theatre to represent Lally’s innermost thoughts.
Kit Lazaroo is an established playwright with acclaimed work including True Adventures of a Soul Lost at Sea, Hospital of the Lost Coin, Vanishing Box, and Letters from Animals.
Of the award Kit says “I'm still coming to terms with what a great opportunity this is. The encouragement is wonderful. I've been on a long and sometimes arduous road with this play. I probably would have given up on it if it weren't for my collaboration with Jane and the promise I made 12 years ago to the woman whose story it is based on, that I would write a play about her.
"Receiving this kind of acknowledgement from the theatre community and being able to put on a well resourced reading helps me feel that I've kept that promise. It's so hard to get work out there to the audience and it's a real lift for me to know that there's hope for this story to have some life.”
Asylum underwent a workshop and reading in 2002, supported by Playworks and the Sidney Myer Fund.
The Arts Centre introduced the Wal Cherry Play of the Year in 1989 to honour the achievements of the acclaimed director and theatre administrator, Wal Cherry, who died in 1986. The award is one of the most prestigious in playwriting, with the winner receiving $5,000 and the exposure of this event from the Arts Centre.
A measure of the success of “The Wal Cherry” is that the last four winners, Ben Ellis (Falling Petals), Anthony Crowley (The Frail Man), Patricia Cornelius (Love) and Gareth Ellis (A View Of Concrete) have all been produced with The Frail Man recently performed in New York. La Mama who submitted Asylum for 2005 have already confirmed that they will produce the play in 2007.
More Information
Asylum - a free rehearsed reading
Sunday June 18
2pm
Fairfax Studio, the Arts Centre
Website: http://www.theartscentre.net.au
