Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘Fox Hunt’ by Rebecca Duke
In 1999, Anna’s fox sighting sparked a $50 million eradication effort in Tasmania, yet no fox was ever found. Decades later, her son is implicated in an accusation of sexual violence. As public sympathy swings his way, Anna questions her memories, her motherhood, and what it means to be believed.
Rebecca Duke is an emerging writer and 2024 graduate of NIDA’s MFA in Writing for Performance. She is currently developing ‘Fox Hunt’, a play set against the backdrop of recent Tasmanian history that examines international discourse around the politics of accusation. As a former Political Reporter in the federal parliament press gallery, Rebecca’s dramatic writing often interrogates questions of contemporary cultural and political life.
Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘The Day Of The Lord’ by Philip Enchelmaier
On the night of the Federal election, a young conservative Christian couple debate whether to terminate an unplanned pregnancy.
Philip Enchelmaier is a screenwriter and playwright. He co-created and co-wrote the International Emmy Award winning miniseries SAFE HARBOUR, was co-creator and lead writer of the Audible drama SUNSHADOW, and has worked in the Australian screen industry for the past eleven years. As a playwright, he has been longlisted for the Griffin Award (The Second Coming, 2024) and has had a play workshopped with Sport for Jove (Eternal Night With Jeronimus, 2016).
Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘How These Things Go’ by Thea Jade
Some lies we tell children to protect them. Some are because we can’t face the truth ourselves. And some are simply to keep the Magic alive.
How These Things Go delves into the silent corners of the justice system, where in a remote witness room a young witness and her Court Bailiff wait to be live-streamed into the courtroom. Over a year, marked by the volatile seasons of Australia’s capital, the girl demands answers from her Bailiff that others refuse to give her, and their unlikely friendship is tested.
Thea Jade is an emerging writer hailing from Ngunnawal Land / Canberra. She is currently studying for a Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing at NIDA, where she is the recipient of the Prime Video Scholarship.
Her work has been shortlisted for The Griffin Award, Rodney Seabourn Award, and the Emerging Playwright Commission.
A proud disabled artist, In 2025, her play manic pixie meltdown, had a sold-out season through Shopfront’s ArtsLab Residency, where she facilitated an all-neurodivergent cast and creative team.
Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘Dirty Diamonds’ by Abbie-Lee Lewis
Inspired by the true events of the Argyle Diamond Heist, Dirty Diamonds is an aboriginal Thelma and Louise meets Quintin Tarantino play that takes place along the Western Australian Landscape. Two unlikely friends Sam, a young Noongar woman and Emma, a young Kalkadoon woman, stumble across a bag of stolen argyle diamonds whilst on the run from the police. Suspected of murdering Sam’s Bikie Boyfriend, they endeavour to prove their innocence by returning to country the one thing that makes them look extremely guilty: the diamonds. Their road trip takes them from Perth to Kununurra. Along the way friendships are made and secrets are revealed. Sam and Emma, along with Emma’s cousin J.R. realise that to survive in this country, they need more than resilience. They need each other.
Abbie-lee Lewis is a Kalkadoon woman who grew up in Western Australia. Abbie was the 2022 the recipient of Belvoir biannual Andrew Cameron Fellowship.
Directing credits: For Mooghalin Performing Arts: Cutter and Coot. 2022. For Belvoir's 25a An ox stand on my tongue by Jane Montgetry Griffiths. The Sydney Theatre Award winning Sapling's written by Hannah Belanszky for ATYP. As Assistant Director: For ATYP: Charlie Pilgrim (or a Beginner’s Guide to Time Travel) 2018; for Bell Shakespeare: Hamlet 2020 and Macbeth 2023. For Belvoir: At What Cost 2022, Wayside Bride and Lights Shining in Buckinghamshire 2022,The Weekend 2023 Big Girls Don’t Cry Belvoir 2025.
As an Actor: For Bell Shakespeare: The Players, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ensemble in Macbeth. For Sport for Jove Theatre Co: Martha in Fallen. For Black Swan Theatre Company: Emily in Our Town; for Blue Room Theatre: IDA in The Bleeding Tree. For Belvoir: Counting and Cracking Sydney and Melbourne Season and the New York International tour. For Australian Dance Theatre And Illbidjiri: Tracker.
Screen: For Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Blak Comedy. Season 4. Qualifications: Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts: Aboriginal Theatre Course, Bachelor of Arts (Acting).
Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘If I Can’t Have You Broken’ by Daniel Nellor
A decorated soldier, David has kept his past on the battlefield where it belongs. Can he do so forever? Two people enter his life: a new lover, and a boy from his past. If I Can’t Have You Broken is about the ramifications of crimes in war and at home.
Daniel Nellor is a writer who has worked in politics, business, academia, human rights and homelessness. His plays Distance, The Will, and Ignis have been performed around Melbourne. He has written and co-written several books, including What Are They Thinking? Conversations With Australian Philosophers.
Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award Finalist
‘The Flood’ by Dylan Van Den Berg
When 15-year-old Kirra follows her gut onto Country she’s only heard about, she’s determined to save her sister from the mysterious illness affecting many in the dusty, dry town of Promise. Unwillingly paired with the disillusioned Jesse, the two traverse sink-holes, robot birds and violent townsfolk before stumbling on a secret that could change everything.
Dylan Van Den Berg is a Palawa playwright originally from the northeast of Tasmania. His plays have been presented by the Sydney Theatre Company, Griffin Theatre Company, and The Street Theatre. For his work, Dylan has received three Australian Writers’ Guild Awards (AWGIES), including the David Williamson Prize, and he was a finalist for the UK’s Bruntwood International Playwriting Award. He is currently completing a PhD in Aboriginal Gothic theatre at the University of Canberra.
Co-Artistic & Executive Directors Mark Barford & Connor Delves today announce six finalists for the Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award.
The award is generously sponsored by Shane & Cathryn Brennan.
The 2025 New Play Award Finalists are (in alphabetical order):
‘Fox Hunt’ by Rebecca Duke
‘The Day Of The Lord’ by Philip Enchelmaier
‘How These Things Go’ by Thea Jade
‘Dirty Diamonds’ by Abbie-Lee Lewis
‘If I Can’t Have You Broken’ by Daniel Nellor
‘The Flood’ by Dylan Van Den Berg
"Six finalists for the sixth year of the New Play Award. We saw a record number of entries for this year's award, coming to us from Australians all over the world. We were thoroughly impressed by the quality and diversity of the work we received, and thank all of the artists who shared their work with us. This year's finalists represent exciting, new and bold Australian stories and we are thrilled to acknowledge their achievements. The New Play Award was created to help realize the Australian Theatre Festival's mission of celebrating and showcasing Australian writing and theatre artists in New York City. We are deeply grateful to our New Play Award sponsors, Shane and Cathryn Brennan, for their continued support of the program." - expressed Barford & Delves
Now in its sixth year, the Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2025 New Play Award will celebrate two new plays or musicals with distinct Australian voices. The New Play Award is generously sponsored by Shane & Cathryn Brennan.
The award offers a total cash prize of $20,000 USD for two unproduced, full-length plays or musicals written by Australian writers, over the age of 18.
This year’s award winner will receive a cash prize of $15,000 USD, development work with Co-Artistic Director Mark Barford and be presented as a staged reading as part of the Australian Theatre Festival NYC (conditional upon ability to appropriately cast NY based Australian actors.) This year’s award runner-up will receive $5,000 USD.
New Play Award alumni include 2021 winner Lewis Treston’s ‘Hubris & Humiliation’, which has since received a production at the Sydney Theatre Company, receiving stellar reviews and lauded as ‘startlingly good’ (The Guardian, 5 stars) and 2022 winner Melissa-Kelly Franklin’s ‘Paradise Lost’ which recently won the 2024 Jill Blewett Playwright's Award (South Australian Literary Awards).
The Winner & Runner-Up will be announced Monday May 19th 2025 (NYC, EST).