Alana Valentine

Alana Valentine's writing has been nominated for a NSW Premier's Literary Award and a prestigious three Helpmann Awards, including best New Australian Work and Best Play, for Parramatta Girls Most recently her play about Afghan Muslim women Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah was honoured with a 2009 Sydney Theatre Awards nomination in the best Independent Production category and her play The Modest Aussie Cozzie based on the life of burquini creator Aheda Zanetti was part of the Riverview Cultural Festival in 2009.

She is the recipient of the 2004 QLD Premier’s Award for best Drama Script, 2003 NSW Writer’s Fellowship, the 2002 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights’ Award, and a International Writing Fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. She has also received two AWGIE awards, a Victorian Green Room Award nomination, a 2001 commendation for the Louis Esson Prize, a residency at the Banff Playwrights’ Conference in Canada, the ANPC/New Dramatists Award in NYC, a Churchill Fellowship for England and Ireland and a NSW Premier’s Award.

Her stage plays include The Modest Aussie Cozzie (St Ignatius’ College, Riverview), Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah (Alex Buzo Theatre Company), Ratticus and Reidar (Hyde Park Barracks), Eyes to the Floor (Outback Theatre for Young People), Parramatta Girls (Company B, Belvoir St Theatre), Singing the Lonely Heart (New Theatre),Love Potions (New Theatre), Butterfly Dandy (Women on a Shoestring), Covenant (Powerhouse Youth Theatre), The Prospectors (Monkeybaa/STC, ANMM), Run Rabbit Run, (Company B, Belvoir St Theatre) Titania’s Boy (Riverina Theatre Company, Wagga Wagga and Griffith), Savage Grace(Steamworks/La Mama, Performing Lines, Subiaco Arts Centre, Blue Room, Religion, Literature and Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival Centre) Row of Tents (New York Fringe Festival 2001), The Conjurers (Playbox, La Boite), Ozone (Brisbane Festival), Spool Time (Vitalstatistix) and Swimming the Globe (Freewheels, Northern NSW Tour, Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival, Malaysia).

Alana has written numerous award winning radio plays as well as episodes of the television series McLeod’s Daughters. Her short films include Mother Love(for SBS Television) and Reef Dreaming (for installation on a waterscreen in Darling Harbour). In 2001 Alana was the recipient of a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies (with Merit) from the University of Sydney and has created Museum Theatre works for the Museum of Sydney, Australian National Maritime Museum, Australian War Memorial, Sydney Jewish Museum, Hyde Park Barracks Museum, and Sydney Observatory.