David Williamson Prize-supported play Starweaver opens in Adelaide

25 June, 2024

The Australian Writers’ Guild is delighted that Madness of Two’s latest production, Starweaver, opens this evening in Adelaide, running until Saturday 6 July as part of the 2024 Stateside Season of State Theatre Company South Australia.

Starweaver is a gritty and gripping new science-fiction story live on stage, created and written by the award-winning theatre makers at Madness of Two, Jamie Hornsby and Ellen Graham. 

"Starweaver is a massive labour of love. We’re both unapologetic science-fiction nerds and we’re incredibly excited to bring the genre to the stage. We’re working with an amazing team to bring this play to life, and we’re so grateful for the AWG’s support through the David Williamson prize – it’s a huge, career-defining milestone for us as emerging artists," said playwright Jamie Hornsby.

The play was developed and produced with the assistance of the Australian Writers’ Guild’s David Williamson Prize, following Madness of Two’s win in 2021 for Claire Della and the Moon. Presented since 2013, the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre has been made possible by the generous donation of David and Kristin Williamson and Shane and Cathryn Brennan.

The prize is awarded by the Australian Writers’ Guild each year to the most outstanding script selected from the winners of each of the theatre categories at the AWGIE Awards. The express purpose of the fund is to encourage theatre companies to commission, develop and program a new Australian work.

Previous recipients of the prize include Alana Valentine for Grounded (2013), Andrew Bovell for The Secret River (2014), Finegan Kruckemeyer for The Boy at the Edge of Everything (2015), Angus Cerini for The Bleeding Tree (2016), Leah Purcell for The Drover’s Wife (2017), P.J. Hogan with Kate Miller-Heidke & Keir Nuttall for Muriel’s Wedding the Musical (2018), Kate Mulvany for The Harp in the South (2019), Suzie Miller for Prima Facie (2020), Ellen Graham and Jamie Hornsby for Claire Della and the Moon (2021), Maxine Mellor for Horizon (2022), and Dylan Van Den Berg for Whitefella Yella Tree (2023). 

STARWEAVER
It’s 2149. The night sky has been fully privatised, and the only people who can see the stars are those who can pay for it. Following Cato, an A.I. engineer turned revolutionary, Starweaver grapples with the difficulties of overthrowing an unfair system and the thorny moral dilemmas of direct political action, diving headfirst into a world of unfettered capitalism, revolution, entropy, memory, chaos and, ultimately, hope.

Crafted with a cutting-edge blend of CGI, motion capture and videogame technology, Starweaver promises to be an urgent and unforgettable science fiction epic unlike anything else on a South Australian stage.

Starweaver opens Wednesday 26 June and runs until Saturday 6 July. Tickets are on sale via Madness of Two.

Starweaver is presented as part of the 2024 Stateside Season of State Theatre Company South Australia. It was developed and produced with the assistance of the Australian Writers’ Guild’s David Williamson Prize, and was initially developed as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s inSPACE Development Program. Starweaver is supported by Arts South Australia, Creative Australia’s MATCH Lab program, and by Jopuka Productions.