Who's Afraid of the Working Class?

Five plays are intertwined in one in this story of fringe dwellers living in an age of social, economic and moral deprivation. Mostly without work, and politically disengaged, they work at survival.

'With intelligence, well-judged humour and the searching qualities of truly memorable theatre, the play peels away political propaganda and notions of correctness to present a candid, difficult, searing portrait of the poor and marginalised.' - Sydney Morning Herald

Who's Afraid of the Working Class? was adapted into the feature film Blessed.

Andrew Bovell is a critically acclaimed Australian playwright and screenwriter.

His theatre credits include Things I Know To Be True (Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia, 2016); The Secret River (Sydney Theatre Company, 2013 Sydney Festival and 2016 national tour, winner of six Helpmann Awards including Best Play, as well as Best New Work Sydney Theatre Awards); When the Rain Stops Falling (Brink Production/State Theatre Company, 2008 Adelaide Festival, Almeida Theatre, Lincoln Centre NYC, winner of five Lucille Lortell Awards). Earlier works include Speaking in Tongues and Holy Day.

Film credits include Strictly Ballroom, A Most Wanted Man, Edge of Darkness, Blessed, Lantana, and Head On.

Author photo by Stephen Butler

PATRICIA CORNELIUS is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Cornelius' play Shit was presented at the 2017 Sydney Festival, following its 2015 Melbourne premiere as part of MTC's Neon Season and its 2016 remount at 45Downstairs. Her play Savages won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Drama in 2014 and the Green Room Award for Writing and was nominated for an AWGIE and the Griffin Prize. Over her career Cornelius has written over 25 plays, including: Big Heart, Do Not Go Gentle, The Call, Love, Fever, Boy Overboard, Slut and Who's Afraid of the Working Class? (co-written with Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves and Irine Vela). Her prizes for stage work include the 2011 Victorian and NSW Premiers' Literary Awards, the Patrick White Playwright's Award, the Richard Wherrett Prize, the Wal Cherry Award and nine AWGIE Awards for stage, community theatre, and theatre for young people. She won the prestigious Australian Writers' Foundation Playwriting Award in 2015 as well as the Patrick White Fellowship (2012), and a Fellowship from the Australia Council's Theatre Board. Cornelius has won the AWGIE Major Award three times. Cornelius is a founding member of Melbourne Workers' Theatre. Cornelius co-wrote the feature film adaptation Blessed, based on the play Who's Afraid of the Working Class? (for which she won an AWGIE Award) and she is developing a feature film with director Catriona McKenzie with Screen Australia funding. Cornelius wrote the novel My Sister Jill (Random House) and many of her plays are published by Currency Press. In February 2018, Corenlius'  play In the Club  premiered at the State Theatre Company of South Australia, and in May, her The House of Benarda Alba adaptation premiered at the Melbourne Theatre Company.

MELISSA REEVES began her career in the theatre as an actor and circus performer. She did a writing apprenticeship of sorts with the Red Shed Company in Adelaide, before moving to Melbourne and working extensively with Melbourne Workers Theatre. Since then she has had plays produced by all the major Australian theatre companies, as well as many smaller independent theatres. Her plays include In Cahoots, Sweetown, Storming Heaven, Road Movie, Tough Girls, The Spook, Furious Mattress, and Happy Ending. She has co-written a number of plays including Caravan (with Angus Cerini, Patricia Cornelius, and Wayne Macauley) Magpie, (with Richard Frankland) and Who's Afraid of the Working Class? and Fever (both with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas, composer Irine Vela). She has won four Premier's Literary Awards, numerous AWGIE Awards, the Rodney Seaborn Award, and an Australia Council Fellowship. Melissa also co-wrote the award winning screenplay for the film Blessed, based on Who's Afraid of the Working Class?

CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS is the author of five novels: Loaded (adapted into the feature film Head-On), The Jesus Man, Dead Europe (winner of the Age Fiction Prize and the Melbourne Best Writing Award), The Slap (winner of Australian Literary Society Gold Medal, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and ABIA Book of the Year; shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award; longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and Barracuda (adapted into an ABC miniseries). He is also a playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He lives in Melbourne.

IRINE VELA has worked as a composer on dozens of music theatre productions with companies such as the Melbourne Workers Theatre, Playbox, Canto Coro, IRAA, Arena, the Victorian College of the Arts, Deckchair Theatre and Circus Oz. Some of her credits include The Ballad of Lois Ryan, Opa-A Sexual Odyssey, Black Cargo and Kate 'N' Shiner. She is a founding member of the Greek-Australian music group the haBiBis.