Staging Asylum (Paperback)

Asylum seekers and refugees are at the vanguard of some of today's most pressing international challenges, their perilous journeys mapping the borderlines of a world in which the right to enter and remain in safe and secure living spaces is zealously guarded. This timely collection is the first of its kind, bringing together a selection of contemporary plays on the issue of asylum written by Australians and by refugees. The collection includes a 'mock verbatim' drama produced in response to the 2001 'Children Overboard' scandal; an impassioned autobiographical account of a long journey from Iraq to Australia; a solo piece about a hunger strike in a detention centre; and a sharp political satire set in an Australian suburban living room.

VERSION 1.0 is a Sydney-based group of artists who make devised performances that are both political and intensely personal, based on strong research, and that engage with significant political and social issues using innovative theatrical strategies. version 1.0 is acclaimed in Australia for its innovative, accessible and entertaining blend of documentary theatre, contemporary performance, and media spectacle. Previous performance works include The Disappearances Project, The Table of Knowledge, the Green Room Award-winning The Bougainville Photoplay Project, A Distressing Scenario, seven kilometres north-east, the Helpmann Award-winning THIS KIND OF RUCKUS, the Drover's Award-winning Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue, The Wages of Spin, CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident), From a Distance and The Second Last Supper. Founded in 1998, version 1.0 was granted Key Organisation status by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council in 2009. Its team is made up of Dr David Williams as CEO, Jocelyn Payne as general manager, Sandy Collins as producer, Cara Anderson as development manager, Emma Bedford as production manager, Rebecca Saffir as media and marketing officer, and Sean Bacon, Irving Gregory, Jane Phegan, Paul Prestipino, Dr Yana Taylor, Kym Vercoe as the artists.

Victoria Carless has performance writing credits with Backbone Youth Arts, Queensland Theatre Company, Just Us Theatre Ensemble, Mudlark Theatre, The Young Company, Brisbane Writer's Festival, ABC Radio National, New Holland Theatre, Creative Regions, State Library of Queensland, White Rabbit Theatre Ensemble, Short and Sweet, Melbourne, Gold Coast Art Centre and Full Throttle. In 2006, Victoria received Queensland Theatre Company's George Landen Dann Award for The Rainbow Dark, published in Staging Asylum in 2013 by Currency Press. Victoria holds a PhD in theatre writing and currently works with the Social Inclusion team at State Library of Queensland, delivering projects in partnership with public libraries throughout Queensland.

Ben Eltham is a writer, journalist, researcher and creative producer from Melbourne, Australia. He recently completed his PhD in cultural policy at the University of Western Sydney's Institute for Culture and Society. Throughout his 20s and 30s, Ben worked as a freelance arts journalist and critic, as well as a producer and festival director at a series of experimental and fringe arts festivals in Newcastle, Brisbane and Melbourne. He is currently a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and Research Fellow at Deakin University's Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention.

Linda Jaivin is a novelist, journalist, translator and author of non-fiction who has recently begun writing for the theatre. Seeking Djira, her first full-length play, was read at Playbox's Theatre in the Raw in 2002 and produced in Melbourne by Essential Theatre at Forty-Five Downstairs in 2003. Halal el Mashakel, her first short play, was produced by Pesto Manifesto and performed in 2003-4 in Sydney, Canberra, Wollongong, Newcastle and the Adelaide Fringe. Her short story Lucky to Have Them was performed as a monologue at the Short and Sweet Festival in Sydney in 2005. Her most recent publication is the novel The Infernal Optimist (2006). Her previous four novels - the international bestseller Eat Me, Rock 'n Roll Babes from Outer Space, Miles Walker You're Dead and Dead Sexy - have all been published overseas as well as in Australia. Her non-fiction titles include Confessions of an S & M Virgin and The Monkey and the Dragon. She has completed an unproduced libretto about the journey of an asylum seeker to Australia, A Better Life, for which she won a Varuna/Playworks fellowship.

Catherine Simmonds is the founder of Brunswick Women's Theatre, guiding its growth as artistic director and writer of several major projects and productions since 1991. In 2001 Catherine received a two year professional development Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to study in Brazil and Italy.