C.V. JENNY KEMP / WRITER / DIRECTOR
Writer/Director - Black Sequin Productions
Plays Directed include:
2015 – Currently working on a new production for the On the Edge.
2013/14 – Adaptation & creative development of Memories of Amnesia by Lawrence Shainberg for the On the Edge Series
2010 Madeleine – Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall. On the Edge.
2009 Kitten – Melbourne International Arts Festival & Malthouse Theatre. On the Edge.
2009 Developed new performance text Madeleine for the On the Edge Project.
2004 Still Angela (touring version): National tour with Performing Lines for MOBILE STATES August – September: Touring Contemporary Performance, Australia. Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart.
2002 Still Angela: Playbox Theatre, Melbourne.
1996 The Black Sequin Dress: Adelaide Festival, Playbox, Canberra Theatre Company.
1993 Remember: Gasworks.
1989 Call of the Wild: Spoleto Fest, Belvoir St. (co-Director E.Drake).
Call of the Wild, directed by E. Drake for The Listening Room ABC/FM. 1989
1986 Goodnight Sweet Dreams: Anthill Theatre.
1983 The White Hotel: D.M. Thomas (adaptation) > Grant St Theatre.
1979 Sheila Alone: Jealousy or The Affair > Pram Factory & Fest of Australian Drama S.A. 1977 The Point isn't to Tell You: La Mama (co writer R. Meldrum).
Black Sequin Productions are available through Currency or australianplays.org and in video at www.artfilms.com.au.
Awards
2020 Life Time Achievement Award.
2012 Green Room Award for Best Production Top Girls MTC, 2010 Madeleine Green Room Award for Best Lighting Design, Bluebottle, Ben Cobham & Jen Hector. Green Room Nomination Nikki Shiels Best Female Performer.
2008 Residency at the Leighton Studios, Banff to develop a new work for Black Sequin Productions, Madeleine - a schizophrenic tragedy.
2003 Still Angela short-listed for Queensland & NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
2002 Nominated for Green Room award - Best Direction - Rapture by Joanna Murray- Smith.
2001-2003 Honorary Research Associate, in the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies. Monash University.
2000-2002 Australia Council Theatre Fellowship.
1999 Green Room Award for Outstanding Creative Collaboration (Dance) for Delirium
1999 Green Room Nomination for Best Direction for Nightfall by Joanna Murray Smith. (Playbox Theatre).
1998 The 1997 Kenneth Myer Medallion for the Performing Arts.
1997 Green Room Theatre Award for Best Direction for Molly Sweeney by B. Friel (M.T.C.)
1996 Black Sequin Dress short-listed for NSW Premier's Literary Award.
1996 Nominated for Best Director for 1996 NSW Premier's Literary Award. Black Sequin Dress.
1996 Greenroom Award Best Direction (Dance) with Helen Herbertson and Trevor Patrick for Descansos.
Collaborations
Choreographer HELEN HERBERTSON & TREVOR PATRICK: Descansos Melbourne, 1996.
Delirium, Melbourne, 1999 Toured to: New Moves (New Territories) Festival, Glasgow, 2000 Asian Next Wave, Tokyo, 2000.
MARGARET CAMERON: Things Calypso Wanted To Say #1, Melbourne, 1989.
STASIS GROUP at the Pram Factory with Robert Meldrum, Roz DeWinter & Sue Ingleton. The Young Peer Gynt/Ibsen1976, Antony and Cleopatra/Shakespeare 1977.
Work as a freelance Director
Plays Directed include:
REDSTITCH: Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill 2019
LA MAMA: Facing Medea by Francois Cervantes 2019
LA MAMA: The Chairs by Ionesco 2017
REDSTICH: Splendour by Abi Morgan 2016
MTC: Top Girls 2012 (Churchill), The Collection (Pinter) 1999, Molly Sweeny (Friel) 1997, The Last Yankee & I Can't Remember Anything (Miller) 1996, Family Running for Mr. Whippy (Zimdahl) 1996, The Game of Love and Chance (Marivaux) 1992, The Island (Fugard) 1984.
PLAYBOX: Rapture 2002, Nightfall 1999 (Joanna Murray Smith) & STC season.
MALTHOUSE THEATRE: Woman Bomb 2005, Ivana Sajko.
HOTHOUSE THEATRE: Skylight by D. Hare. 1998.
GRANT ST. THEATRE: The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas (an adaptation) 1983
SATC: Big and Little (Botho Strauss).1985
THE MILL & ATHENAEUM 2: Medea (Euripides) 1987.
PRAM FACTORY/STASIS GROUP: Peer Gynt (Ibsen) 1977, Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare) 1977,
PERFORMANCE SPACE 1990 & LA MAMA 1989: Things Calypso Wanted to Say #1 (Cameron)
VCA: The Conduct of Life/Fornes. Camille/P. Gems, Mouth Full of Birds/ Churchill& Lan, Big & Little/Strauss, Suddenly Last Summer/T. Williams, The Cherry Orchard/Chekov, Pre-paradise Sorry Now/Fassbinder, Andromache/Racine, A Month in the Country/Turgenev.
RUSDEN: The Cenci/Artaud, The Woods/Mamet, Dream Play/Strindberg,
Work for Tertiary Institutions, Industry based Groups & Guest Lecturing.
Victorian College of the Arts and Music, faculty of the University of Melbourne. Lecturer in Post – Graduate, Directing, 2006 – 2015.
Lecturer in Post – Graduate, Writing VCA&M, 2013 – 2015.
Replacement Head of Directing & Animateuring 2003 - 2005.
Casual lecturing in Post Graduate Directing, VCA, SCHOOL OF DRAMA, 1990-6.
Casual lecturing in Post Graduate Directing, VCA, SCHOOL OF DANCE, 2002, 2003.
Workshops
Generative Writing Workshops – on-going throughout Australia.
Guest Lectureship at, International Women's Playwright Conference (Dialogue with Disjunction, on The Black Sequin Dress). Galway. Ireland 1997
Queenscliff, Carnival of Words 2001, Women's Dreams on Stage.
Getting The Word - Out Writing for Performance and Dance Real Time-. See above.
Workshops and Lectures
Generative Writing Workshops – on-going throughout Australia.
Guest Lectureship at, International Women's Playwright Conference (Dialogue with Disjunction, on The Black Sequin Dress). Galway. Ireland 1997
Queenscliff, Carnival of Words 2001, Women's Dreams on Stage.
Getting The Word - Out Writing for Performance and Dance Real Time-. See above.
Workshops and Lectures given at:
1st Victorian Playwright's Conference, Melb. 1998
The International Women's Playwright Conference Adelaide. 1994
The Writer's Guild WA.
Melbourne Writer's Theatre (Script Development).
Playworks: Writing Workshops in NSW, VIC, QUEENSLAND, DARWIN.
Form and Content Workshops in NSW, VIC, DARWIN, QLD.
A Summer Intensive in Puppetry / Hobart Junction 2004 - Developing Performance.
Vitalstatistics S.A. Directing & Writing Workshops 2004.
West Australian Academy of Performing Arts
Melbourne University
Monash University
Victoria University,
La Trobe University,
Curtin University, Qld,
The VCA School for Creative Arts,
Holmsglen TAFE.
A Selection of Publications Discussing Black Sequin Productions.
Acts of Resistance in Late-Modernist Theatre by Richard Murphet.
APG Writers 1968-2008 by Dr Denise Varney 2010
Radical Visions Radical Visions: 1968 – 2008: The Impact of the Sixties on Australian Drama. by Dr Denise Varney. Chapter title Jenny Kemp – On the Edge Published 2011. (Rodipi Press).
'Transfigured Stages: Major Practitioners and Theatre Aesthetics in Australia' (Amsterdam: Rodopi) by Dr. Margaret Hamilton. (publication 2010)
The Doll’s Revolution – Australian Theatre and Cultural Imagination by Rachel Fensham and Denise Varney.
Contemporary Theatre Review Volume 14 issue 3 2004 Desire and danger in the Long Journey from Door to Table: An Exploration of Movement in Jenny Kemp’s Black Sequin Dress by Libby Worth.
Making a Mythopoetic Theatre: by Dr. Fensham. Australasian Drama Studies April 2004.
Hecate Vol 29 no 1. Modernity and the White Imaginary by Dr Rachel Fensham 2003
Modernity and the White Imaginary in Australian Feminist Theatre. By Dr Rachel Fensham. Hecate Vol. 29 no. 1, 2003. P. 7 – 18.
StillAngela National tour Jenny Kemp interview with Virginia Baxter. Real Time August – September 2004 No 62. page 6.
Getting The Word - Out Writing for Performance and Dance Real Time-Performance Space Forum, November 17 2003 Performance space, Sydney.
See http://www.realtimearts.net/forum/gtw0_transcript.html
She Also Wrote Plays, An International Guide to Women Playwrights by Susan Croft. 2001.
Heterosexual Masculinity in Feminist Performance. Australasian Drama Studies April 99
Playworks Telling Time - A Dialogue With Disjunction: Celebrating 10 Years of Women Writing: Playworks, ed V. Baxter, Playworks, 1996.
Playing With Time, Women Writers for Performance: ed V. Baxter, Playworks 1995
Excerpts from The Black Sequin Dress - Australian Drama vol. 2, Jacaranda Press, 1997
Converging Realities/Feminism in Australian Theatre: Peta Tait, Currency/Art Moves, 1994
Australian Theatre Criticism, Meanjin 3/1994 Spring.
Erotic Subversions, Helen McDonald, Routledge, London 2001.
Landscape of the Psyche: The Dream Theatre of Jenny Kemp. in Performance Research, Vol. 3 no 2 Dr. Mark Minchinton. Routledge, UK, 1998.
The Concise Companion to Theatre in Australia, edited by K. Brisbane, Currency 1997.