Melbourne Theatre Company is poised to create a new canon of Australian plays through a $4.6 million, five-year fund to commission and develop up to 10 works a year by a who's who of writers.
Artistic director Brett Sheehy says the Next Stage Writers' Program, funded entirely by donations, will include works by Joanna Murray-Smith, Benjamin Law, Patricia Cornelius, Michael Gow, Leah Purcell, Angus Cerini and Ellen van Neerven.
![Joanna Murray-Smith's plays have been staged around the world.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/8/c/h/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Ticket sales for the MTC's home-grown plays regularly outstripped those for imported works, Sheehy said.
"It's certainly an extraordinary line-up of writers of immense talent," he said of the first roll call of writers involved. "Every year we'll have 10 writers working on new plays."
![Michael Gow is a long-time playwright and former QTC director.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/r/r/4/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Three writers' residencies are being created and already advertised as part of the program, with a minimum of 34 having the opportunity for commissions or residencies.
"There's a wonderfully unique situation in Melbourne where the attendances for Australian work for us has outstripped all attendances for new international work or classics," Sheehy said.
"It's a wonderful thing that this city is incredibly courageous, that they're up for stories about our time and places. But they're also terrific risk-takers who are prepared to come and see work that has never been seen before, and stories that have never been told before.
"That for me and the team made it a no-brainer."
![Patricia Cornelius, one of Australia's most-awarded playwrights.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/r/p/2/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Some of the successful recent home-grown productions have included 2016's Jasper Jones, which sold so well it necessitated standing room only tickets, and Ladies in Black, a Queensland Theatre Company production that premiered in Melbourne in 2015 and had a return season at the Regent Theatre this year.
While both those shows were adapted from books – the former from Craig Silvey's novel, and latter from Madeleine St John's The Women in Black – Sheehy cites other new Australian plays including the MTC and Working Dog's 2014 production The Speechmaker and footy drama The Sublime, written by Brendan Cowell, of the same year among his highlights.
![Leah Purcell's play <I>The Drover's Wife</I> was named the NSW Literary Award Book of the Year.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/9/j/7/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Murray-Smith, a Melbourne playwright whose works have been staged around the world, has premiered a number of plays with the MTC, including this year's Three Little Words.
Cornelius, whose acclaimed work Shit was part of the MTC's Neon series of independent theatre in 2015, is one of Australia's most awarded playwrights. Cerini, who was also part of Neon in 2013, has won a number of awards and had works staged at Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre.
![Melbourne playwright Angus Cerini.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/r/p/3/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Gow is a long-time playwright and former Queensland Theatre Company director best known for his 1986 play Away, which had a return season at the Sydney Opera House and the Malthouse this year.
Purcell's The Drover's Wife won this year's NSW Literary Award $30,000 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting, and was also named Book of the Year, a first for a play.
![Benjamin Law, left, with Trystan Go from his SBS show <I>The Family Law</I>, will write for the stage for the first time.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/r/r/n/4/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)
Law, a Fairfax Media columnist who has written two series of The Family Law for SBS TV, will write for the stage for the first time, as will van Neerven, a multi-award winning Indigenous author and poet.
"For all seven I could not be happier," Sheehy said. "Having those people working with us so closely and with the aim of developing great works with them and ultimately one hopes which will be for the canon, that's something I was looking at and the company was looking at."
The first works commissioned via Next Stage will roll out from 2019.
![Ellen van Neerven's first book <I>Heat and Light</I> won the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618235614im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/r/r/t/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwrp1d.png/1497587668143.jpg)