Ailsa Piper

Ailsa Mary-Ellen Piper (born 1959 in Western Australia) is an Australian writer, director and performer.

Career

Acting

Piper worked as an actress in theatre in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne from the early 1980s until 2000. She made her first appearance on TV in 1984 in Man of Letters, but is best known for playing Ruth Wilkinson in the soap opera Neighbours from 1996 until 1999. She reprised the role in a cameo for the series' 20th anniversary in 2005.

Writing and directing

Ailsa has written for ABC children's radio, for the theatre and for The Age, The Australian, Eureka Street, and online journals. In 2000 she was a co-winner of the Patrick White Playwrights' Award for her drama Small Mercies. In 2012, her first book, Sinning Across Spain, was published by Melbourne University Press. In the same year, Bell Shakespeare produced a version of The Duchess of Malfi which was co-adapted by Piper.

Piper has directed for Red Stitch, the Melbourne Theatre Company, the VCA, WAAPA and Shy Tiger Productions. Her production of The Night Season was nominated for a Greenroom Award for direction. She has served on numerous boards, and has five times judged the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards four times for Drama and once for fiction.