MELISSA REEVES - PLAYWRIGHT, DRAMATURG AND SCREENWRITER

Melissa Reeves is a playwright, screenwriter, and dramaturg. She initially trained and worked as an actor and was a member of Circus Oz before concentrating solely on writing. Her first play In Cahoots premiered in 1989. She has written over twenty plays and won numerous awards. In 2012 she received a Fellowship from the Theatre Board of Creative Australia.

Reeves has been closely associated with two theatre companies - the Red Shed Company of Adelaide, and Melbourne Workers Theatre. She is part of a writing ensemble made up of Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Christos Tsolkias, and Irine Vela, with whom she co-wrote three plays and collaborated on a film adaptation of their play Who’s afraid of the Working Class? Her work has been performed by all the major Australian Theatre companies, and internationally.

“I seek out and respond to real stories and interpret them through a theatrical lens. I am drawn to the surreal and the comic. I believe in theatre as a chaotic, important, living cultural site where the prevailing orthodoxies can be pondered on, cross examined, and re-imagined, and where history can shine a light on the present.” 

At present Melissa Reeves is working on a film adaptation of Furious Mattress with Margaret Thanos, and a gothic two-hander set in a suburban strip in Melbourne called Snuff, with Susie Dee.

Melissa Reeves’ plays include In Cahoots, Sweetown - winner of the Jill Blewitt Playwrights Award, The Spook – winner of the Louis Esson Prize for Drama in the Victorian Premiers Awards, and two AWGIES for best new play, Furious Mattress - shortlisted for three Premiers Awards, Happy Ending – short listed for the NSW Premiers Award, and Archimedes War – shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Award. She has adapted Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. Reeves has co-written a number of plays, most notably Who’s afraid of the Working Class?, Fever, and Anthem with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas and composer- Irine Vela. Who’s afraid of the Working Class? won best play in the Queensland Literary Awards, two Awgies for best new play, and the Jill Blewitt Playwrights Award in 1999. She also co-wrote Magpie, with Richard Frankland, and two works for young performers – Uprising – with Patricia Cornelius, and The Gap, with Patricia Cornelius and Angela Betzein. More recently, she co-wrote Rodeo Clown, and Caravan with Angus Cerini, Patricia Cornelius, and Wayne Macauley. She also co-wrote the award-winning screenplay for Blessed, based on Who’s afraid of the Working Class?