Alana Valentine is an Australian playwright, dramatist, librettist, and director working in theatre, film, opera, and television.

Early life and education

Alana Valentine graduated with a Bachelor of Communications from University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in 1983. She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney (2000).

Career

Valentine wrote her first play Multiple Choice, in 1985, mentored by Alex Buzo. It was staged by the Australian Theatre for Young People as part of the Sydney Festival in 1986. She has also written for television and film, starting with the series Lady Chaplain on SBS Television, and later McLeod's Daughters. She has written for short films, including Mother Love (1994), The Witnesses (1995), and Reef Dreaming (1997). She co-wrote the 2011 short film Moth with Meryl Tankard, which Tankard directed. It was shown in the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Valentine has collaborated as a co-writer and dramaturg with Aboriginal director and choreographer Stephen Page on many productions for Bangarra Dance Theatre since 2011, including Patyegarang in 2014 Bennelong in 2017, and Wudjang: Not the Past in 2022. Valentine first worked with Vicki Gordon Music Productions to create the First Nations show Barefoot Divas, Walk a Mile in My Shoes. The work premiered at the Sydney Festival in 2012, toured North America in 2014 and was staged at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2015. In 2016 Gordon commissioned Valentine and Ursula Yovich to co-write the First Nations rock musical Barbara and the Camp Dogs. This premiered at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney in December 2017, returning for an encore run at the Belvoir in April 2019 before touring the country that year. The Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney commissioned the work Made to Measure, completed by Valentine while she was writer-in-residence, and presented in 2019 at the Seymour Centre. Also in 2019, she co-wrote the libretto for Flight Memory, a song cycle, with composer Sandra France. For the Sydney Festival 2021, Valentine wrote and directed the series Walkeys Live: The Journalist Gene, "a series of eight one-hour biographical portraits of eight Walkley Award-winning or recognised journalists". They were held at Sydney Town Hall. In 2022 Valentine was commissioned by Neil Armfield to co-write the libretto with Christos Tsiolkas for a modern oratorio about the 1972 murder of George Duncan in Adelaide. With music composed by Joseph Twist, it was performed as Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan to critical acclaim at the 2022 Adelaide Festival.

Recognition and awards

Selected works

Plays

Films

Books

Footnotes