The Playmaker

infobox Book |
name = The Playmaker
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Thomas Keneally
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Australia
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Hodder and Stoughton, England and Australia
release_date = 1987
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 310
isbn = 0340341548
preceded_by = A Family Madness
followed_by = An Act of Grace

"The Playmaker" is a novel based in Australia written by the Australian author Thomas Keneally.

In 1789 in Sydney Cove, the remotest penal colony of the British Empire, a group of convicts and one of their captors unite to stage a play. As felons, perjurers and whores rehearse, their playmaker becomes strangely seduced. For the play's power is mirrored in the rich, varied life of this primitive land, and, not least, in the convict and actress, Mary Brenham.

The play that they plan to stage is called The Recruiting Officer which is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers.

The novel has successfully been rewritten into a play written in 1988 by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, called Our Country's Good.

Dedication

"To Arabanoo and his brethren, still dispossessed."