Van Badham

Van Badham is an Australian playwright. She writes left-wing dramas and comedies.

Early life

Van Badham was born Vanessa Badham in Sydney in 1978 [http://www.austlit.edu.au/run?ex=ShowAgent&agentId=A%237G] . Her mother and father worked in the New South Wales gaming and track industry, with her father eventually working for the registered club industry as a publican. An only child, she grew up immersed in an adult culture of betting, drinking and sports. Her family moved many times during her youth.

The influence of her upbringing was evident in work presented to her teachers at school. Badham's first script was a second grade assignment to write up the class Nativity Play, which she duly set in the beer garden of a public house with Mary and Joseph ejected by a manager for failing to meet dress regulations. cite journal
title=Interview with Van Badham
first=Jess
last=Scully
journal=SummerWinter
issue=4
date=2006
pages=56]

Education

Badham attended St George Girls' High School in Kogarah [http://www.stgeorgegi-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/captainaddress.html] . Badham's parents enrolled her in Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre drama school. At Phillip Street she was tutored by Darrell Hilton, an acting teacher whose previous students included Nicole Kidman. Encouraged by Hilton to develop her writing for the stage, on graduation from high school Badham was admitted into the Creative Writing programme at the University of Wollongong.

While a student she began to publish poetry and short fiction as well as write student dramas. At university, her growing political awareness flowered and she was drawn into involvement with student politics and left-wing activism, and she was elected editor of the Wollongong University Student Representative Council newspaper, "Tertangala". By 1998, Badham was an avowed anarchist and President of the New South Wales branch of the National Union of Students, caucusing with radical group the Non Aligned Left.

Early career

In 1999, Badham withdrew from organised political activity to return to campus life and her writing. That year, she won the Naked Theatre Company's first "Write Now!" play competition and with it both a production of her winning play, "The Wilderness of Mirrors", at the Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf studio and mentoring from established Australian playwrights Nick Enright and David Williamson.

The success of "The Wilderness of Mirrors" - a play about secret service infiltration of an activist organisation, based on Badham' experiences in the NUS - brought her to public attention and she began to stage more work across Australia. By 2001, however, her radical themes and attacks on the Australian establishment had won her little favour with the prevailing conservative political climate in her home country and she relocated to the United Kingdom cite web
url=http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21427750-5003423,00.html
title=Playwrights Exit Stage
work="The Courier-Mail"
date=2007-03-24] initially studying at the University of Sheffield.

Move to UK

In the UK, Badham's work was discovered by the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2001 who staged a collaborative production of "Kitchen" with company Nabokov in 2001. A play about marriage as a metaphor for capitalism, it then toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002, where it became an instant hit.

Commissions from the Royal Court Theatre [http://www.websweweave.org/cgi-bin/w_vanessa.asp] and the BBC World Service followed, as did transfers of "Kitchen" to London and New York plus six subsequent Edinburgh productions between 2003 and 2006: "Camarilla" and "Bedtime for Bastards" (2003), "Nikolina" and the subversive children's musical "Waitin' 4 Da G" (2004 - with music by Jonny Berliner), "Petrograd" (2005) and "Persae" (2006).

"Camarilla" was a critical sensation at the 2003 festival [http://www.nabokov-online.com/shows/camarilla/reviews.html] and led to the cementing of Badham's sudden international reputation as a leading proponent of radical political theatre [ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040317/ai_n12773796/print Sierz, Aleks "Dramatic Interventions", "The Independent" March 17, 2004 ] . Badham has since won numerous international awards and her work is performed around the world.

Themes

Van Badham's plays are typically concerned with the legacy of personal and political violence, critiques of Western consumer capitalism, dichotomies of middle- and working-class values, the assigned roles of women in Western Society and the relationship of art to history.

Bibliography

Badham's works include:
*"We Met at the Demo" (1996)
*"Thrown to Earth" (1997)
*"The Wilderness of Mirrors"
*"Kitchen"
*"Dole Diary" (2001)
*"Camarilla" (2003)
*"Bedtime for Bastards" (2003)
*"Material Girls" (2003)
*"Still Life with a Dead Artist" (2004)
*"Letters to W" (2004)
*"Bang on the Nerve" (2004)
*"Black Hands / Dead Section" (2005)
*"The Gabriels" (2006)
*"Nikolina"
*"Waitin' 4 Da G" (2004)
*"Petrograd" (2005)
*"Persae" (2006)

References

External links

* [http://www.austlit.edu.au/browse AustLit Database]
* [http://www.websweweave.org/cgi-bin/w_vanessa.asp Royal Court Theatre / BBC World Service Webs We Weave Project]
* [http://www.nabokov-online.com/shows/camarilla/reviews.html "Camarilla" reviews at nabokov-online.com]
* [http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/BadhamVan.htm Van Badham entry at doollee.com]
* [http://203.24.135.148/ozscript/results.asp?sScriptTitle=&sAuthor=Van+Badham&sSubject=&sStyle=&sAudienceAgeGroup=&sCopyrightYear=&sTotalCast=&sLength=&sFormat=&submit=Search+ Van Badham scripts held by the Australian Script Centre]
* [http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=6&tid=19064 "Camarilla" by Van Badham, published by MIT Press]
* [http://www.gostner.de/stuecke/badham/bedtime.htm Upcoming season of "Bedtime for Bastards" in Germany]
* [http://www.nyhil.org/frett.asp?id=242 "Capital" in Iceland]