Hilary Bell
Hilary Bell is a multi-award-winning playwright and lyricist. Her work has been produced nationally by the Sydney Theatre Company, Ensemble, Belvoir, Griffin, Black Swan, Deckchair, La Boite, NORPA, National Theatre of Parramatta, Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Vitalstatistix and Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Internationally she’s been produced by theatres including Atlantic and Steppenwolf (USA) and The National (UK). Wolf Lullaby won the inaugural Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award in 1995 and remains on the school syllabus. She recently collaborated with Michael Gracey, Jacob Collier and Scenario Two on a new musical. Other awards include the Jill Blewitt, Bug’n’Bub (USA), Aurealis Fiction, the Eric Kocher (USA), Inscription, two Australian Writers Guild Awards, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize shortlist. She was the 2003-04 Tennessee Williams Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of the South, Tennessee, and in 2013 the Patrick White Playwriting Fellow at the STC. Hilary is a graduate of the Juilliard Playwrights’ Studio, NIDA and AFTRS. She has served on boards including Griffin, ANPC and Australian Plays, and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. She is a member of 7-ON Playwrights and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Hilary is the creator, with illustrator Antonia Pesenti, of several picture books, including the best-selling Alphabetical Sydney. Currently she is writing a musical adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock with Gertler Gold, directed by Jo Bonney.