Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust to Support Three New MTC Commissions from Australian Playwrights in 2014

Two of Australia's remarkable benefactors of the performing arts and champions of new work, Joan and Peter Clemenger AM, are bringing to 21 the number of Melbourne Theatre Company play commissions they have supported over the past eight years.

The Joan and Peter Clemenger Trust will support three more MTC commissions from Australian playwrights in 2014:

• Jane Bodie, whose last play with MTC was A Single Act in 2006 which won the NSW Premier's Literary Award.

• Tom Holloway, whose Red Sky Morning with Red Stitch was 2008's 'Play of the Year'.

• Finegan Kruckemeyer, a playwright tremendously skilled in creating family shows and young peoples' theatre, reflecting MTC's recent move into this area.

Announcing that thanks to the Clemengers these three playwrights will "write the good write" in 2014, MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy AO paid tribute to their generosity. "Peter and Joan began supporting our commissioning program in 2006. Over the years the intent of this program has been a serious expression of MTC's desire to bring new works to the stage. Peter and Joan have been with us all the way and made a substantial contribution to the telling of Australian stories on our stages here and overseas. MTC is extremely grateful to them both, and on behalf of Australian theatre-lovers we applaud them and invite them to take a hugely well-deserved bow!"

Since 2012, MTC has been working towards achieving a 100% success rate in taking new works from page to stage. Joanna Murray-Smith's commissioned play True Minds, which was in development when Mr Sheehy arrived at MTC, was programmed for his inaugural Season in 2013 to terrific box office success. Subsequent commissions have been:

· Eddie Perfect, whose play The Beast was a four-and-a-half-star sell-out hit of MTC's 2013 Season.

· Simon Stone, whose adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard was also one of the hits the 2013 Season.

· Brendan Cowell, whose play The Sublime, a brilliantly perceptive take on mateship, family, footy and sex scandals, will open in August as part of the 2014 Season.

· Roslyn Oades, who is writing a documentary-style play based on the Melbourne identity Santo Caruso, who runs the well-known Melbourne Sports Books and whose mother was infamously murdered by his father.

· Declan Greene, who is writing a play which explores gender identity, suburban compromise and family dislocation.

For more information about Melbourne Theatre Company and to book tickets, go to mtc.com.au, phone 03 8688 0800 or follow Melbourne Theatre Company on facebook and twitter.

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