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Donna Abela has written over 30 stage and radio plays for audiences of all ages.

Credits include: A Cleansing Force (Novemberism), A Walk In The Park (Brand Spanking New), Olympia and Phoung and Oliver Twist Is (The 428 Project), Spirit (Griffin Theatre Company), The Greatest Show On Earth (Queensland Music Festival), Tales from the Arabian Nights (Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image), The Rood Screen (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), The Daphne Massacre (Parramatta Riverside), Aurora’s Lament, Mrs Macquarie’s Cello and Fathom (ABC Radio), Highest Mountain Fastest River (Salamanca Theatre Company), Quest (Pact Youth Theatre), One In A Million (Death Defying Theatre), Four Speed Blenders and Circus Caravan (Jigsaw Theatre Company).

Donna served her playwrighting apprenticeship at Powerhouse Youth Theatre, a company she co-founded in 1987 in Sydney’s culturally diverse western suburbs. For the next seventeen years, Donna worked continuously with PYT as it consolidated its practice of community collaboration, and found a new home at the Fairfield School of Arts. She chaired PYT from 1993 to 2003, and will be part of the company’s 25th anniversary celebrations in 2012.

Donna has long championed new writers and new writing, and has worked extensively as a dramaturge and script assessor for various theatre companies and organisations including the Australian Writers’ Guild and the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre. She was on the board of the national script development organisation Playworks Women Performance Writers’ Network from 1999-2006, and acted in the position of Artistic Director in 2002. Donna also teaches writing, and has lectured in scriptwriting at Wesley Institute since 1991 is currently completing a doctorate at the University of Wollongong.