Sea Bloom

This article was originally published in the May Adelaide Review

Since her first play Tender opened in Belvoir’s independent theatre space in Sydney in 2006, playwright Nicki Bloom has seen her plays produced in Aubrey, Brisbane and New York City, with additional readings in Melbourne and London.

Her plays and prose have won some of Australia’s most prestigious writing awards, and in 2008 she won Australia’s richest playwriting award: the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award.

This year began with two awards for Bloom at the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature: the Jill Blewett Playwright Award for A Cathedral and the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship for The Sun and the Other Stars. Now, the South Australian-based Bloom is preparing for the world premiere of her latest work, Land & Sea, which opens with a preview at the Queen’s Theatre on Friday, May 11.

Talking to Bloom and director and dramaturge of the work, Brink Productions Artistic Director Chris Drummond, on the second day of rehearsals, the pair exudes with pleasure the final discoveries, which are being made in preparation for opening. Land & Sea has been in development since 2008, and the pair is clearly excited and ready to see it take its new life in front of an audience.

From a prose and poetry background, the language in Bloom’s plays exhibits a strong sense of structure and form. “All playwrights have different views on this, but I come pretty firmly down on the side that you’re writing literature,” Bloom says. “Of course you’re writing a play, and you’re writing something to be done, but it also has great value as a piece of text.”