Picnic at Hanging Rock is an Australian historical fiction novel by Joan Lindsay. The novel, set in 1900, is about a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community. The novel was first published in 1967 in Australia by Cheshire Publishing and was reprinted by Penguin in 1975. It is widely considered by critics to be one of the greatest Australian novels. In 2022, it was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
David Keith Williamson AO is an Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.
Mark Doyle, better known by his stage name Louis Nowra, is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist.
Constance Lalage "Lally" Katz is an American and Australian dramatist writing for theater, film, and television. She now resides in Los Angeles.
Debra Oswald is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, radio and children's fiction. In 2008 her Stories in the Dark won Best Play in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. She created and was head writer of the Channel 10 drama series Offspring, now on Netflix, for which she won the 2011 NSW Premier's Literary Award and the 2014 AACTA Award for best TV screenplay. Her novel Useful was released in 2015, followed by her novel The Whole Bright Year in 2018, both published by Penguin Random House. Her novel The Family Doctor was published by Allen and Unwin in March 2021. Oswald's one-woman stage show, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady, premiered at Sydney's Griffin Theatre in April 2021.
Deidre Rubenstein is an Australian television and theatre actress, as well as a dramatist and playwright well known for her performance in Australian soap operas and main stage dramatic roles. She has won the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award as Best Actress.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian mystery film produced by Hal and Jim McElroy, directed by Peter Weir, and starring Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray and Jacki Weaver. It was adapted by Cliff Green from the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay.
Alana Valentine is an Australian playwright, dramatist, librettist and Director working in theatre, film, opera and television. As a playwright, she won the Helpmann Award. Valentine first worked with Vicki Gordon Music Productions to create the First Nations show Barefoot Divas, Walk a Mile in My Shoes. The work premiered at the Sydney Festival in 2012 and the Wellington International Arts Festival in 2013 touring the USA and Canada in 2014 before selling out the Hong Kong International Arts Festival in 2015. In 2016 Gordon commissioned Valentine and Ursula Yovich to co-write the First Nations rock musical Barbara and the Camp Dogs presented on stage in December 2017 at Belvoir in Sydney and touring nationally in 2019. The work was critically acclaimed winning best Original Score and Best Musical in the 2019 Helpmann Awards and four Green Room Awards (2020) for Best Writing, Best Music Composition, Best Production and Best Performance. The screen adaptation is currently in development as a major International feature film.
Anthony David Morphett was an Australian screenwriter, who created or co-created many Australian television series, including Dynasty, Certain Women, Sky Trackers, Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Above the Law and Rain Shadow. Morphett wrote eight novels, and wrote or co-wrote seven feature films, ten telemovies, twelve mini-series, and hundreds of episodes of television drama, as well as devising or co-devising seven TV series. He won 14 industry awards for TV screenwriting.
Oriel Holland Bennett known by pen name Oriel Gray, was an Australian dramatist, playwright and screenwriter who wrote from the 1940s to 1990s. The major themes of her work were gender equality and "social and political issues such as the environment, Aborigines, assimilation and bush life".
Ursula Yovich is an Aboriginal Australian actress and singer.
Clifford Green OAM, born in Melbourne, Australia, was an Australian screen writer, whose best-known work is the script for the film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).
Briar Grace-Smith is a screenwriter, director, actor, and short story writer from New Zealand. She has worked as an actor and writer with the Maori theatre cooperative Te Ohu Whakaari and Maori theatre company He Ara Hou. Early plays Don't Call Me Bro and Flat Out Brown, were first performed at the Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington in 1996. Waitapu, a play written by Grace-Smith, was devised by He Ara Hou and performed by the group on the Native Earth Performing Arts tour in Canada in 1996.
Suzie Miller is an Australian/British playwright, librettist and screenwriter. In April 2022, Miller made her West End debut with Prima Facie starring Jodie Comer.
Jacqueline Ruth Weaver is an Australian theatre, film, and television actress. Weaver emerged in the 1970s as a symbol of the Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974). She later starred in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Caddie (1976), Squizzy Taylor (1982), and a number of made-for-television movies, miniseries, and Australian productions of revered plays such as Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Eleanor Katrine Witcombe was an Australian writer who worked extensively in radio, film and television.
Kate Mulvany is an Australian actress, playwright and screenwriter. She works in theatre, television and film, with roles in Hunters (2020–2023), The Great Gatsby (2013), Griff the Invisible (2010) and The Final Winter (2007). She has played lead roles with Australian theatre companies as well as appearing on television and in film. In 2004 she won the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award for The Seed. In 2017, she won the Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Play for her role in Richard 3.
Allan Cubitt was previously a teacher at John Ruskin High School, Croydon during the 1980s teaching English and Drama who became a British television, film, and theatre writer, director, and producer, best known for his work on Prime Suspect II and The Fall.
Kate Box is an Australian stage, film and television actress. She is known for her roles as Nicole Vargas in Rake and as Lou Kelly in Wentworth.
Kodie Bedford is an Aboriginal Australian screenwriter, filmmaker and playwright from Western Australia. She is known for her play Cursed!, and work on several television series, in particular the 2021 comedy series All My Friends are Racist.
