My Brilliant Career musical wins Australia’s richest annual playwriting prize

The musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin’s iconic tale of the high-spirited Sybylla Melvyn, has taken home the richest annual playwriting award in the country, winning the prestigious $120,000 David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre at last night’s Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE Awards.

It was the second win on the night for writers Sheridan Harbridge, Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank, who also received the AWGIE Award for best script in Music Theatre. The production is currently playing a triumphant return season in Melbourne (Melbourne Theatre Company) ahead of its Sydney premiere at Sydney Theatre Company in March.

Commenting on the script, the judges praised My Brilliant Career as:

Written with confidence and pure talent, leaping off the page in a fresh, sparkling, new work. With humour, wit and pathos the script bounced and sang its way through a uniquely Australian story and landscape…creating a brand new Australian classic.

The David Williamson Prize is awarded by the Australian Writers’ Guild annually to the most outstanding script selected from the winners of each of the theatre categories at the AWGIE Awards. It is made possible by the generous donation of Shane and Cathryn Brennan and David and Kristin Williamson.

In 2025, the prize was increased to become the richest annual playwriting award in the country. The winning playwright now receives $40,000, with a further $80,000 awarded to the theatre company who staged the winning work, taking the total prize to $120,000.

The express purpose of the fund is to champion the work of Australian playwrights and encourage theatre companies to commission, develop and program new Australian work.

Harbridge recently wrote and starred in Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett, a new Australian play paying homage to Chrissy Amphlett at Belvoir St Theatre. It will play a limited run at the Seymour Centre in April.

Later this year, Harbridge will return to Suzie Miller’s Olivier-award winning play Prima Facie, the role she originated in 2019 before Jodie Comer’s West End and Broadway runs. It will play a homecoming tour across Melbourne and Sydney in May and June.

The original production of Prima Facie, starring Harbridge, received the 2020 David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre at the AWGIE Awards.

Previous recipients of the David Williamson Prize include Alana Valentine for Grounded(2013), Andrew Bovell for The Secret River (2014), Finegan Kruckemeyer for The Boy at the Edge of Everything (2015), Angus Cerini for The Bleeding Tree (2016), Leah Purcell for The Drover’s Wife (2017), P.J. Hogan with Kate Miller-Heidke & Keir Nuttall for Muriel’s Wedding the Musical (2018), Kate Mulvany for The Harp in the South (2019), Suzie Miller for Prima Facie (2020), Ellen Graham and Jamie Hornsby for Claire Della and the Moon (2021), Maxine Mellor for Horizon (2022), Dylan Van Den Berg for Whitefella Yella Tree (2023) and Blake Erickson and Jay James Moody (book) and Laura Murphy (music and lyrics) for The Dismissal: An Extremely Serious Musical Comedy.

New works commissioned, developed and staged with support from the David Williamson Prize include Packer and Sons (2019) by Tommy Murphy, Wonnangatta (2020) by Angus Cerini, Playing Beatie Bow (2021) by Kate Mulvany, Jailbaby (2023) by Suzie Miller, Big Yikes! (2024) by Madeleine Border and Starweaver (2024) by Ellen Graham and Jamie Hornsby.

---

For more information click HERE