Jubilee_Play_Competiton
Commonwealth Jubilee play competition
1951 Australian play competition
The Commonwealth Jubilee play competition was a 1951 Australian play competition held to celebrate Australia's Jubilee Year. The competition was for the best plays dealing with the Australian life or an Australian character and was organized by the Jubilee Federal Arts Sub-Committee.[1][2]
The competition encouraged Australian playwriting at a time when few Australian plays were presented on stage and were thus generally unprofitable for playwrights, with The Bulletin lamenting that "the nation's literary energy...has gone where it can find a market: into the novel and short story".[3][4]
230 plays were entered into the competition.[2] The judges were Professor Keith Macartney of Melbourne University, Lindsey Browne, a The Sydney Morning Herald drama critic, and Frank Harvey, senior drama producer for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.[1]