Van Badham

As a playwright, Van Badham's plays have suffered bans in Australia, protest walk-outs in Edinburgh and been the subject of a travel warning from the US embassy in the UK. Her 2007 Edinburgh Festival musical, Ca$h in Christ! (written and composed with rocker Jonny Berliner) provoked 7000 Christian websites to condemn her within 24 hours of its premiere. Van's explicitly political plays and musicals have been staged across Australia, the UK, the US, Iceland, Germany and Austria and have won numerous international awards. Described as "like Brecht, without the didacticism" (when she won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award) and as a "terrible, witless... fucking idiot" (by right-wing bloggers), she is the first Australian playwright to both be on the bill at the Glastonbury rock festival and on the front cover of The Baptist Times. Her latest work, Real Estate, was the first play written about the Wollongong Council corruption scandal and summarily banned within 48 hours of its composition.

EMAIL VAN: van at rocksurfers dot org