Skip to Main Content

Contemporary Indigenous Plays - Rainbows End/Black Medea: Home

About the Playwright

Jane Harrison is descended from the Muruwari people and is an award-winning playwright and author. Her play Stolen played across Australia and internationally for seven years. Rainbow’s End has had numerous productions and won the 2012 Drover Award. The Visitors premiered at Sydney Festival in 2020. Her novel Becoming Kirrali Lewis won the 2014 Black & Write! Prize, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minster’s Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Jane directed the Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival in 2016 and 2019.

thestellaprize.com.au

About the Play

Rainbow’s End premièred in 2005, and toured Melbourne, Sydney, regional Australia, and Japan in 2007. Harrison was awarded for Rainbow’s End the Drover Award (Tour of the Year) and a Helpmann Awards nomination for Best Regional Touring Production. It is studied on the NSW HSC syllabus. Rainbow's End tells the simple, yet convoluted story of three generations of Aboriginal women; young Dolly, her mother the happy-go-lucky Gladys, and the wise and stern Nan Dear, living in their shanty perched on the flats of the Goulburn River in 1950s regional Victoria. The play draws upon historically accurate details: Aboriginal housing conditions at Rumbalara and the Australian Government's policy and actions toward indigenous Australians. The play was directed by Wesley Enoch.

Wikipedia