JUST two days after winning a Canberra Critics Circle award for his play “White Fella Yellow Tree”, Canberra playwright Dylan Van Den Berg was announced as the winner of the $20,000 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award in Sydney last night (November 24)

The celebratory night in Neutral Bay was hosted by the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation, which promotes the knowledge and enjoyment of the performing arts within Australia.

The Seaborn Award provides financial assistance for playwrights during the writing or development of a play and is not intended as a prize for a finished work. It may also assist with production costs, workshops, restaging, publishing or touring.

It was a good night for Canberra writers, with Van Den Berg taking out the top award for his play “The Chosen Vessel”, commissioned from and to be developed by The Street Theatre.

As well, David Atfield appeared on the shortlist for his play “A Better World”.

The award was established by the late patron of the performing arts, Rodney Seaborn, in the hope that it would help address an “undue emphasis on the negative or less salutary aspects of life to be found in much contemporary performing arts projects”.

According to Gaz Simpson, chair of the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Trust, the award was gaining strength, with 36 plays submitted for consideration and 10 shortlisted, some of them by well-known playwrights such as Stephen Sewell.

“The Chosen Vessel” was inspired by Barbara Baynton’s short story, first published in “The Bulletin” in 1896. It recounts the story of an outback woman left alone with her baby in a bush hut as she awaits an attack by a swagman who has called there during the day.

But Van Den Berg has reimagined the story to place Aboriginal Australians at the centre of the narrative.

Van Den Berg declared his win “delightful”, explaining that he had history with the  award, having won it for his play “Way back When” and before that been shortlisted for “Milk”, which went on to win drama awards at both the Victorian Premier’s and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

“So, I can tell my mum I’m not a one-hit wonder,” he said.