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Associate Professor Stephen Carleton

Fellow

  • Bio/Profile
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  • Stephen Carleton is a Brisbane-based playwright and academic. His plays have generated more than $2m in box office earnings, played before audiences across Australia and have won awards including the Griffin Theatre Award (2015) for The Turquoise Elephant, the Matilda Award for Best New Australian Play (2017) for Bastard Territory,  the Patrick White Playwrights' Award (2005) and New Dramatists' Award (2006) for Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset. Those plays and others including musical Joh for PM (2017, with Paul Hodge), and The Narcissist (2007) have been shortlisted for a range of awards including the Patrick White Playwrights' Award, the Queensland Premier's Drama Award, Queensland Literary Awards (Drama), and two AWGIEs.
    He has served on the Theatre Panel of the Australia Council for the Arts and is currently a member of the Board of Queensland Theatre.
    He received a 2010 ARC Discovery Grant with colleagues Jane Stadler and Peta Mitchell to undertake research towards producing a Cultural Atlas of Australia which mediates spaces in theatre , film and literature. The Cultural Atlas is an interactive digital map that displays places and locations that appear in iconic Australian films, novel, and plays [http://www.australian-cultural-atlas.info/CAA/]
    Stephen's recent playwriting practice has moved into speculative fiction and 'cli fi' drama incorporating elements of the gothic, the grotesque and eco-criticism to examine catastrophic climate change and denialism. He has also conducted research into contemporary Gothic drama around the world. An Early Career Research Grant allowed him to conduct study into the Irish Gothic. His PhD thesis, "Imagining and Performing an Australian Deep North", employed Spatial Inquiry and strands of contemporary cultural studies and theatre theory to explore the ways in which the Australian North has been constructed in theatre history from 1900 to the present day. Recent productions of his theatre-writing include: New Babylon (2021), The Turquoise Elephant in Sydney and Darwin (2016 and 2018), musical Joh for PM with Paul Hodge in Brisbane (2017), and Bastard Territory in Brisbane (2016), Darwin and Cairns (2014). His seminal work, Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, sits on the senior drama Australian Gothic curriculum in Queensland.
    Books
    Hay, Chris and Carleton, Stephen (2023). Contemporary Australian playwriting: re-visioning the nation on the mainstage. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003176138
    Carleton, Stephen (2021). New Babylon. Brisbane, Australia: Playlab Theatre.
    Carleton, Stephen (2016). The turquoise elephant. Strawberry Hills, NSW Australia: Currency Press.
    Stadler, Jane, Mitchell, Peta and Carleton, Stephen (2016). Imagined landscapes: geovisualizing Australian spatial narratives. Bloomington, IN, United States: Indiana University Press.
    Carleton, Stephen (2016). Bastard Territory. Brisbane, Queensland: Playlab Press.
    Carleton, Stephen J. (2007). The narcissist. Fortitude Valley, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Carleton, Stephen (2006). Constance Drinkwater and the final days of Somerset. Fortitude Valley, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Book Chapters
    Carleton, Stephen (2023). Observation. A to Z of creative writing methods. (pp. 120-122) edited by Deborah Wardle, Julienne van Loon, Stayci Taylor, Francesca Rendle-Short, Peta Murray and David Carlin. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic.
    Hay, Chris and Carleton, Stephen (2022). Macabre children on the Australian stage: Angela Betzien’s cycle of crime plays. Theatre and the macabre. (pp. 95-112) edited by Meredith Conti and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Press.
    Carleton, Stephen and Hay, Chris (2022). Australian biographical theater on the post-truth stage. Theater in a post-truth world: texts, politics, and performance. (pp. 135-154) edited by William C. Boles. London, United Kingdom: Methuen Drama / Bloomsbury Publishing. doi: 10.5040/9781350215887.ch-006
    Carleton, Stephen (2013). Foreword. The Drovers by Louis Esson. (pp. 5-7) Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Carleton, Stephen (2013). Foreword. Men Without Wives by Henrietta Drake-Brockman. (pp. 5-8) Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Carleton, Stephen (2013). Foreword. Bag O' Marbles by Kathryn Ash. (pp. 5-7) Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Fotheringham, Richard and Carleton, Stephen (2013). "White Australia" in 1909: the background to the play and the two surviving scripts. White Australia or, the empty North. (pp. 6-16) edited by Richard Fotheringham. Brisbane, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Carleton, Stephen (2013). Rethinking regional theatre. Catching Australian theatre in the 2000s. (pp. 151-170) edited by Richard Fotheringham and James Smith. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi.
    Carleton, Stephen (2011). The gatecrasher. I Will Kiss You in Four Places. (pp. 11-32) Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Playlab Press.
    Journal Articles
    Carleton, Stephen and Hay, Chris (2020). ‘Global Weirding’: Australian absurdist cli-fi plays. Performance Research, 25 (2), 79-86. doi: 10.1080/13528165.2020.1752580
    Carleton, Stephen (2017). Contemporary Irish gothic drama: The return of the Hibernian repressed during the rise and fall of the Celtic tiger. Gothic Studies, 19 (1), 1-21. doi: 10.7227/GS.0016
    Carleton, Stephen (2015). Australian Gothic Drama: Mapping a Nation’s Trauma from Convicts to the Stolen Generation.. Australasian Drama Studies, 66(1), 11-39.
    Carleton, Stephen (2012). Australian Gothic: theatre and the Northern turn. Australian Literary Studies, 27 (2), 51-67.
    Carleton, Stephen (2009). Cinema and the Australian north: Tracking and troping regionally distinct landscapes via Baz Luhrmann's Australia. Metro, 163, 50-55.
    Carleton, Stephen (2009). Nick Enright: An Actor's Playwright. Theatre Research International, 34 (2), 216-217. doi: 10.1017/S0307883309004672
    Carleton, Stephen (2008). Darwin as the frontier capital: theatrical depictions of city space in the north. Australasian Drama Studies, 52, 52-68.
    Conference Papers
    Hay, Chris and Carleton, Stephen (2021). Absurdism in the Anthropocene. Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, FL United States, 14-16 October 2021.
    Carleton, Stephen (2018). Pepper’s Ghost Effect: Reading ‘Professor’ John Pepper’s Australian lecture tours (1880-1882) as prototypical ‘celebrity scientist’ performances. Australasian Drama Studies, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 26-29 June 2018.
    Carleton, Stephen (2015). Gothic melodramatic migrations from the London stage to Australia in the 1860s-1880s. International Gothic Association 2015: Gothic Migrations, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 28 July-1 August 2015.
    Carleton, Stephen (2013). Mapping the Antipodes: Gothic theatre mutations in Australia. Gothic Congress: Dark Latitudes, San Pedro, Costa Rica, 10-11 December 2013.
    Creative Works
    Stephen Carleton (2022). Brutal Utopias. Brisbane: Playlab Theatre.
    Stephen Carleton (2022). Brutal Utopias. Metro Arts Theatre, West End, Brisbane: Playlab Theatre.
    Carleton, Stephen (2021). New Babylon. Darwin, Australia: Brown's Mart Theatre.
    Trenscényi, Katalin, Cochrane, Bernadette, Carleton, Stephen and Kelly, Kathryn (2019). New dramaturgy: a roundtable. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland.
    Cochrane, Bernadette, Trenscényi, Katalin, Campbell, Alyson, Carleton, Stephen, Dorney, Marcel and Kelly, Kathryn (2019). New Dramaturgies. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland.
    Carleton, Stephen (2018). The Turquoise Elephant. Darwin, Northern Territory: Browns Mart Theatre and Knock-em-Down Theatre.
    Carleton, Stephen and Hodge, Paul (2017). Joh for PM. Brisbane, Australia and Cairns, Qld, Australia: Brisbane Powerhouse and JUTE Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (Playwright) (2016). The turquoise elephant. Griffin Theatre, Darlinghurst, Sydney: Griffin Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (Playwright) (2016). Bastard Territory. South Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Queensland Theatre.
    Carleton, Stephen (2014). Hotel Beche de Mer. Surfers Paradise, QLD, Australia: The Arts Centre Gold Coast.
    Carleton, Stephen (Playwright) (2014). Bastard territory. Darwin, NT, Australia; Cairns, QLD, Australia: Browns Mart Theatre, JUTE Theatre Company and Knock-em-Down Theatre.
    Stadler, Jane, Mitchell, Peta and Carleton, Stephen (2011). Cultural atlas of Australia. St Lucia, QLD, Australia: The University of Queensland.
    Carleton, Stephen (2008). Shock jock (lust). Cairns, QLD, Australia: JUTE Theatre; Knock-Em- Down Theatre; Darwin Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (2008). The Narcissist. Sydney, Australia: Sydney Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (2007). Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset. Darwin, Northern Territory and Cairns, Queensland: Darwin Festival, Darwin Theatre Company and JUTE Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (2007). The Narcissist. Brisbane, Queensland: La Boite Theatre Company.
    Carleton, Stephen (2006). Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset. Brisbane, Queensland: Queensland Theatre Company.
    Ash, Kathryn, Carleton, Stephen, Evans, Gail and Harris, Anne (2004). Surviving Jonah Salt. Fortitude Valley, Australia: Playlab Press.