Hannie Rayson
Beaumaris Books
In association with Text Publishing Proudly presents an evening with highly respected playwright & screenwriter
HANNIE RAYSON
Discussing her new book
HELLO BEAUTIFUL! SCENES FROM A LIFE
When: Thursday 19th March 2015, 7.30pm
Where: MALT CAFÉ, 23-25 South
Concourse, Beaumaris
Cost: Book & ticket together for just $50
Also includes admission & finger food. Beverages at bar prices. *Only at time of ticket purchase *Only one specially priced book per ticket **Phone credit card bookings accepted** Ticket Only $35
Phone: 9589 4638
E-mail: read@beaumarisbooks.
Hello Beautiful! Scenes from a life: ‘So beautifully written, so funny, so insightful and so obviously written by a warm and appealing human being.’ David Williamson
I am a playwright. I have spent thirty years pretending to be other people. I lie on the floor in my study and try to imagine I am someone else. It’s exhausting. Right now I am a dying man with drug-resistant tuberculosis. Earlier this morning I was his angry daughter and after lunch I plan to be his Asian wife. Often I am everyone at the same time. My imaginary people are always spitting the dummy. They cheat, they fight and they lie; they’re cruel and they betray each other. The more scandalously they behave, the better for all concerned. I develop an affection for most of my characters. Even the racists and the bigots. There’s no place for shy people on the stage. You have to be a talker to earn a place in one of my plays. You have to be volatile. You have to emote. Which means I have to emote. And sometimes I emote for hours on end. I feel like that guy in the circus who runs up and down the line of sticks keeping the plates spinning. Not even an actor has to do that much emoting in one day… My plays are never about me. But for reasons I cannot explain, I have woken up and found myself interesting.
Hannie Rayson—writer, mother, daughter, sister, wife, romantic, adventuress, parking-spot optimist—has spent a lifetime giving voice to others in the many roles she has written for stage and television. In her new book, she shines the spotlight on herself. This collection of stories from a dramatic life radiate with the great warmth and humour that has made Hannie one of the best-known playwrights in the country. From a childhood in Brighton to a urinary tract infection in Spain, from a body buried under the house to a play on a tram, Hello, Beautiful! captures a life behind the scenes—a life of tender moments, hilarious encounters and, inevitably, drama.
Hannie Rayson is a playwright and screenwriter. Her works—including Hotel Sorrento, Inheritance and Life After George—have been performed around Australia and internationally.
She has been awarded two Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, four Helpmann Awards, two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Her play Life After George was the first play to be nominated for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
Hannie lives in Melbourne.