The undiscovered country: ageing and dementia on stage

Seventeen years after winning the Patrick White Playwrights Award, Patricia Cornelius’ ‘Do Not Go Gentle’ finally has its mainstage debut.

Despite winning the Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) Patrick White Playwrights Award in 2006 for Do Not Go Gentle – alongside numerous other awards both nationally and internationally – Patricia Cornelius has not had a single play staged by the STC… until now.

Among the other awards Cornelius received for Do Not Go Gentle were the R E Ross Trust Playwrights’ Script Development Award in 2006, the 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Drama and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for Drama that same year, plus the 2011 Major AWGIE and the AWGIE Award for Stage.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts