The Turquoise Elephant

'Meet Augusta Macquarie: Her Excellency, patron of the arts, formidable matriarch, environmental vandal.'

Inside her triple-glazed compound, Augusta shields herself from the catastrophic elements, bathing in the classics and campaigning for the reinstatement of global reliance on fossil fuels. Outside, the world lurches from one environmental cataclysm to the next. Meanwhile, her sister, Olympia, thinks the best way to save endangered species is to eat them. Their niece Basra is intent on making a difference - but how? Can you save the world one blog at a time?

Stephen Carleton's shockingly black, black, black political farce won the 2015 Griffin Award. It's urgent, contemporary and perilously close to being real.

STEPHEN CARLETON's portfolio of work, including plays, political cabarets and musicals, has been widely produced across Australia. His previous credits as playwright include: for JUTE Theatre Company and Knock-em-Down Theatre: Bastard Territory, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Queensland Premier's Drama Award and the 2010 Patrick White Playwrights' Award (under the title 1975) and went on to be produced by Queensland Theatre Company in 2016; and for Queensland Theatre Company: Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, for which Stephen received the 2004/5 Patrick White Playwrights' Award, the New York New Dramatists' Award, a Queensland Premier's Drama Award shortlisting, and an AWGIE shortlisting. Carleton is Co-Artistic Director of (and playwright and producer for) Knock-em-Down Theatre (KeDT) in the Northern Territory, with whom he has toured his plays across the north of Australia since 2004. Carleton is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, where he teaches courses in playwriting and dramaturgy, Australian drama, and theatre history, and is the 2016 co-Chair of the National Playwrights Committee of the Australian Writers' Guild with Mary Anne Butler.