This was published 1 year ago
Australian lawyer-turned-playwright wins Olivier award for Prima Facie
By Helen Pitt
Australian playwright and former Sydney lawyer Suzie Miller has won the United Kingdom’s top gong for best new play at the Olivier awards, for her play Prima Facie.
The Broadway-bound play was the big winner of the glittering ceremony on Sunday night, with Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer named as best actress for her West End performance of the one-woman show.
Australian playwright Suzie Miller.Credit: John Davis
The story about a lawyer representing men accused of sexual assault, who is assaulted herself, is an unflattering study of the Australian legal system’s treatment of sexual assault cases.
It is due to open next week, April 11 at New York’s Golden Theatre.
It beat stiff competition at the awards from Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, Patriots, a timely look at President Vladimir Putin’s rise in Russia; and For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, a tale of six young Black men in group therapy.
Miller’s friend, actress Heather Mitchell, who starred in the former lawyer’s most recent Sydney Theatre Company work about the late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg RBG: Of Many, One, said it was overdue praise for the playwright.
“Suzie has been writing plays using her legal background to write powerful stories and for years going unnoticed,” Mitchell said.
“This is deserved praise, she is totally committed for Australian theatre to be seen on the world stage,” Mitchell said.
“She writes about the law and legal problems - not subjects most people want to touch and is an advocate for women and women’s voices and all Australian theatre.”
Melbourne-born Miller worked at the Aboriginal Legal Service in inner Sydney’s Redfern and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a not-for-profit promoting social justice through changes in law, before quitting law to write.
She is married to NSW Supreme Court judge Robert Beech-Jones.
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