Andrea James (playwright)

Andrea James is a Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai woman, who also has Polish{{cite web | title=Andrea James | website=AusStage | date=20 May 2022 | url=https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/231397 | access-date=8 June 2022}} and Tamil heritage. She is the great-granddaughter of Thomas Shadrach James and granddaughter of Shadrach Livingstone James.{{cite interview| first= Andrea |last=James |author-link=Andrea James (playwright)| interviewer-last=Sanchayan | interviewer-first=Kulasegaram | title=A Tamil amongst First Australians | website=SBS Tamil|publisher= SBS | date=19 March 2018 | url=https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/audio/a-tamil-amongst-first-australians | access-date=11 July 2022| format=Audio (11 mins)}}

She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts.{{cite web | title=Andrea James | website=AustralianPlays.org |date=2021 | url=https://australianplays.org/playwright/ASC-432 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210313104532/https://australianplays.org/playwright/ASC-432 | archive-date=13 March 2021 | url-status=dead | access-date=8 June 2022}}

James has produced plays for Carriageworks, Blacktown Arts Centre, Urban Theatre Projects, La Mama Theatre and Ilbijerri, among others. Her works have been staged throughout Australia as well as in the United Kingdom, Paris and New York City.

She worked as Aboriginal arts development officer at Blacktown Arts Centre,{{cite web | last=Daniel | first=Smriti | title=Aboriginal theatre maker Andrea James continues to tell vital First Nations stories in her tribute to tennis legend Evonne Goolagong | website=ABC News| publisher= Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=7 June 2022 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-08/andrea-james-playwright-director-sunshine-super-girl/101128272 | access-date=8 June 2022}} before being appointed as Artistic Director of Melbourne Workers Theatre in 2001, occupying this role until 2008. It was here that she wrote and produced Yangali Yangali.

James' play Sunshine Super Girl, about Wiradjuri champion tennis player Evonne Goolagong Cawley, has been produced by Performing Lines. It premiered in Griffith, New South Wales in October 2020 (its Melbourne Theatre Company debut having been postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Victoria), subsequently being performed at the Sydney Festival in January 2021.{{cite web | title=Sunshine Super Girl | website=AusStage | date=8 January 2021 | url=https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/work/21582 | access-date=8 June 2022}} The play is commencing a tour starting at the Darwin Festival in August 2022.

{{as of|June 2022}} James is an associate artist at the Griffin Theatre Company in Sydney, where she is producing Melissa Bubnic's Ghosting the Party which opened at the Stables Theatre, Sydney in May, until 18 June 2022.

A rock 'n' roll theatre show titled Big Name, No Blanket, written by James and performed by Ilbijerri Theatre, premiered at the Sydney Festival in January 2024. James was assisted by Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher as story and cultural consultant, and the show was co-directed by Rachael Maza and Anyupa Butcher (Sammy's daughter). The show, which was also performed at several other major festivals, celebrates the journey and impact of the Warumpi Band,{{cite web|url= https://www.ilbijerri.com.au/event/big-name-no-blankets/ |title= Big Name, No Blanket’’ |website= Ilbijerri|date=2023|access-date=24 July 2023}}{{cite web |title='It’s a living memory': Bringing Warumpi Band's family story back to the stage |website= InDaily |date=7 March 2025 |url=https://www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/music/2025/03/07/its-a-living-memory-bringing-warumpi-bands-family-story-back-to-the-stage |access-date=13 March 2025| first =Walter | last =Marsh }} In October 2024 a slightly scaled-down version of the show undertook a tour of 16 prisons.{{cite web |last=Quinn |first=Karl |title=Big Name, No Blankets: Ilbijerri show about Warumpi band tours prisons |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=19 October 2024 |url=https://www.smh.com.au/culture/theatre/so-hungry-for-something-beyond-four-walls-the-musical-bringing-joy-to-prisons-20241015-p5kibt.html |access-date=19 October 2024}}

• Recipient of an Arts NSW Aboriginal Arts Fellowship
• 2013: Recipient ACCELERATE, a program run jointly by the Australia Council and British Council for Aboriginal Art Leaders
• Writer-in-residence at Melbourne Theatre Company
• 2022: Mona Brand Award for Women Stage and Screen Writers, for her body of work

• Yangali Yangali
• Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country (2016) (co-writer, with Giordano Nanni{{cite web | title=Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country | website=AusStage | url=https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/work/2483 | access-date=8 June 2022}}
• Blacktown Angels for Home Country
• Bukal
• Winyanboga Yurringa
• Bright World
• Home Country
• The Torch
• Winyanboga Yurringa
• Dogged (co-writer, with Cath Ryan)

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Category:21st-century Australian dramatists and playwrights

Category:Indigenous Australian writers

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)