Photo Credit: Chelsea Thistlewaite
Van Badham is the award-winning writer of more than 30 internationally-produced plays for stage and radio. She began a weekly column for The Guardian in 2013 and appears regularly on television and radio in her role as a commentator, critic and activist.
Van has had plays and musical theatre developed and produced across Australia, Europe and North America. Her most recent Australian theatre productions include Banging Denmark for the Sydney Theatre Company at the Opera House, The Bloody Chamber for Malthouse, The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars for Griffin, Merrigong and Hothouse, Big Baby for Terrapin and Late Night Story at the Adelaide Fringe. Her commissioners here include MTC, Queensland Theatre, Black Swan, Malthouse, Griffin, Merrigong, HotHouse, Terrapin and the Tasmanian Theatre Company.
In Britain, Van was based as the writer-in-residence at LAMDA for two years. Her UK work has included collaborations with companies including the Royal Court Theatre, the Bush (for Paines Plough), Nabokov, the Battersea Arts Centre, Luxi and Theatre503, as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe and on the touring circuit. Her plays have had professional productions across America, Canada, Iceland, Germany, Switzerland and Austria and her international theatre commissions include Swamplands for the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and The Story of D-Star K for the Bern Stadttheater in Switzerland. Van’s radio commissions have been for the BBC World Service, Radio 4, and Radio 3 and her first screenplay, We Come Home, was developed with a grant from the Australian Writers’ Guild. Van is a former Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre London (2009-2011) and was Artistic Associate at the Malthouse Melbourne (2011-2013) before moving to her present position at the Guardian.
Van’s adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm premiered at Black Swan in 2021 and her non fiction book QAnon and On was published in the same year by Hardie Grant and became a bestseller.
https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/author/van-badham
