Award-winning playwright and Massey University Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley has won this year’s Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand Outstanding Achievement Award.
Members of the association voted to confer Dr Tilley, from the School of English and Media Studies, with the award earlier this month at the association’s annual general meeting. The award is presented annually to the member who has achieved an outstanding year of playwriting success.
The award caps off what has been an exceptionally successful year for Dr Tilley, having won the British Theatre Challenge for the second year running for her short play Bunnies and Wolves. Other notable achievements this year include winning the Westcliffe Colorado Center for the Arts International Playwriting Competition for her short play Fabio the Great, being shortlisted for the Hollywood Short + Sweet Festival for Bunker and No Lingering Allowed and being selected for the Sydney Short + Sweet festival for Bunnies and Wolves and Te Hā Tangata: The Breath of the People that she co-wrote.
The Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand Outstanding Achievement Award has been awarded annually since 1988.