Four plays from the 1950s: "Sky Without Birds" by Oriel Gray; "Shipwreck" by Douglas Stewart; "The Night of the Ding-Dong" by Ralph Peterson; and "The Day Before Tomorrow" by Ric Throssell. Introduced by Katharine Brisbane.

The late 1960s were among the most tumultuous years in recent history. Student revolution spread like wildfire around the world as the past-war generation came to adulthood. In Australia protests against the Vietnam War were mixed with rebellious new political awareness. The plays in this volume reflect the radicalism in public and private life which that period has come to represent. Each of these works played a significant part in advancing the horizons of the Australian stage. Included in this volume are: Rodney Milgate's A Refined Look at Existence, an ironical comedy drama set in a NSW country town, which reworks Euripides' 'The Bacchae' (3 acts, 9 men, 3 women); Bill Reed's Burke's Company, a study of the explorer Robert O'Hara Burke and his life and death struggle with the Central Australian desert (2 acts, 9 men); Alex Buzo's The Front Room Boys, a seasonal satire set in a government office (1 act, 7 men, 2 women); and Chicago Chicago by John Romeril, a surreal attack on political exploration set against the 1968 Chicago Democrat Convention (1 act, 19 men, 5 women -- doubling possible).

Anthology of writings and commentary from Australia's foremost theatre writer and Currency Press founder: Not Wrong Just Different traces the development of theatre in Australia from the time that Katharine Brisbane joined the staff of the Australian in mid 1967 right up to today's state of the performing arts. From Brecht to Barry Humphries, from Chekhov to Patrick White, Katherine Brisbane's lucid account of Australian theatre is presented comprehensively in this original collection.

The exhilaration caused by the success in 1955 of Ray Lawler's 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll' galvanised a host of new playwrights. Among them was Barbara Vernon, whose 'The Multi-Coloured Umbrella' (1957), a drama of the racetrack, exploits the novelty of an irredeemably Australian way of life. Peter Kenna in his comedy-drama 'The Slaughter of Saint Teresa's Day' (1959), introduces the first of his Irish-Australian matriarchs, Oola Maguire. In 'Image in the Clay' (1960) David Ireland blends realism and poetry in his stark portrait of a rural Aboriginal family. And, most radically, Ray Matthew in 'The Life of the Party' (1960) draws a desperate portrait of post-war sophisticates trapped in the shadow of the Cold War. Exploring a new theatre distances from European realism, these plays mark a journey towards a recognisably Australian rhythmic form and a more poetic, visceral drama characteristic of the theatre later in the century.

This volume covers the period 1973--75 and marks a consolidation of form, and the recognition of a sense of direction. While public and social issues were the preoccupation of the earlier plays, these plays display a strong move towards the domestic as expressive of community. The plays in this volume are: A Hard God, Peter Kenna's classic study of youth and age in an Irish-Catholic working class family as it suffers the pangs of love, death and adolescence; How Does Your Garden Grow, Jim McNeil's gentle plea from within the prison system that the need for kindness and affection is not confined to those outside; Coralie Lansdowne Says No, Alex Buzo's famous critique of the new, liberated woman; and The Cake Man by Robert J Merritt, a simple and moving story of life on a mission in Western NSW which was the first Aboriginal play to enter the repertoire of the white theatre.

Anthology of writings and commentary from Australia's foremost theatre writer and Currency Press founder: Not Wrong Just Different traces the development of theatre in Australia from the time that Katharine Brisbane joined the staff of the Australian in mid 1967 right up to today's state of the performing arts. From Brecht to Barry Humphries, from Chekhov to Patrick White, Katherine Brisbane's lucid account of Australian theatre is presented comprehensively in this original collection.