Finding Refuge: Alex Edmondson on developing her voice as a playwright
Here at Artback NT, development is more than a step in the process, it’s where Territory stories find their shape.
On Friday 6 March, a select audience will be invited into that process for a dramatic reading of a new work by Garramilla / Darwin-based writer Alex Edmondson.
Supported by Artback NT and developed alongside dramaturg Mary Anne Butler, Refuge will be brought to life by three performers, offering a first glimpse into this urgent new story exploring themes of neurodivergence and the meaning of ‘home’.
We caught up with Alex about writing this work and the journey that’s led her here.
From stage to screen – and back again
Alex’s career has moved between theatre and film for over a decade. After beginning in theatre, she spent many years working in film development, including for Bazmark, the production company of filmmaker Baz Luhrmann. And her own film work has appeared on ABC, SBS and at numerous film festivals around the world.
But theatre kept calling her back.
“I’ve always loved theatre and wanted to get back to it,” she says.
It was after moving to Darwin that the return became real. Through Brown’s Mart’s Build Up initiative, Alex began reworking a film idea that had never quite landed on screen.
“I tried for years to make it work as a film,” she says. “Then I thought maybe I could completely rethink this.”
Mad Are We is what emerged: a monologue shaped by sound design.
Finding the right form
A few years ago, Alex received an autism diagnosis, putting a new lens on her work.
“I realised that the characters I was trying to write were probably autistic characters,” she says. “A lot of what is happening for them is happening internally, in their own heads, and that was why I was struggling to make the work cinematic.”
The monologue form allowed her to access that interior world in a way film wasn’t able to.
“It was a big missing piece of the puzzle in terms of finding the right voice in my work.”
Both her earlier piece and her current work-in-development centre on a main performer interacting with a rich soundscape, bringing a cinematic texture to the stage while remaining deeply theatrical.
Refuge: A road trip through the Top End
The new work being shared next week has undergone significant change during its development with playwright and dramaturg Mary-Anne Butler. Alex has also got support through the Erin Thomas Regional Playwrights Fund.
Refuge has become a road trip through the Top End, audiences travelling alongside the central character as she flees a Centrelink debt.
Two supporting performers take on a shifting range of characters and voices: fragments of memory, people from her past, and encounters along the road.
At its heart, the story explores belonging, safety and what happens when the place that fits you is suddenly destabilised.
For Alex, the idea began from gratitude.
“I felt really grateful to be parenting in Darwin, the slower pace of life, the proximity to nature. That felt really important,” she says. “So, I started to think about what would happen if that refuge was threatened.”
Centring neurodivergent women’s stories
Alex is particularly conscious of the limited representation of neurodivergent women in theatre and film.
“A lot of what we know about autism is based on how it presents stereotypically in men,” she says. “There’s not much understanding of how differently neurodivergence can present in women.”
By exploring that interiority on stage, her work opens space for this lived experience to be represented and discussed.
Why development in the Territory matters
For Artback NT, supporting artists at this stage is about more than one outcome, it’s about building sustainable creative practice in the Territory.
“You can sit in your room and write something,” Alex says. “But to bring a dramaturg on board, to work with actors, to test it out in a room – that’s not doable without support.”
She reflects on the difference between working in larger cities and creating in the Northern Territory.
“Here, it feels like people working in the arts need each other,” she says. “There’s more opportunity to try things and test them. Sometimes the competitiveness of a bigger city can block you creatively. It becomes about surviving rather than nurturing.”
What’s next
Friday’s dramatic reading will offer an important moment in the process, a chance to hear the work aloud, gather feedback and refine.
“It just brings it alive,” Alex says. “You can notice when something that works in your head doesn’t work as well out loud.”
We’re looking forward to seeing how far this important Territory-grown story can go.
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