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Bio
WRITER
Ash Flanders is a multi-award winning playwright and screenwriter from sunny Melbourne. In 2006, he and Declan Greene formed theatre company Sisters Grimm and together they have written a dozen shows including Summertime in the Garden of Eden (Theatre Works, Griffin Theatre), Little Mercy (STC), The Sovereign Wife (MTC), Calpurnia Descending (Malthouse/STC), and Lilith: The Jungle Girl (MTC). Ash has also created the solo shows Meme Girls (Malthouse), Special Victim (Feast Festival), Playing to Win (Arts Centre Melbourne), Ash Flanders is NOTHING, End Of (Darebin Speakeasy), as well as SS Metaphor and This is Living at The Malthouse Theatre.
Ash was invited to present work for the Emerging Writers’ Festival, The Wheeler Centre’s Show of the Year, as well as Women of Letters, where his letter was chosen to be published in the book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Women of Letters. His erotic Golden Girls fan fiction became the short film Divine Decadence of Cheesecake, which played at Frameline, Out On Film, LLFF Canada, and other international film festivals.
He co-wrote the web series FRIENDLY (over 10K views) and has a slate of fresh screen projects in development, including a series taken from the world of his solo shows. In 2014, a portrait of Ash by Wendy Sharp was included in The Archibald Prize.
Writing Awards:
2021 End Of.
– Green Room Award Nomination: Independent Theatre – Best Production & Performer
2018 Ash Flanders is Nothing
– Green Room Award Nomination: Cabaret – Writing
2016 Lilith: The Jungle Girl
– Green Room Award Winner: Best New Writing (Sisters Grimm)
2016 Playing to Win
– Green Room Award Winner:Cabaret, Writing
2015 Calpurnia Descending
– Helpmann Award Nomination: Theatre, Best Play (Sisters Grimm)
2015 Calpurnia Descending
– Green Room Award Nomination:Best Production (Sisters Grimm)
2015 Special Victim
– Green Room Award Winner: Cabaret, Writing
2014 The Sovereign Wife
– Green Room Award Winner: Independent Theatre, Writing
Reviews
'Flanders puts in a phenomenal performance and brilliant comic timing playing all of the victims of BBB’s murderous spree.' ★★★★½
Blackie Blackie Brown - Daily Review
'Ash Flanders, equally endearing in a range of screwball guises, each one hilarious and wonderfully inventive.'
Blackie Blackie Brown - Suzy Goes Sees
'Flanders generates endless hilarity playing a cast of thousands. Many of his sketches are black lampoons of mainstream Australian culture.' ★★★★
Sydney Morning Herald
'Ash Flanders... is an absolute star as he transforms into several characters without missing a beat.'
Arts Hub
'Flanders is an absolute riot in a cavalcade of caricatures... he sets the tone of the play perfectly in an opening monologue as a foppish white man who has just returned from a night of “powerful” Indigenous theatre. ★★★★
Timeout
‘Subversive genius’ ★★★★½
Lilith: The Jungle Girl - The Age
'The best theatre I've seen all year' ★★★★★
Lilith: The Jungle Girl - Daily Review
'Writer and performer Ash Flanders shares infectious accounts of work woes, family traits and lineage under the discerning direction of Stephen Nicolazzo and a masterful production team.' ★★★★★
End Of. - Theatre People
"Comedic writer/performer extraordinaire Ash Flanders returns [...] A wonderful new work from an established comic performer that solidifies his continuing artistry, as well as expands his range into gorgeously new and beautiful territory!'
End Of. - Theatre Press
"This new performance still maintains that wry bonhomie which makes every anecdote crackle and delight........interspersed with moments of incisive camp are deeply sad accounts...."
★★★★★
"...it’s a testament to the skill and artistry that has gone into the writing and direction that the levity doesn’t feel tasteless or out of place but give them an edge and urgency that couldn’t have existed before." ★★★★★
Ash Flanders Is Nothing - Theatre People
In SS Metaphor, Flanders has achieved a work that sails between deeply funny and strangely deep in this allegorical antidote to lockdown...
"...As Melbourne tiptoes, bleary-eyed out of lockdown, SS Metaphor comically guides us from the darkest waters to hopefully brighter shores."
SS Metaphor - Timeout ★★★★
"Ash Flanders is notorious for crafting caustic comedy that makes audiences laugh ‘til they hurt... This semi-autobiographical play is the saltiest, sweetest, and most honest look at love, friendship and chosen family."
Australian Arts Reveiw
"This is Living is character-driven ensemble theatre from one of our great comedic writers...the script and each jewel of a character is allowed to shine...
Arts Hub
"...It is exciting to see a play that foregrounds women’s relationships, particularly post-menopausal women, as well as the friendships that emerge between gay men and women."
Arts Hub
"A testament to the precarity of the Arts industry that resembles Noel Coward for its interest in upper middle-class life as well as the caustic wit and tightly wound dialogue that Flanders uses to represent it."
TimeOut
"This is Living showcases the richness of multigenerational friendships" ★★★★
The Age