C R E A T I V E
Writer
[stage + screen + game designer]
Caleb Lewis is a multi-award-winning playwright, theatremaker, and experience designer.
His plays include: Cathedral; Nailed; Men, Love, and the Monkeyboy; Dogfall; Death in Bowengabbie; Rust and Bone; Songs for the Deaf; Bluebottles; Crystal; Aleksander and the Robot Maid; The Honey Bees; In a Dark Dark Wood; Six Million Hits; The River at the End of the Road; Maggie Stone; and Clinchfield, which won the inaugural Richard Burton Award for New Plays.
Screen credits include Mortal Coil (in development) and Savvy TV.
Games, installations and interactive entertainments include: Exclusion Zone; Across a Crowded Room; Half an Hour Visit; and the multi-platform If There Was A Colour Darker Than Black I’d Wear It – Winner of the 2013 Ruby Award for Innovation. Recently, he was commission to create an interactive live ‘experience’ for the World Expo in Dubai.
Previously a resident artist at Griffin Theatre, Australia’s premier new writing theatre, Lewis was mentored by Nick Enright (Blackrock, Lorenzo’s Oil) and Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). He was the winner of an Inscription Award, the Phillip Parsons’ Award (in absentia), and the inaugural AWGIE (Australian Writers’ Guild Award) for Digital Narrative.
Caleb’s work has been commissioned and produced by Bell Shakespeare, Black Swan Theatre Company (WA), State Theatre Company of South Australia, and numerous large and and small companies across the country as well as overseas. His current projects include commissions for The State Theatre Company of South Australia, Hothouse (VIC), Sport for Jove (NSW), as well as a triptych of interactive projects for the series Uncertain Playgrounds.
As part of the BATCH FESTIVAL at Griffin Theatre, Caleb presented Unkiss Me, “an intimate, participatory art-game for two that invites players to consider how a relationship is built on shared memories, and what happens when one comes to an end…”
PRAISE:
“Lewis’s graphic and luminous script is rich with metaphors and some of the most evocative writing imaginable; it is a logophile’s dream. Dotted with humour, the interweaving plots all orbit around our protagonist like so many bubbles escaping from a scuba tank. Like its namesake, the structure of this play is grand, informative and magnificent. As the story cycles back from whence it came, it feels like we have undertaken a rite of passage; a pass to the denouement of the story. The entry has scant regard for our comfort and the reactions are visceral. It is brilliant.”
There is a gentle but quintessential Australianism about this production and it provides comfort in the steadiness of its charm, when the water beneath us is abysmal. Lessons in bravery and camaraderie juxtapose “dying by degrees” and ultimately, there is an overarching message of hope for plights universal. Vicariously, Cathedral has the ability to attach a floatation device to dark troubles and let gravity do the heavy lifting.” – LIMELIGHT (Cathedral) ★★★★★