Description

Top criminal lawyer Tessa believes in the law, she believes in the system, she believes in playing by the rules. If you play by the rules, justice will be served. She has not only staked her career on these principles, she has placed her very faith in them.

But when the tables are turned and Tessa has to take the witness stand, she is forced to confront the shortcomings of the legal system and its patriarchal foundations of justice.

In the multi-award-winning play Prima Facie, Suzie Miller delivers a one-woman tour de force—by turns wryly amusing and powerfully shocking—that exposes the failings of a system seemingly designed to further brutalise women who have experienced sexual assault, rape or harassment.

For Tessa, as for so many women, truth turns out to be less about reality and more about how you play the game. And in this court, nobody wins.

Prima Facie won Best New Play at both the Olivier Awards and the WhatsOnStage Awards in 2023, as well as the 2020 AWG Best Play Award, the David Williamson Prize, and the Major AWGIE award.

Biography

Suzie Miller

SUZIE MILLER is a multi-award winning Australian playwright who has been in residence and/or attached to the following theatres: Ex Machina Quebec with Robert Lepage (2012), National Theatre in London (2011; 2009), Ransom Theatre, Ireland (2009) and Griffin Theatre Company (2012). She has worked with Black Swan State Theatre Company, ATYP, Legs on the Wall, LIVE theatre in Newcastle UK, Oran M’or and the Perth Theatre in Scotland. Her plays include The Sacrifice Zone, Driving into Walls, Caress/Ache, Everything I Have, DUST, Overexposed, Sunset Strip and Medea. Two Geordie Boys is being developed with LIVE Theatre Newcastle and Enlightening Entertainment London. Miller won the Kit Denton Fellowship for writing with courage; was shortlisted for the 2013, 2010 and 2008 Australian Writers Guild Awards for drama, was shortlisted for the Griffin Award in 2009; won the New York Fringe Festival ‘Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Playwriting’, and won the Theatrelab Award. Her plays have won 9 equity awards and Helpmann awards.