Finegan Kruckemeyer

Finegan has had 85 commissioned plays performed on five continents and translated into six languages. He received the 2017 Mickey Miners Lifetime Achievement Award for services to international theatre for young audiences, the 2015 David Williamson Award for Excellence in Australian Playwrighting, and an inaugural Sidney Myer Fellowship.

This year 35 seasons (including six world premieres) are presented globally, with seasons in eight countries. In Germany, he is represented by Rowohlt. To date, Finegan’s plays have had seasons in 200 international festivals, and at the Sydney Opera House (six works), Scotland’s Imaginate Festival (three works), New York’s Lincoln Center for the Arts (three works), DC’s Kennedy Center for the Arts (three works), Ireland’s Abbey Theatre (two works) and Shanghai’s Malan Flower Theatre (two works). As well as the Mickey Miners and David Williamson Awards, Finegan and his work have received 36 awards, at least one each year since 2002. These include six Australian Writers Guild (AWGIE) Awards, the 2015 Theatre Council of Tasmania Award for Exceptional Writing, 2012 Helpmann Award for Children’s Theatre, 2010 Rodney Seaborn Award, 2009 Mystate Young Tasmanian Artist Award, 2006 Jill Blewett Playwrights Award and 2002 Colin Thiele Scholarship.

Finegan has been a Keynote Speaker at the Ubud Writer’s Festival (Indonesia), the ‘Mastering the Art of Education’ Conference (Lincoln Center, New York) and the TYA USA National Conference, among others. He has delivered papers or sat on panels at conferences in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Denmark, England, Indonesia, Scotland, Sweden and the US, with papers published. He was one of 21 selected worldwide for the ASSITEJ Next Generation (young leaders in children’s theatre), and has sat on numerous arts boards. He is currently a board member of the Story Island Project board, promoting youth literacy and empowerment through storytelling with Tasmania’s most marginalised young people. Finegan was born in Ireland, and emigrated to Adelaide, Australia at eight.

In 2004, he moved with his wife Essie to Hobart, Tasmania, from which he now writes for national and international companies. He is committed to making strong and respectful work for children, which acknowledges them as astute audience members outside the stories, and worthy subjects within. His son Moses was born in 2014.