{"id":18843,"date":"2017-09-04T04:34:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-03T20:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/playwright-kate-mulvany-recognised-honorary-doctorate\/"},"modified":"2022-12-06T09:20:15","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T01:20:15","slug":"playwright-kate-mulvany-recognised-honorary-doctorate","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/playwright-kate-mulvany-recognised-honorary-doctorate\/","title":{"rendered":"Playwright Kate Mulvany recognised with Honorary Doctorate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>West Australian born playwright and actor Kate Mulvany has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by her alma mater, Curtin University, in recognition of her contribution to performing arts in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Born and raised in Geraldton, Ms Mulvany graduated from Curtin in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in theatre and scriptwriting, and has gone on to win critical acclaim and a number of awards including the 2017 Helpmann Award\u00a0for Best Female Actor in a Play, and the 2004 Philip Parsons Young Playwrights award.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-42082\" src=\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Kate-Mulvany-surrounded-by-theatre-arts-students-from-Curtin-University.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>The daughter of a Vietnam veteran, Ms Mulvany was diagnosed with a Wilm\u2019s tumour of the kidney at the age of three, caused by her father\u2019s exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. Her childhood and early schooling were interrupted for several years while she received cancer treatment, and the side effects of radiotherapy have left her with life-long pain.<\/p>\n<p>Curtin University Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Terry said Ms Mulvany is a prolific, award-winning playwright and actor whose concerns have extended to social activism and defending the role of arts in society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKate is an inspiration to many of Curtin\u2019s performing arts students and graduates, and we are delighted to recognise her passion and her accomplishments by awarding her with an Honorary Doctorate,\u201d Professor Terry said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe personal challenges Kate has faced with acceptance and courage are an inseparable, inspirational part of her professional success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Mulvany said she was thrilled to be returning to Curtin to receive an Honorary Doctorate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been a professional actor and writer since I graduated from Curtin University 20 years ago. In those two decades of life and work, there is still not a single day that passes that I don\u2019t take something from my Curtin education. Whether it be Elizabeth Jolley\u2019s astounding insights into literature, or the gentle, generous advice of Barbara Dennis, the camaraderie of my fellow students, or the buzz of the Curtin campus \u2013 all of it continues to inspire me onwards,\u201d Ms Mulvany said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy four years at Curtin truly set me up for a rich and vibrant career and gave me wonderful, lifelong friends. I am so thrilled to be able to return to the campus that provided me with so much, and meet the thinkers, artists,\u00a0educators and creatives of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kate Mulvany&#039;s Honorary Doctorate Speech | Curtin University\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rSzn7pxE6hA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Drawing on her own family\u2019s experiences, two of Ms Mulvany\u2019s plays, <em>The Seed <\/em>and <em>The Danger Age<\/em>, have explored the effects of war on returned soldiers, their families and future generations. The Seed won Best Independent Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards.<\/p>\n<p>Her concerns about the effects of war have extended into her activism in raising awareness of war-related post-traumatic stress and the legacy of Agent Orange from Vietnam.<\/p>\n<p>She is an ambassador for MiVAC (Mine Evacuation and Clearance) and an advocate of Agent Orange Justice, organisations that provide assistance and education on the issues of dioxin and landmines in South East Asia. She is also known for championing the importance of telling Indigenous stories.<\/p>\n<p>She has written over 20 plays, and among her many screen acting roles are appearances on TV in <em>Secret City<\/em> and the upcoming <em>Fighting Season<\/em>, and feature films including Baz Luhrmann\u2019s <em>The Great Gatsby<\/em> and Tim Winton\u2019s <em>The Turning<\/em>. Her adaptation of <em>Euripides\u2019 <\/em>Medea won five Sydney Theatre Awards and had a sell-out season in London in 2015. That same year she also won the Sydney Theatre Company\u2019s Patrick White Playwright\u2019s Fellowship.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Mulvany is honoured during Curtin\u2019s \u201850 Years of Innovation\u2019, recognising the combined history of the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), which opened its doors to students in 1967 and Curtin University, which opened in 1987.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Mulvany received her Honorary Doctorate at a ceremony with Faculty of Humanities graduates at Curtin\u2019s Bentley Campus on Sunday 3 September 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>West Australian born playwright and actor Kate Mulvany has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by her alma mater, Curtin University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4277,"featured_media":10767,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-18843","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Kate-Mulvany-surrounded-by-theatre-arts-students-from-Curtin-University-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Carole","last_name":"Kerr","display_name":"Carole Kerr"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/18843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/18843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18843"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=18843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}