In 2024, one of Australia’s most esteemed and globally-produced playwrights, Helpmann Award-winner Joanna Murray- Smith, brings JULIA, the human story behind that speech, to the Dunstan Playhouse stage in Adelaide, the city where Julia Gillard’s path to politics began.
In her time as Prime Minister, Gillard, who attended Mitcham Demonstration School, Unley High School and Adelaide University, delivered nation-changing policies including reforming Australian education and commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities.
Playing Julia is one of Australia’s most recognised and loved faces across film, TV and theatre, Justine Clarke, as she takes on the role of a lifetime embodying the life and career of Julia Gillard and the moments that led to that life-changing speech.
As Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard navigated a male-dominated world before the #MeToo movement and helped to pave the way for other women to stand up for themselves and for humanity.
Directed by Sarah Goodes, JULIA the stage production is both an intimate and compelling insight into the person behind the public mask and a reflection on the experience of women in contemporary politics. Combining genuine excerpts from Gillard’s speech with Murray-Smith’s incredible dramatic imagination, this play is a thrilling coming together of history and art.
As women around the world continue to fight for human rights, representation and against oppression, JULIA is an empowering reminder of where we’ve come from and the challenges that lie ahead, seen through the prism of Julia Gillard’s childhood, education in Adelaide and her journey into and through the battlefield of Australian politics.
JULIA
16th of August – 31st of August, 2024
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide
JULIA is a Sydney Theatre Company and Canberra Theatre Centre production, presented by the State Theatre Company South Australia.
