Elvis wants Rosie. Rosie wants to escape. Maddie doesnt know what the hell she wants, but it sure isnt this. While Rosie weighs up the needs of community with her own dreams, Elvis juggles a life of crime with a tougher path on the straight-and-narrow, and Maddie faces life as a single parent. CUSP juxtaposes the Northern Territorys vast landscape with the turbulent lives of three emerging adults swimming against the tide of irrevocable change. Mary Anne Butlers deeply funny play throws a spotlight on the warmth and humanity that keep us balanced in a world where, as Elvis puts it: Some people just get better choices than others.
Mary Anne Butler is a Darwin based playwright whose play Broken won the 2016 Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Drama, the 2014 NT Literary Award for Best Script and was shortlisted for the 2014 Griffin Theatre Award. Broken premiered to a sold out season at Browns Mart Theatre [March 2015] with a 2016 Sydney season at Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Highway of Lost Hearts premiered at the 2012 Darwin Festival to a sold out season with a 2013 Browns Mart Theatre return season by demand, and a 2014 three-month national tour [Artback NT]. In 2015 it was adapted to a four-part radio series for Radio Nationals Radio Tonic. Mary Annes feature screenplay Hopetown won the 2012 Birch Carroll and Coyle Screenwriting Award, and her stage play Dragons won the 2010 Darwin Festival Script Award. Mary Anne was awarded month-long Bundanoon residencies for playwriting in 2016 and 2010. Mary Anne is a 2014 Churchill Fellow, member of the Australian Writers Guild Playwrights Committee, peer advisor to the Australia Council for the Arts and co-Artistic Director of Knock-em-Down Theatre Company [Darwin/Brisbane]. She holds a Masters in Arts Education and a Master of Philosophy [Creative Writing].