Central Coast playwright Joshua Maxwell, best known as the driving force behind the youth theatre company Jopuka and artistic director of the Red Tree Theatre at Tuggerah, has released his second published work.
Liminal is a collection of short plays and monologues set over the course of one night across regional NSW and follows the success of Maxwell’s play, Very Happy Children With Bright and Wonderful Futures in 2022, which earned him an Australian Writers’ Guild Award nomination and has been produced by companies across Australia.
The play also inspired a sequel, Space Cadets, produced by Jopuka and Red Tree Theatre in April this year.
Maxwell stepped down as Artistic Director of Jopuka earlier this year after eight years at the helm due to health troubles.
From July he will take a nine-month leave of absence from active theatre work to undergo his third open-heart surgery and recovery.
During this time, he plans to adapt Very Happy Children into a novel, with funding secured from the Bouddi Foundation Awards.
His second published work has been much anticipated.
“Liminal has been in the back of my mind for so long,” he said.
“As I started collating the works, I realised that with some tweaking, they could all fall within one night.
“With some free time due to my health, I was able to pull it all together over the past two months.”
Maxwell said four of the 11 pieces in the anthology have been produced over the past decade by various companies along the east coast, while the remaining works are pieces Maxwell has been crafting since 2014.
“Once I realised, I had six pieces all set ‘on the hour’ during the night, I just filled in the other hours between 9pm and 6am,” he said.
“I found the midnight piece the hardest to write, but I came across a letter I wrote to a dear theatre friend who passed away in 2015, and realised with some adaptation, it could fit perfectly into the timeline and style.
“I didn’t set out for (these works) to be about losing something or someone or themselves, (but) it happened naturally.”
Next on the cards for Maxwell is exploring a prequel to Very Happy Children set around the 2000 Olympics and writing a novel about his health journey.
“I’m not sure what my career looks like in 2025 and beyond, but I’m keen to see what the universe has in store,” he said.
“I’d love to continue my work in youth arts on a national stage, but I’m also eager to see where my writing career takes me.”
Liminal is now available on Amazon and through Maxwell’s website www.joshuamaxwell.com.au