about Jane Cafarella
Jane Cafarella is a versatile writer and cartoonist whose work has been published in newspapers, journals, magazines and books in Australia and overseas, and whose plays have been performed nationally and internationally and translated into Turkish and Tamil.
A former journalist and cartoonist, for the past 10 years, she well known in Victoria for her column in The Age newspaper about family life.
For the past 10 years her focus has been playwriting. Jane’s short plays have been produced in Australia, Singapore, London and Scotland. Two have been translated into Tamil.
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Since its premiere in Melbourne in 2015, her first full-length play e-baby, which is about surrogacy, has been produced every year to critical acclaim, with productions in Sydney, Hobart, Ohio and London.
e-baby has also been translated into Turkish. Sadly, productions in Columbia, Missouri, and in Spain have been postponed due to Covid-19.
Jane’s second full-length play, d-baby, about a donor-conceived teenager searching for her true identity, has had successful readings in Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart and was a finalist in the 2018 international playwriting competition New Works of Merit, based in New York. d-baby is a companion play to e-baby, but not a sequel.
Her latest show Uked! – The first play-along ukulele musical enjoyed two sell-out seasons in Central Victoria in 2019 and is now licensed by David Spicer Productions for others to produce.
During lockdown, Jane’s focus has been memoir. Jane lives in Castlemaine, in Victoria, Australia, with her husband Rob. She has two adult children and a grandson. And yes, she plays the ukulele.
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