Jane Cafarella is an Australian author, playwright, and former journalist, columnist and cartoonist, whose work has been widely published in Australia and overseas and whose plays have been performed nationally and internationally
During 10 years at Melbourne’s Age Newspaper, she wrote and edited the popular Accent section, focusing on women’s issues, and wrote the popular columns A New Life Journal and Family Postcard. Jane’s cartoons were published in Accent and other sections of The Age and in many books and journals. Her cartoon archive is held at the State Library of Victoria.
After leaving The Age, Jane taught journalism for News Ltd for 10 years and lived and worked in Bangkok and Singapore, where she turned her hand to playwriting. Her play e-baby, about surrogacy, has been translated into Turkish and produced in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, Ohio, London, and Missouri to critical acclaim.
d-baby, about a donor-conceived teenager, was a finalist in the 2018 international playwriting competition New Works of Merit, and in the US-based Hidden River Arts 2019 playwriting competition. In 2019, Jane’s interactive show Uked! – The first play-along ukulele musical enjoyed two sell-out seasons in Central Victoria in 2019 and premiered in Auckland, New Zealand, in August 2024.
Jane’s short plays and monologues are available for free on her website for actors, directors, drama teachers and students, and are regularly performed in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia.
Jane’s memoir CLEAVED – A story of loss, legs and finding family, about family estrangement and growing up with a rare form of congenital lymphoedema, was released in July 2024, with $1 from every purchase of the e-book version and $2 from every print version donated to the USA-based Lymphatic Education and Research Network (LE&RN), the leading global organisation for advocacy and research into lymphatic disease.
CLEAVED is available on Amazon and all the usual outlets, and as PDF from Jane’s website.
Jane has two children and two grandchildren, and lives in Castlemaine with her husband Rob, where she enjoys singing and playing the ukulele.
PUBLICATIONS:
- CLEAVED – A story of loss, legs and finding family (memoir about family estrangement and growing up with congenital lymphoedema and family) - author published, 2024.
- e-baby (full-length play about the relationship between a commercial surrogate and the infertile woman who hires her) - Australian Plays Transform and StageScripts (UK) 2015.
- d-baby (full-length play about a donor-conceived teenager searching for her true identity) - Australian Plays Transform, 2018.
- Supersnout (one-act absurdist comedy play about a talking dog) – StageScripts (UK), 2015.
- Uked! – The first play-along ukulele musical – (interactive jukebox musical) - David Spicer Productions, 2019.