Balnaves Foundation

The Balnaves Foundation is identified in the novel’s afterword as a supporter of the 2014 play that began Leah Purcell’s fictional world of Molly Johnson. Through the Balnaves Fellowship, the Foundation supported Purcell in writing the script; the play’s subsequent production and success helped carry the story into other forms.

Support for the Play

Purcell says the project began as a play written for Belvoir St Theatre, with support from the Balnaves Foundation and the Balnaves Fellowship in 2014. That backing enabled her to write the script. The Foundation’s documented role is therefore specific: it supported the play’s creation, rather than the later novel or film directly.

Production and Wider Reach

The play opened at Belvoir St Theatre in late 2016 for a limited run of thirty-three performances, all sold out. In 2017, the production won a dozen or more awards. Purcell describes the success of the play as the basis on which she secured a book deal with Penguin Random House and approval for a feature film. The Foundation’s support thus stands at the start of a chain of development: script, stage production, and the subsequent expansion of the story into a novel and film.

Place in the Story’s Development

Purcell distinguishes the three versions—stage, film, and novel—while noting that the novel follows a structure similar to the film and gives greater space to character backstories and inner thoughts. The Foundation’s contribution belongs to the project’s earliest stated stage: helping Purcell write the play from which this broader creative undertaking grew. The afterword credits that support without specifying the Foundation’s internal structure, other activities, or any role in the later adaptations.