Playwright Alberto Di Troia has triumphed over 269 submissions from across Australia to win the coveted 2026 Queensland Premier’s Drama Award (QPDA).
Di Troia has won the award with My Roman Empire, a darkly comic satire and wildly theatrical exploration of family legacy, queer identity, masculinity and belonging, set against the complex historical legacy of Italy.
The $30,000 prize, supported by Griffith University, includes a full commission fee to complete the work and a world premiere production as part of Queensland Theatre Company’s 2027 season.
Award-winning Brisbane director and dramaturg Sanja Simić, who helmed the work throughout its QPDA development, will return to direct the world premiere, with cast including Will Bartolo and Queensland favourite Sandro Colarelli.
QTC Artistic Director Daniel Evans, himself a former QPDA winner, said Di Troia was an exciting new voice in Australian theatre.“Alberto has written a play that is funny, incisive, deeply personal and completely of this moment,” said Evans.
“The story begins with a young man on a flight back to his Fatherland to scatter his dad’s ashes. He suspects the answers to his mid-30s existential crisis might lie in living life a little more dolce vita – but every family keeps its secrets, and what begins as a well-meaning pilgrimage of sorts soon unfurls into something genuinely gasp-inducing.”
“Audiences are in for a brilliant and biting comedy-of-mis-manners that turns into a searing reflection on how we reconcile the past with the present, what we inherit from our families and the depths we’ll go to – or the lines we’ll cross – to feel a sense of purpose, to feel like we might belong.”
“The QPDA changed the trajectory of my own career, so I know first-hand that this is much more than just a prize. It gives a playwright the time, resources, collaborators and, crucially, the stage to turn an ambitious idea into a fully realised new Australian work.”
“In doing so, it stands alone nationally: a rare, career-shaping commitment that places Queensland at the forefront of new Australian playwriting. While Alberto’s play has taken this year’s title, the Award’s greater legacy lies in the hundreds of bold new ideas it has helped bring into being – ideas that will find their way to pages then Australian stages for years to come.
“We can’t wait for audiences to meet Alberto and experience this extraordinary play when it premieres in Brisbane next year,” said Evans.
Inspired by Di Troia’s own exploration of his Italian-Australian heritage, My Roman Empire follows Joe, a queer Australian writer who travels to his ancestral village in Italy to scatter his father’s ashes and goes searching for a sense of belonging.
Instead, he finds a version of Italy far removed from the romanticised homeland he imagined and a family history more complicated than he bargained for. The play turns that collision between inheritance and reality into a dark comedy and a piercing political satire.
What happens when the family you come from rejects who you are, and the country they belong to embraces an ideology that makes you question yourself. Dialogue moves between English and Italian, and language itself becomes a character: the thing that keeps us strangers to each other, and the strange, improvised, and sometimes confronting ways we find to connect when we don’t have the words.
Di Troia said winning the Award – and with it the certainty of his first mainstage production – was an extraordinary opportunity. “Getting a show onto a mainstage in Australia is incredibly difficult, let alone a completely new Australian work that is experimenting with tone and trying to do something pretty wild,” said Di Troia.
“For QTC to back and support a new play like this, particularly one coming from a distinctive voice and perspective, is incredibly rare. This is my first mainstage play and I feel so fortunate. I hope audiences come prepared for something provocative, deeply funny, entertaining and shocking, and hopefully unlike anything they’ve seen before,” said Di Troia.
Di Troia entered the QPDA with a pitch rather than a finished script, before spending four months developing the idea into a polished draft through the Award’s intensive creative development program. The process included workshops with actors and creatives and two regional developments in Cairns and Toowoomba, culminating in a public reading at QTC in June.
The winning work was ultimately selected by a national judging panel comprising acclaimed director, writer and producer Wayne Blair; actor, musician and presenter Justine Clarke; QTC Artistic Director Daniel Evans; playwright and director Michael Gow; and writer, director and performer Sheridan Harbridge.
Minister for Education and the Arts John-Paul Langbroek said the Award continued to play an important role in developing Australian playwrights and stories. “Congratulations to Alberto, whose work highlights the power of storytelling to connect, challenge and inspire audiences,” said Minister Langbroek.
“For almost 25 years, the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award has championed bold new Australian voices – developing 42 new Australian plays to date and employing 283 actors and creatives. The Crisafulli Government is proud to support opportunities to strengthen our creative workforce and enhance Queenslanders’ access to enriching arts experiences.”
Griffith University Pro Vice Chancellor (Arts, Education and Law) and South Bank Provost Professor Scott Harrison said the university was proud to continue supporting an Award that transformed creative potential into professional opportunity.
“Great creative careers are built when talent meets opportunity and the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award gives Australian writers something incredibly valuable: the chance to develop an idea with leading industry practitioners and ultimately see that work realised for an audience,” said Professor Harrison.
“For Griffith University, supporting the QPDA is a natural extension of our 25-year partnership with QTC and our shared belief in investing in the artists and storytellers who will shape Australia’s cultural future. Alberto’s journey from an initial pitch to a world premiere production demonstrates exactly what this Award can make possible.”
The Queensland Premier’s Drama Award is presented by Queensland Theatre Company in partnership with the Queensland Government, with prize contribution from Griffith University.
My Roman Empire will have its world premiere in October 2027 as part of Queensland Theatre Company’s 2027 Season. For more information, visit: www.queenslandtheatre.com.au for details.
Images: Alberto Di Troia (supplied) | My Roman Empire (supplied)