Image: Leah Purcell in The Drover’s Wife, taken by Brett Boardman.
The night really belonged to Leah Purcell and her stage play, a re-imagining of Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife. She received the Stage award, and then the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre, and then the 2017 Major Award (formerly the Gold AWGIE), in which all the winners are pitted against each other.