Sydney Festival Digital Archive

Black Chicks Talking by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee (2003)

"We're just black chicks talking", says one of the five women in Leah Purcell's and Sean Mee's play. "Yeah, talkin' shit!", came the instant response.

Raw, funny and unflinching, Black Chicks Talking was a pioneering work of Australian theatre, one that put Aboriginal women’s voices front and centre. Developed from interviews, it invited audiences into conversations seldom if ever heard in our theatres at that time – black-on-black conversations that white people weren’t privy to: conversations about identity, about the loss of children to forced adoption, about the disconnection from culture.

Black Chicks Talking was and remains a landmark.