Australian playwright Suzie Miller has turned the birth of the AFLW into a new stage production, inspired by the moment she watched Adelaide defeat Brisbane in the competition’s inaugural grand final on the Gold Coast in March 2017.
Strong Is The New Pretty receives its world premiere at the 2026 Brisbane Festival, tracing the determined campaign to establish a professional women’s Australian rules league after generations in which the sport was largely presented as a male preserve.
Miller, who grew up in Melbourne, said she had struggled to understand why girls were excluded from the game she saw around her. “As a young girl I thought: how come it’s just boys?” she said.
She said the arrival of the AFLW changed her understanding of what could be achieved. “I thought, how many other areas in the world do we not envisage that this is a possible place to have equality until we actually see it happen before us?”
The playwright began researching the project by speaking to players, coaches, commissioners and people involved in grassroots football. She said those working to create the league had to overcome repeated doubts about sponsorship, media interest and whether women belonged on the field at all.
The play follows the Adelaide Crows during the inaugural 2017 season, when the club became the first AFLW premiers after beating Brisbane in the grand final. The competition’s creation had followed years of lobbying and an official recommendation in 2010 for a national women’s league.
Miller has described the production as a story about more than sport, presenting the formation of the AFLW as an example of collective action and a test of Australia’s idea of a “fair go”. The production’s official material says it focuses on the people who transformed a seemingly unlikely proposal into a national competition.
“It’s my love letter to Australian women, because I feel like they’ve just been working so hard behind the scenes for so long to try and make a difference,” Miller told the Australian Associated Press.
She said the response during previews had been markedly different from that to some of her earlier, more confrontational works, with audiences leaving on an emotional high. “This must be what it’s like when you write theatre that feels good,” she said.
Directed by Sarah Giles, the production features a cast including Lucy Bell, Amy Hack, Amy Ingram, Alex King, Amber McMahon, Tara Morice, Nyasha Ogden and Contessa Treffone.
Strong Is The New Pretty runs at the Brisbane Festival from September 1 to 19, before travelling to Canberra, Geelong and Sydney later in 2026. Further performances are planned in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart in 2027.
