Ruby drama strikes gold with US writer

Leading US writer and producer Anne Kenney is to executive produce and co-write an Australian historical miniseries based on a bloody battle between gold miners and colonial forces.

Anne Kenney

Ruby Entertainment (The Secret River) is developing eight-part series The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, adapted from Clare Wright’s Stella Prize-winning book of the same name.

La Trobe University, where Wright is associate professor of history, is putting up A$200,000 (US$148,000) to enable Kenney to write the treatment and pilot script.

Ruby’s Mark Ruse and Stephen Luby, who optioned the novel in 2015, aim to mount the series as an Australian-US coproduction.

The plot will focus on six young women from the US, Scotland, Ireland and England plus one Indigenous woman who worked on the gold fields and led the popular movement towards democracy.

The women were also instrumental in the creation of the Eureka Flag, which was hoisted above the diggings by rebellious miners in defiance of the police and the British military garrison in Ballarat, Victoria in 1854. That sparked a short but bloody battle in which more than 30 people were killed.

Wright, who will serve as coproducer, reached out to Kenney after seeing her work on the time-travel series Outlander.

“Rebels is an historic piece filled with adventure, ambition, intrigue and grit with a group of amazing, previously unheralded women at the forefront,” said Kenney, whose credits include Switched at Birth, Hellcats, Beautiful People, Greek and LA Law.

Ruse said: “Our vision for Forgotten Rebels is a truly international production for what is truly an international story full of modern day relevance.”

Wright said the project’s chances of moving rapidly to commission are hugely enhanced by La Trobe University’s early-stage investment. “With a writer of the profile and calibre of Anne Kenney on board I’m confident the pilot will quickly lead to a TV series,” she said.

The producers intend to hire Australian writers to write some episodes and will pitch the project to potential coproducers after the first draft is finished by the end of this year.