The 1890s also saw a similar nationalistic burst in the performing arts. Louis Esson began writing plays in self-consciously Australian idiom. Dramas emerged in Melbourne and created a lively, radical, political theatre in Australia for the first time. Melbourne�s experimental theatres of the 1970s (such as La Mama and The Pram Factory) provided artistic focus. Amoung the playwrights fostered were Jack Hibbered (author of �Dimboola�, about a country wedding � and the most successful piece of Australian restaurant theatre stage play), and David Williamson (�Don�s Party�, �The Club� and �Emerald City� were all made into movies). Williamson also wrote the script for movies such as Peter Weir�s 1981 �Gallipoli� which launched Weir to Hollywood.

Drama also developed from such elegies for lost youth as Ray Lawlor�s �Summer of the Seventeenth Doll� to the plays such as Alan Seymour�s �One day of the Year� which dealt with the Anzac Day celebrations which Australia ritualistically celebrate for its defeat at Gallipolli in World War 1.