UPDATE: Thank you to all our extraordinary sponsors who have helped us reach the amount required to fly one of our playwrights back to Manila in February. We will still be accepting donations until February 10, with all additional monies going towards the higher of bigger and better film equipment to document the performance, and facilities hire later in the year for continued script modifications and workshops. So, if you would still like to avail of the many unique / bizarre prizes on offer, read on...

In November 2011, Australian playwrights David Finnigan, Sam Burns-Warr, Georgie McAuley and Jordan Prosser travelled to the Philippines to work with the contemporary theatre group Sipat Lawin Ensemble on a month-long collaborative devising process. At the end of the workshopping and devising phase, a 177-page script was produced for the site-specific re-telling of Koushun Takami's infamous novel (and its subsequent film spin-off), Battle Royale.

The loose adaptation sees the story of 40 high school children kidnapped and subjected to a sadistic totalitarian government program, in which they are each pitted against one another in a spiralling sequence of fight-to-the-death vignettes. Only one student can win. Only one will survive. Best friends and school bullies are pitted against their high school sweethearts, the loners and jocks come up against the rock band kids and science nerds, armed to the teeth and hell-bent on survival. It's like Kill Bill meets Degrassi Junior High.

Sipat Lawin Ensemble is a Manila-based, edge work, site-specific theatre company geared towards creating relevant new works staged in alternative performance spaces. Changing the landscape of theatre performances in the Philippines, Sipat Lawin engages in ensemble and collaborative work as the group aims to develop an urban community theater experience shared among artists and audiences inside and/or outside the four walls of the theatre. Read more on Sipat Lawin's blog.

David Finnigan is a writer, theatre-maker and festival producer based in Canberra, Australia. Since 2001, more than 30 of David's full-length and one-act playscripts have been produced by professional and co-operative companies in Australia, the Philippines and the USA. In 2006 David completed a Writer's Residency in Manila with Tanghalang Pilipino, and his playscripts have been nominated for the Max Afford National Playwrights Award, the Queensland Premier's Literary Award, and his solo show Sun Drugs was nominated for Best Solo Show in the 2010 New Zealand Fringe Festival Awards. Check out his website here.

Jordan Prosser and Sam Burns-Warr are Melbourne-based writers, directors, filmmakers and performers, having graduated in 2009 from the Victorian College of the Arts and Swinburne University respectively. Their two-man show, The Landlords, was the recipient of awards for Best Original Work and Best Ensemble Performance at the 2008 Canberra Area Theatre Awards, and was subsequently performed to critical acclaim at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Their short films have screened at festivals around Australia, and Jordan's 2009 film Beatrice, Her Beast And The Man From The City screened in England and France. You can read some of Jordan's other things here.

Georgie is a performer, writer, theatre-maker and yoga enthusiast. Her passion for the performing arts culminated in her completing a Bachelor of Performing Arts 2011. She has most recently been seen in productions of Macbeth, directed by Daniel Schlusser, Rupture, produced and devised by Uncle Semolina and Friends, and 'Endangered Species' which featured in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, receiving strong reviews. She doesn't have a website yet, but don't hold that against her.