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Don Parties On

play written by David Williamson

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ5293282
Source-derived summary

Don Parties On is a 2011 play written by David Williamson. It was a sequel to Don's Party and opened the 2011 season of the Melbourne Theatre Company. Directed by Robyn Nevin, this sequel premiered on 13 January 2011 at the Arts Centre Melbourne Playhouse.

The same characters 40 years on plus a few new arrivals. Don is now a retired school teacher.

Plot

The Scene: 21 August 2010, Don invites old friends around for a party the night of the federal election.

It’s 21 August 2010, the night of yet another federal election and, of course, yet another election night party at Don’s place. Over the decades, as he and his friends watched governments come and go, they have also closely followed the incoming results from each other’s lives: the tallies of luck and misfortune, the unexpected swings for and against. And through it all, the lesson that this crowd of superannuated Baby Boomers never seemed to learn is that politics and strong personalities should never be mixed with alcohol.

The relationships between the returning characters have changed, and there are also new characters: Cooley's wife Helen, Don and Kath's son Richard, Richard's lover Roberta, and his daughter Belle.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Don Parties On” as play written by David Williamson. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Parties, play and written can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as play written by David Williamson. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5293282. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 2010.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Don Parties On”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Don Parties On primary sources, Don Parties On archive and Parties research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Don Parties On”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Don Parties On” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.