A new Australian play examining the history and creation of the AFL Women’s competition is making its world premiere in Brisbane as part of the Brisbane Festival. Titled *Strong is the New Pretty*, the production is written by internationally acclaimed Australian playwright Suzie Miller and explores the seven-year campaign that eventually helped establish a professional national competition for women in Australian rules football.

The play looks beyond the sporting matches themselves to examine the people, determination and social changes that contributed to the creation of the AFLW. Its story reflects a significant period in Australian sporting history, when growing numbers of women and girls were demanding greater opportunities to participate in Australian rules football at an elite level.

Miller's interest in the subject developed after she attended the inaugural AFLW grand final in 2017. That match became an important moment in Australian sport, demonstrating the enormous public interest in women's football and helping challenge long-standing assumptions about women's participation in traditionally male-dominated sporting competitions.

The creation of the AFLW represented a major change for Australian football. Before the competition was established, talented female players often had significantly fewer opportunities to compete at the highest level than their male counterparts. The introduction of a national professional competition created a new pathway for athletes and provided young girls with visible role models within the sport.

Brisbane has a particularly strong connection to the AFLW story through the Brisbane Lions. The club was among the teams involved in the early years of the women's competition, helping establish the league in Queensland and contributing to its development. Brisbane Lions player Ally Anderson was part of the inaugural AFLW season and subsequently became one of the competition's most accomplished players.

Her career reflects the opportunities that emerged through the creation of the league. The development of the AFLW allowed players such as Anderson to build professional sporting careers and compete for premierships and individual honours on a national stage.

*Strong is the New Pretty* uses this sporting history as a way to explore wider social issues. The production considers themes including gender equality, opportunity, ambition and the changing expectations surrounding women's participation in professional sport. Rather than presenting the AFLW simply as a sporting success story, the play examines the campaign and persistence required to make structural change possible.

The Brisbane premiere forms part of the broader Brisbane Festival program and arrives during the current AFLW season, giving audiences an opportunity to consider the competition's history while watching its present-day development.

The production also demonstrates how sport can become a subject for theatre and storytelling. By bringing the experiences behind the creation of the AFLW to the stage, Miller provides audiences with an opportunity to consider the personal and social stories that can be overlooked when sporting history is told only through statistics, matches and trophies.

Following its Brisbane season, *Strong is the New Pretty* is scheduled to travel to other Australian cities, including Canberra, Geelong and Sydney. The production therefore has the potential to introduce audiences across the country to the story of how women's football developed from a campaign for greater opportunity into a major national sporting competition.

For Brisbane, the world premiere represents an important intersection of sport, theatre and contemporary Australian culture, celebrating both the history of women's football and the broader social change that helped make the AFLW possible.