"Daisy in the Dreamtime," a new play by Lynne Kaufman, winner of the 2001 Rella Lossy Memorial Award for Playwrighting, will premiere this weekend at the Little Theatre.

The play, directed by Ron Conboy, chair of the Theatre Arts Department, is based on the true story of Daisy Bates, an Irish émigré who pitched a tent in the Australian Outback in 1913 and lived with Aborigines for 30 years.

The ensemble cast from the College of Creative Arts' Theater Arts Department will take the audience on an exploration of the Australian Outback, Ireland and Aboriginal culture.

The play focuses on relationships Bates formed with Aborigines and other émigrés, and explores the Aborigines' freedom from two western obsessions: the pressure of time and the accumulation of goods.

The play will preview at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 10, and will run at 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 11; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12; 8 p.m. Oct. 17-19; and 2 p.m. Oct. 20.

The Rella Lossy award, established in 1999, honors Lossy, an SFSU alumna. She published several plays, served as theater editor of the Bay Arts Review and was a founding member of the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle. The award funds a Northern California playwright-in-residence to develop a new play to premiere at San Francisco State University.

Magic Theater of San Francisco regularly produced Kaufman's early works, and she has 10 national premieres to her credit.

Director Ron Conboy, a Chicano playwright, heads the Creative Writing Department's graduate playwriting program. His works include "Drive my Coche," "When El Cucui Walks" and "Dancing with the Missing." The latter two plays toured nationally with San Francisco's El Teatro de la Esperanza.

All performances are in the Little Theatre in the Creative Arts building. Tickets are available by calling the Creative Arts box office at (415) 338-2467. Tickets also go on sale one hour before each show.