TOMMY
MURPHY
Award-winning Australian playwright presents
The 2010 Alex Buzo Memorial Lecture at Sydney Ideas
A
Voice Like No Other: The Future of Australian Drama on the
International Stage
Monday September 13 @ 6.30pm, Seymour Theatre Centre
THIS IS A FREE EVENT. BOOKINGS
HERE
A
generation of playwrights have ensured the Australian voice
holds a place on our stage. But what now for Australian
playwriting? What does Australian drama have to offer the
international stage and how can it more adequately
articulate a response to the here and now? Award-winning
young Australian playwright Tommy Murphy investigates
a distinctly Australian dramatic voice and the
often surprising responses from overseas audiences and
practitioners. Murphy’s critically acclaimed new
play
‘Gwen in Purgatory’
is currently playing at Belvoir Street and he will also
draw upon recent experiences with productions of his play
‘Holding the Man’ in the United States, New Zealand and on
London’s West End.
Tommy
Murphy - Playwright
Strangers
in Between (2005) and Holding the Man (2006) premiered at
Griffin Theatre Company, where Tommy was writer in
residence. These plays won the NSW Premier’s Award in
successive years. Strangers in Between toured nationally in
2008. Holding The Man was remounted for the 2007 Sydney
Mardi Gras Festival before transferring to Sydney Opera
House, Company B Belvoir, Melbourne Theatre Company and
Brisbane Powerhouse. Holding the Man also won the 2007
Australian Writers’ Guild Award (AWGIE) and the Philip
Parsons Award. It opened on London’s West End in April this
year.
Saturn's Return premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company
Wharf 2 in 2008 and transferred to the main stage in 2009.
Murphy’s other works include young people’s theatre pieces
Troy's House (1998), Precipice (2007) and an adaptation of
Marlowe's Massacre at Paris (2001).
He is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art
(Director's Course), a past president of Sydney University
Dramatic Society and a current board member of Australian
Theatre for Young People. His plays are published by
Currency Press and Nick Hern Books
London.
