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Melbourne Theatre Company
The Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1953 as the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, it is the oldest professional theatre company in Australia. The company's Southbank Theatre houses the 500-seat Sumner and the 150-seat Lawler, and the company also performs in the Arts Centre Melbourne's Fairfax Studio and Playhouse, all located in Melbourne's Arts Precinct in Southbank. Considered Victoria's state theatre company, it formally comes under the auspices of the University of Melbourne. As of 2013 it offered a Mainstage Season of ten to twelve plays each year, as well as education, family and creative development activities, and reported having a subscriber base of approximately 20,000 people and played to a around quarter of a million people annually. History The Melbourne Theatre Company was founded in 1953 by John Sumner as the Union Theatre Repertory Company, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sumner (director)
John Hackman Sumner, (27 May 192424 May 2013) was an English-born director and producer and theatre impresario, who was the founder and artistic director of Melbourne Theatre Company in Australia, gathering a group of later internationally famous stars including Ray Lawler, Zoe Caldwell, Barry Humphries and Fred Parslow Early life Sumner was born in England in May 1924. At an early age he attended the National Opera Studio (known then as London Opera Studio). He served in the British Merchant Navy in World War II before commencing his career in theatre in 1947 in Dundee, Scotland as assistant stage manager. He later became stage director and manager with H. M. Tennent Theatres in the west end of London before emigrating to Australia in 1952. In 1959, he married actress Patsy King. Career in Australia - Melbourne Theatre Company and director In 1953, Sumner established the Union Theatre Repertory Company (UTRC), which later became the Melbourne Theatre Company, where he served ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Seymour
Alan Seymour (6 June 192723 March 2015) was an Australian playwright and author. He is best known for the play ''The One Day of the Year'' (1958). His international reputation rests not only on this early play, but also on his many screenplays, television scripts and adaptations of novels for film and television. Career Seymour was born in Fremantle, Western Australia. His father was killed in a wharf accident when Alan was nine, and his mother, a Cockney from London, died a few months later.Marc McEvoy, obituary: "The one day of the year became a defining moment in writer's life". ''The Age'', 30 March 2015, p. 34 After that he was brought up by his sister May and her husband, Alfred Chester Cruthers. He was educated at Perth Modern School, leaving at 15 after failing to complete the Junior Certificate. He found work as a radio announcer in a commercial radio station 6PM. During his two years there he wrote a number of short radio plays that were broadcast live. In 1945 he moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Nowra
Mark Doyle, better known by his stage name Louis Nowra, (born 12 December 1950) is an Australian writer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist. He is best known as one of Australia's leading playwrights. His works have been performed by all of Australia's major theatre companies, including Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Belvoir, and many others, and have also had many international productions. His most significant plays are ''Così'', ''Radiance'' (both of which he turned into films), ''Byzantine Flowers'', ''Summer of the Aliens'' and '' The Golden Age''. In 2006 he completed ''The Boyce Trilogy'' for Griffin Theatre Company, consisting of '' The Woman with Dog's Eyes'', '' The Marvellous Boy'' and '' The Emperor of Sydney''. His 2009 novel ''Ice'' was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. His script for 1996 movie ''Cosi'', which revolves around a group of mentally ill patients w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hannie Rayson
Hannie Rayson (born 1957) is an Australian playwright and newspaper columnist. She is recognised as one of Australia's most significant playwrights. Biography Rayson was born in Melbourne, Victoria and graduated from the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of Arts. She has worked as a freelance journalist and editor in addition to her primary career as playwright and screenwriter. Rayson was the co-founder of the community theatre group, Theatreworks in Melbourne's inner eastern suburb of St Kilda, working there for four years while writing. Rayson has been writer-in-residence at Geelong's Mill Theatre, Playbox Theatre, La Trobe University (which has awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Letters), and Monash University. Rayson's first major success was ''Hotel Sorrento'', which won several prizes including an AWGIE Award. The play has become an Australian classic, regularly performed by regional theatre groups, and appearing in university courses and on the high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Justin Fleming
Justin Fleming (born 3 January 1953) is an Australian playwright and author. He has written for theatre, music theatre, opera, television and cinema and his works have been produced and published in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Poland and France. Fleming has been a barrister and vice president of the Australian Writers' Guild and a board member of the Australian National Playwrights' Centre. Early life, education and career Born in Sydney in 1953, Fleming is one of the six children of Drs Justin and Gwen Fleming of Sydney, Australia. His father Justin Fleming Snr, was a pioneer vascular surgeon who served with the RAAF during World War Two. Mother Gwen Fleming (née Lusby), also a doctor, had served as one of the first women majors in the Australian Army Medical Corps during the War. The couple met while serving at Concord Military Hospital, and married soon after the war, going on to have six children - Margaret, Paul, Justin, Judith, James and Peter. Flem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Elisha
Ron Elisha (born 1951) is an Israeli-born Australian playwright, writer and general practitioner. Born in Jerusalem Ron Elisha's family moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1953. In 1975 he graduated in Medicine from Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ... and has practised as a GP since then. His first play, ''In Duty Bound'' was staged in 1979. Since then he has written dozens of plays, two children's books and occasional pieces for newspapers. He has won four Australian Writers' Guild Awards, including the Major Award in 1982 for his 1981 play ''Einstein''. His plays have also been shortlisted for multiple awards throughout Australia, Europe and the US, his work having been produced throughout Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matt Cameron (playwright)
Matt Cameron (born 1969) is an Australian playwright, screenwriter and director, born and based in Melbourne. Plays ''Mr Melancholy'' (1995) was produced by Griffin in Sydney, La Boite in Brisbane and won the ANPC/New Dramatists Award, which led to a New York production with New York Stage & Film. ''Tear from a Glass Eye'' (1998) which won the Wal Cherry Play of the Year Award and was produced by Playbox in Melbourne and the Gate Theatre in London where he was nominated Most Promising Playwright in the Evening Standard Awards. ''Footprints on Water'' (2000) won the British Council International New Playwriting Award and was produced by his company, Neonheart, for Griffin in Sydney, La Mama in Melbourne and ABC Radio. ''Ruby Moon'' (2003) was short-listed for Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and produced by Théâtre Claque in Lausanne, Switzerland (2004). ''Hinterland'' (2004) was produced by Melbourne Theatre Company at the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne (2004) and sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alma De Groen
Alma De Groen is an Australian feminist playwright, born in New Zealand on 5 September 1941. Biography Alma Margaret Mathers, born in Manawatu, grew up in Mangakino, a small township founded to serve a hydro-electric power station in the North Island of New Zealand. Her earliest experience of theatre was being taken, as a high school student, to a New Zealand Players production of '' Saint Joan'', which starred Edith Campion, the mother of Jane Campion, as Saint Joan. This, along with a tiny local library which contained works by Shaw and Wilde, began her interest in theatre. In 1964 she moved to Australia and through the artist Geoffrey De Groen, whom she married in 1965, Alma De Groen was introduced to the film maker Sandy Harbutt, who read her first play, ''The Sweatproof Boy''. Harbutt persuaded theatre director Brian Syron to read it and a mentorship lasting many years began. Syron was the first Aboriginal Australian to study at RADA and at the legendary Stella Adler Studio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim McNeil
James Thomas McNeil (23 January 1935 – 16 May 1982) was an Australian award-winning playwright. While serving a 17-year sentence in Parramatta Correctional Centre for armed robbery and shooting a police officer, McNeil began writing plays. Within a few years he was being hailed as one of Australia's three most significant playwrights of the 20th century. He was released on parole 10 years early, won an Australian Writers' Guild Award and married actress and director Robyn Nevin, from whom he later separated. At the time of his release, McNeil's plays were being produced simultaneously in every state and territory in Australia.Ross Honeywill, ''Wasted: the true story of Jim McNeil – violent criminal and brilliant playwright''. Viking, September 2010 Biography McNeil was born on 23 January 1935 and raised in St Kilda, Victoria. As a teenager, he worked on the waterfront and became associated with the infamous Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union. In 1957, aged 22, he marri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Romeril
John Henry Romeril (born 1945) is an Australian playwright and teacher. He has written around 60 plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, and is known for his 1975 play ''The Floating World''. Early life and education John Henry Romeril was born in 1945 and grew up in Melbourne, living in Moorabbin until 1966. He attended Bentleigh West State School, Brighton Tech., and Brighton High Schools, and then undertook a BA at Monash University, graduating in 1970 with majors in English Literature and Politics. Career Over the course of his career, Romeril wrote plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, including stage, musicals, puppet theatre, pantomimes, and street theatre. In 1968 he became involved with La Mama Theatre, which had been established in that year by Betty Burstall. In 1969 a group involved with the theatre founded the Australian Performing Group (APG) in 1970 established the Pram Factory. The APG went on to perform many of Romeril's plays, which were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Williamson
David Keith Williamson Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 24 February 1942) is an Australians, Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays. Early life David Williamson was born in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, on 24 February 1942, and was brought up in Bairnsdale. He initially studied mechanical engineering at the University of Melbourne from 1960, but left and graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1965. His early forays into the theatre were as an actor and writer of skits for the Engineers' Revue at Melbourne University's Union Theatre at lunchtime during the early 1960s, and as a satirical sketch writer for Monash University student reviews and the Emerald Hill Theatre Company. After a brief stint as design engineer for Holden, GM Holden, Williamson became a lecturer in mechanical engineering and thermodynamics at Swinburne University of Technology (then Swinburne Technical Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Buzo
Alexander John Buzo (23 July 194416 August 2006) was an Australian playwright and author who wrote 88 works. His literary works recorded Australian culture through wit, humour and extensive use of colloquial Australian English. Biography Early life Alex Buzo was born on 23 July 1944 in Sydney. His father Zihni Jusuf Buzo (1912-2006) was from Berat, Albania, an American Harvard University graduate and civil engineer of Albanian origin. Elaine Johnson, an Australian teacher of Irish descent was his mother. Buzo's brother, Adrian Buzo (born 1948, Brisbane) is a Korean studies scholar and former Australian diplomat. The first school Buzo attended was the Middle Harbour State Primary School. Buzo's interests in his early years were shaped by his influential mother's sister Ailsa, a theatre and movie goer. At age 10, Buzo and the whole family went to live in Armidale when his father got a position at Armidale University. Buzo attended The Armidale School where his interest in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |