Tom Wright (Australian playwright)

Tom Wright (born Melbourne 1 January 1968) is an Australian theatre writer, mostly known for his adaptations and translations.

Biography

Tom Wright was born and grew up in Melbourne. He was dux at Wesley and read Fine Art and English at Melbourne University.^[1]

In 2003 he was appointed Artistic Associate at Sydney Theatre Company; in 2007 he became Associate Director. He left the company in 2012.^[2]

In 2016 he joined Belvoir as an Artistic Associate.^[3]

Career

Wright began as an actor, joining Jean-Pierre Mignon's Australian Nouveau Theatre (Anthill) in late 1991. In 1992 he resumed working with Barrie Kosky (who had directed him in student productions at Melbourne University) as a member of Gilgul, a Melbourne company exploring Jewish cultural identity. He acted in their productions of The Dybbuk (1992), Es Brent (1993), The Wilderness Room (1995) and The Operated Jew (1996).

He began writing for the theatre in the late 1990s, although he continued performing into the early 2000s. This Is A True Story, a monologue dealing with a death row case, which he wrote and performed, had multiple seasons and later toured to Sydney and London.^[4]

Lorelei: A Meditation On Loss, based on another death row case, and performed by Anna Galvin, played in Melbourne, Sydney, Edinburgh, London and Vancouver in 2003, and has since gone on to be performed in other nations such as Belgium and Pakistan.^[5] The BBC Radio 4 radio version of Lorelei won the Gold Prize for Drama at the Radio Academy Awards in 2007.

In 2006 he again resumed working with Kosky, writing The Lost Echo, an eight-hour adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.^[6] At the 2007 Helpmanns this production won five awards, including Best Play and Best New Australian work.^[7]

Wright's adaptation of The Women of Troy was awarded Best Mainstage Production at the 2008 Sydney Theatre Awards.^[8]

In 2009 his co-adaptation of Shakespeare's history plays, performed under the title The War of the Roses, was directed by Benedict Andrews for Sydney Theatre Company. This production collected four Helpmanns including Best Play,^[9] and was listed as the theatre masterpiece of the decade by The Monthly in October 2011.^[10]

Wright's 2012 play On The Misconception of Oedipus played at Malthouse in Melbourne and Perth Theatre Company, under the direction of Matthew Lutton. It won four Green Room Awards that year including Best Writing.^{[11] [12]}

In 2014 Wright's play Black Diggers premiered in Sydney under the direction of Wesley Enoch; later it toured Australia playing in Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Bendigo. A text exploring indigenous Australian experiences in the First World War, Black Diggers was awarded the Nick Enright Prize for Drama at the 2015 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.^[13]

Selected Works

• The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Brecht, Belvoir, 1998)
• Ubu (after Jarry. Melbourne Festival, 2001)
• Medea (Melbourne Festival, 2002, directed by Daniel Schlusser)
• This Is a True Story (2002)
• Babes in the Wood (Playbox, 2003)
• Lorelei (2003)
• Tense Dave (Chunky Move, 2003)
• Puntila and His Man Matti (Brecht, for ATYP, 2004)
• A Journal of the Plague Year (adapted from the Defoe. Malthouse, 2005)
• The Odyssey (Malthouse, 2006)
• The Lost Echo (STC, 2006)
• The Duel (2007)
• Criminology (with Lally Katz, Arena Theatre Company, 2007. Directed by Rosemary Myers)
• Tales From the Vienna Woods (Horvath, STC, 2007)
• The Women of Troy (STC & Malthouse, 2008)
• The War of the Roses (2009)
• Optimism (after Voltaire, Sydney Opera House, 2009)
• Baal (Brecht, STC & Malthouse, 2011. Directed by Simon Stone)
• Oresteia (STC, 2011)
• The Histrionic (Thomas Bernhard, 2011)
• The Castle (after Kafka. STC, 2012)
• On the Misconception of Oedipus (2012)
• The Misanthrope (Molière), (Malthouse, 2013)
• Black Diggers (Sydney Festival, 2014)
• The Good Person of Szechuan (Brecht, Malthouse 2014, toured Shanghai and Beijing, directed by Meng Jinghui)
• Picnic At Hanging Rock (adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay, Malthouse and Black Swan STC, 2016)
• Biographica (libretto) (composer Mary Finsterer, Sydney Chamber Opera, 2017)
• The Real & Imagined History of The Elephant Man (2017)

References