Description
Playwright Tommy Murphy shares his tips for stage adaptation. Tommy will draw on his extensive experience of adaptation to lead the group in practical exercises that aim to encourage you to unlock texts for their full dramatic potential. We will focus on how to embrace the theatrical form. We will look at dramatic structure, characterisation, dialogue and editing. Importantly we will also cover the practical part of getting the job done, including planning and redrafting. All degrees of experience are most welcome, whether you have a specific adaptation project in mind or simply want to learn about the process.
Tommy Murphy is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His new play Packer & Sons broke box office records at Belvoir earlier this year. He is currently adapting his 2017 play, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, for the screen.
Tommy’s earlier stage adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s memoirs, Holding The Man, is regularly produced around the world including recently in Florence, Chicago, Nashville and London’s Westend. It won multiple awards including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the Australian Writers’ Guild Award and the Philip Parsons Award. Tommy’s adaptation of Lorca’s Blood Wedding formed part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. His other plays include Troy’s House (Old Fitz/ATYP) and an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris (ATYP), Gwen in Purgatory (Belvoir, winner of Richard Burton Prize and the WA Premier’s Award) and Strangers in Between (winner NSW Premier’s Literary Award, revived London’s West End in 2018).
His screenplay for Holding the Man, for which he was Associate Producer, won the Australian Writers’ Guild Award and the Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay. Netflix distributes the film globally. He received the 2020 National Theatre Prize from the Australia Council for the Arts.
