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NEIL COLE |
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Nationality: Australian Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Neil Cole is Associate Professor in the Monash Medical School. Prior to joining APRC Neil worked for five years at the Mental Health Research Institute as the Head of the Depression Awareness Research Project developing a model for effectively achieving depression awareness in the community He also explored the links between creativity and mental illness in people with schizophrenia. Since the start of 2005 he has been working at the Alfred Psychiatric Research Centre researching the link between creativity and mental illness. This year a major project of research was undertaken into the "creativity link" called "Trilogy of the Mind" with a performance taking place at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne using people with bipolar mood disorder and measuring the effect on their health from being involved in a high level creative pursuit. Neil is a former lawyer, a member of the Victorian State Parliament for over a decade and, in the 1990s, the Victorian Shadow Attorney-General. Neil has had seven plays produced in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland including 'Alive at Williamstown Pier', 'A Policewoman's Absurdity', 'Billy Possible', 'Dr Cade', 'The Campaign' "Personality Games" which he co-wrote with Prof. Gordon Parker from the Black Dog Institute in Sydney. His more recent play was the "Trial of Adolf Eichmann" He has won the Griffin Theatre Award for the best new writing for theatre in 1999 and was short listed for the Victorian Premiers Literary Award in 2001. His plays written and performed by and for people with mental illnesses include "I Could Have Been Carmen" "Radio Play" "Depression: The Great Debate" "Bring on the Carrots".
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Creativity and Mental Illness. "Into the Limelight" Neil is currently investigating the links between creativity and mental illness. This project obtained ethics approval in July and the first stage of this project was carried out between July and October 2005 culminating in the performance of "Trilogy of the Mind" at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. Four people with bipolar mood disorder performed in the play. The theatre held 100 people and was full three out four nights of the season. Research has yet to be completed however we gained sufficient knowledge to suggest we continue and expand the program next year. We proposed to do a three week trial with three different groups of people, performing the same play over three weeks. There will be a bipolar group of performers, a schizophrenia group. A group with depression (based out of Mildura) and one group without any mental illness at all".
Plays by Neil Cole
Alive At Williamstown Pier | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 1996 | ||||
Company: | La Mama | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #7450 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | death in this play is somehow life-afirming. Those who survive thier illness carry on after losing friends to their psychic demons | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Big Issue, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #85196 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Ten minute play | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | And the big issue is&. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Billy Possible | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 2000 | ||||
Company: | La Mama | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40770 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part of the 14th Melbourne International Comedy Festival | |||||
Synopsis: | The Labor Party are in election mode. For the first time ever they look like winning the seat of Mainforce. Then a series of unfortunate events make it look like labor could lose. The select a dummy candidate to run as Independent to help there chances. Every thing seems to go wrong. Even there dummy might win ahead of them.The Labor Party have to employ different methods to win the seat because their candidate has pulled out. With their backs to the walls they have to exploit every method possible to win. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Bring On The Carrots | ||
| 1st Produced: | Malthouse Theatre Melbourne | 2005 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54626 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short comedy One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | This short, thirty minute play, is a comedy about being a carer of a child with autism. Her child is obsessed by carrots, because of the colour, the texture who knows she arrives with carrots at a scout hall to be told she is being presented with an award by the police force for having the longest police record of anyone in the country. The police have visited her house to attend to her son more time than any body else in the state. She then recounts the one time she went to court. In a surreal fashion the play creates the "Court of Autism" where she is put on trial for feeling guilty about her son's condition. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Campaign, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 2003 | ||||
Company: | La Mama | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40772 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Set in the fictional seat of Hope Town the candidate Michael Murphy is under threat of defeat from the Greens. His only hope is to do a preference deal with the local brothel owner Tonya Heartfelt, who is running for Parliament to publicise her brothel. The deal comes at a very high price for Murphy as he is aligned with her and her more and more outrageous suggestions. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Depression: The Great Debate | ||
| 1st Produced: | Richmond Town Hall, Australia | 2002 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54625 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short Play One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The setting for this short half hour play is King's College Cambridge and is a debate between a women who has depression, Mrs. Black, and a Professor of Medication Professor Harmony. The compare adjudicates and the debate becomes very difficult particularly when Mrs. Black goes to sleep when the Professor starts talking. Is it depression or is she bored by the Professor! The professor says depression but it does look like boredom. The great debate begins. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Dr Cade | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 2002 | ||||
Company: | La Mama | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40771 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This is the story of Dr. John Cade who is a Melbourne Australia psychiatrist who discovered Lithium as a treatment for manic dperessive illness in 1948 | |||||
Synopsis: | The story of the discovery of lithium, how Dr. John Cade arrived at the conclusion that mental illnesses where bioche3mical illness. It also expolores his experiences in Changi as a prison of war. And how he later came to use his knowledge from there to develop an understanding of the human condition. He become what of the most famous scientists in the world. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Great Curran, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Short and Sweet Festival in Melbourne | 2005 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54624 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short Play One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The Great Curran is about Wally Curran, the Secretary of the Meat Workers Union who appears in the Industrial Court on behalf of a man who has lost his job for telling the boss to get fucked. The argument of Wally Curran is that the word fuck is in such common usage these days how could it be interpreted as offensive. He proves this by using it as much as he can during the hearing. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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I Could Have Been Carmen | ||
| 1st Produced: | Footscray Church Hall in Footscray | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54627 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short comedy One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A Spanish woman could have been Carmen in the Footscray Light Opera Company play twenty years ago but she fell in love and had six kids instead. Her only opportunity for performance was the annual staff play for the Footscray Council. She performs but still thinks she is Carmen; the Director thinks he is Steven Spielberg; and everyone in the cast has a convoluted view of their own importance. The question, as it was each year, would they make it to performance night. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Maria Mutola And The Big Issue | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54628 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | This play is set in the registration office of the Commonwealth Games in Australia. Maria is from Mozambique and not Australia so no one has heard of her. When they look her up it is discovered she is the greatest female 800 metre athlete ever. They decide to offer her Australian Citizenship so she has the privilege of running for Australia. She rejects in and is suspected of being a terrorist. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Personality Games | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 2004 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54546 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | written by Gordon Parker and Neil Cole | |||||
Synopsis: | This play is about being a psychiatrist and being a patient. . .about Borderline Personality and about testing borders! The play explores the relationship between a psychiatrist, his family and his own life, as he confronts his own life change and that of his family. All the while he is trying to treat a women with a borderline personality disorder one of the hardest illness to treat. Psychiatry, his training, his relationships are all pushed to the limits. His conscience and sub-conscious come alive on the stage for what turns into a typical Freudian confrontation with himself in the middle | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Policewoman's Absurdity, A | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 1998 | ||||
Company: | La Mama | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40769 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This is a comic look at the use of police public relations when people have been shot by the police | |||||
Synopsis: | The police force is up against. They have accidentally shot a photocopy salesman early in the morning. Police public relations have to come in to cover the mess that has occured. The police shoot more and more photocopy salesman until they can no longer cover it up. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Trial Of Adolf Eichmann, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | La Mama, Melbourne, Australia | 2005 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #54623 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | In 1961 Adolf Eichmann - the Nazi responsible for the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Problem' and often referred to the 'Chief Executioner', was captured and tried in Israel. He pleaded Not Guilty. Poignant and inspiring stories of Kitia Altman and Arnold Erlanger, both Auschwitz survivors living in Melbourne, are woven against the evidence of the man who perpetrated what is arguably the world's most heinous crime. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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