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MICHAEL GOW (1955 - ) |
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Nationality: Australian Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Shanahan Management Pty Ltd (agent: Nellie Flannery) |
Michael Gow has extensive writing credits for stage, screen and radio. His best known play is the multi-award winning Away, a modern classic of Australian Theatre and one of the most performed Australian plays. Others include Toy Symphony (critically acclaimed production at Belvoir Street Theatre Upstairs in 2007), The Kid, On Top of the World, Europe, 1841, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony award-winners Furious and Sweet Phoebe, and Live Acts on Stage. For television he has written the mini-series Eden's Lost, directed by Neil Armfield and Art'n'Life. He also adapted his play Europe for radio and wrote The Astronaut's Wife for ABC Radio. His awards include two NSW Premier's Literary Awards (for Away and Sweet Phoebe); two Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards ( Away and Furious); the Australian Writer's Guild Major Award for Writing and for Best Play ( Away), a Green Room Award ( Away) an AFI Award for best Mini-Series ( Eden's Lost). He is also a noted director, and has been Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre Company since 1999.
Plays by Michael Gow
17 | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2005 | |||||
Company: | Shell Connection | |||||
| 1st Published: | One Act Play, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #50353 | |||
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 One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | rite of passage play with a young girl facing up to a scary journey into adulthood | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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1841 | ||
| 1st Produced: | Adelaide, Australia | 1988 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney, 1988 | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868191957 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14157 | |||
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: | Historical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | with doubling | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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All Stops Out | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney | 1991 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney (1991) | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868193100 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14158 | |||
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: | Childrens 80 mins Youth Audience | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Studying comes naturally to Sam, but Danny finds it more difficult. Linda thinks Jenny is wasting her time whilst Cathy regrets not working harder. And all the parents are anxious. . .In All Stops Out, Michael Gow reveals different attitudes towards the dreaded end of year exams. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Astronaut's Wife, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney | 1984 | ||||
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 | #14159 | |||
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: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Away | ||
| 1st Produced: | Stables Theatre, Sydney | 1986 | ||||
Company: | Griffin Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | Sydney : Currency Press in association with Playbox Theatre Company, (1986) >>> | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868191515 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14160 | |||
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 | 6 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A funny but painfully truthful play. It opens with a school performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Shakespearean themes of suffering and reconciliation persist as three families on separate holidays are drawn together by a storm | |||||
Further Reference: | National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Acc.11865/12 | |||||
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Europe | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney | 1987 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney (1987) | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868191582 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14161 | |||
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 | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A young Australian, in pursuit of a middle-European actress, triggers a series of emotional revelations. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Fortunes Of Richard Maloney, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #50354 | |||
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 One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | extras | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | As Richard Mahony struggles with survival, identity and sanity, with one foot in the old country and a toe-hold in the new, his life gallops alongside the great events of the nineteenth century. Written with enormous emotional power, this is the spiralling story of a nation's turbulent adolescence. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Furious | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney | 1991 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Australian Gay and Lesbian Plays", Currency Press, Sydney (1994) | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868193623 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14162 | |||
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: | One Act. - - Gay, full length | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 9 | ||
Parts other: | Doubling possible, plus extras | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A family secret, a terrible betrayal and an obsession to rewrite the past combine in this savage and irrisistible tale of fact and fiction. A stranger has come into Roland's life and he will never be the same again. He is summoned to an old people's home to collect a box left for him by someone he has never met. The box is filled with newspaper clippings - about him and his career as a writer. He has to find out why. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Kid, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Winter Theatre, Freemantle | 1983 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Sydney : Currency Press in association with the Nimrod Theatre Company, (1983) | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-0868190907 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14163 | |||
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: | One Act. - - Gay, one act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 7 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | workshop at the Australian National Playwrights Conference 1982 | |||||
| Donald an assistant in a bookshop is having a coffee in a cafe one evening when Snake and her brothers Aspro and Dean turn up. The siblings are on their way to Sydney to get compensation money for an accident that Aspro was in - the accident has left him slighty confused and somewhat incontinent. He is called Aspro because of the number he used to eat. Snake got her nickname after as a young girl she was forced by her mother to have sex with a man and she said that he had a "snake". Dean takes a shine to Donald and urges him to come with them but he declines. Next day when he is at work in the bookshop the siblings turn up and this time Dean does persuade Donald to come with them. They are going to stay with an Aunt but when they arrive they find that the aunt has died and that a stranger is living in her house. This woman has just been told by her boyfriend to move out and as revenge she gives them the television, record player and records. The foursome rent an appartment. Aspro and Snake go to try and get the money but are given the run around by the various departments. Donald is afraid of sex and he and Dean end up being frustrated with each other. One of the tennants at the block where they are living is Desiree she distibutes Christian literature for her abusive father. She agrees to put on a slide show about the end of the world for Dean. Due to a loophole Aspro cannot have any compensation - he is becoming steadily more ill. During the slide show Desiree's father arrives and takes her away. Aspro starts coughing up blood and is rushed to hospital.Donald decides to leave. Dean goes to Desiree's flat and finds her bound and beaten in a wardrobe. Dean attacks her father and possibly kills him. Snake comes back from hospital Aspro has died she packs and leaves. Dean takes out a bottle of pills he has stolen and slowly starts taking them. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Live Acts On Stage | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Australian Script Centre | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14164 | |||
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: | 90 min poetic tragi-comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The myth of Orpheus has long inspired the western imagination. His journey to Hell to recover his wife, and the loss of his powers, give the myth a poignant message: we cannot escape death. Enraged by Zeus' infatuation with a Trojan shepherd-boy, Hera, Mother of the Gods, has her sights set on Orpheus, whose teachings she sees as responsible for the filth. The Trojan War is the present: Andromache and Hector may be in any war-torn country. The Spartans, righteous and obsessed with power, lead a coalition of the willing against them and civilisation is on the brink. In Michael Gow's brilliant new comedy humans, Gods and history seem destined to repeat themselves. Live Acts on Stage is an unforgettable roller-coaster of celestial history in which nine actors play twenty-nine characters in one and a half hours. The celebrated author of Away has written a poetic and savage comedy of love and renewal for an apocalyptic age. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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On Top Of The World | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney | 1986 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney (1987) | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868191582 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14165 | |||
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: | On Top of the World expands on the theme of disparate attitudes between the old world of Europe and the new world of Australia, as explored in Europe. Conflicts erupt in the family of an elderly man isolated in a high-rise apartment on the Gold Coast. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Sweet Phoebe | ||
| 1st Produced: | Sydney Theatre Company | 1994 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Currency Press, Sydney (1995) | ISBN/ASIN: | 0868194301 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #14166 | |||
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 One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Helen and Frazer offer to look after Phoebe, a troublesome dog, for their best friends while they are on holiday. Nothing could have prepared them for the disruption to their highly ordered lives especially when they try to find Phoebe when she runs away. A dark comedy in which sensible priorities are forgotten, marriage is laid bare and a well adjusted suburban lifestyle lurches out of control | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Toy Symphony | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
Company: | Company B | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #87064 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | doubling | |||||
Notes: | Winner of the 2007 Sydney Theatre Awards in the category New Australian Work | |||||
Synopsis: | Roland Henning has writer's block. When he tries to explain the situation to a therapist, his story begins to tumble back and forth between his childhood in The Shire and his work as a playwright. At the root of it all is that extraordinary day in primary school which shattered his boyhood and plunged him headlong into the dizzy circus of life and art. His story is funny, fiercely eloquent and shockingly honest. Toy Symphony is a wrestle between the vicious bastardry of being an artist and the sheer exhilaration of the creative act. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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