Biography of Justin Fleming

JUSTIN FLEMING 's plays include Hammer (Ensemble Theatre/Festival of Sydney); The Cobra, Harold In Italy, The Ninth Wonder (STC); Burnt Piano Belvoir/MTC/Herbert Berghof Theater New York/Mainstage Theatre Co, Hobart/Dallas Theater Center/France Australia Theatre, Paris/Centaur Theatre, Montréal); Coup d'Etat (MTC/Western Canada Theatre); Kangaroo (Square Brackets Theatre); and Junction (NIDA). Burnt Piano won the New York New Dramatists' Exchange Award; Coup D'Etat won the Banff PlayRites Residency, Canada 2002, made the final short-list for the Patrick White Award and was nominated for an AWGIE award for Best Play. Burnt Piano was selected as the inaugural play for the Australia/Canada exchange between Melbourne Theatre Company and the Centaur Theatre, Montréal. The Myth of the Passive Citizen premiered in the Short & Sweet Festival in Sydney. As librettist, Justin collaborated with Thos Hodgson and Martin Charnin on Babel; and with Stephen Edwards on Accidental Miracles (WAAPA/Sydney Theatre Company), the English Tour and London season of Crystal Balls (Compact Opera/Sadler's Wells) and TESS of the D'Urbervilles, which toured Britain before its run at The Savoy Theatre in London's West End. Justin was recently librettist on Satango with Stewart D'Arrietta (Griffin Theatre Co/Riverside Theatres). Current work includes plays, The Australians and Backbencher; screenplay adaptation of Darcy Niland's novel, Dead Men Running; and the musical, For All It's Worth, on the legendary impresario, JC Williamson. Justin has been NSW Vice-President of The Australian Writers' Guild and a board member of The Australian National Playwrights' Centre. Justin has degrees in law from Sydney and Dublin, and a Master of Laws from University College London. Written for ABC/BBC TV, Justin's history of the common law, Barbarism to Verdict, was published internationally by HarperCollins, with a foreword by Sir John Mortimer. For ABC Television, Justin wrote Part One of the history of cinema in Australia, The Celluloid Heroes, and other publications include the History of Waverley College, The Crest of the Wave (Allen&Unwin), The History of Law Firm Carroll & O'Dea, The Vision Splendid, and the History of the ex-students' union of Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, All That Brothers Should Be (Beaver Press), Justin was also the inaugural Dr. Anne Clark Writer-in-Residence at St. Ignatius' College. He has twice been awarded the Nancy Keesing Studio at the Cité Internationale des arts, Paris, where he wrote his most ambitious work, The Starry Messenger. He was the inaugural Dr. Anne Clark Writer-in-Residence at St. Ignatius' College in Sydney, and has twice been awarded the Nancy Keesing Studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.