The Playwrights Database

• Home

• Playwrights

• Plays
• Characters
• Literary Agents
• Play Publishers
• Theatres
• Gay/Lesbian
• Useful Links
• About Doollee
• Submit Info to Doollee

web doollee.com

RAY LAWLER  (1921 - )

Nationality:    Australian
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Curtis Brown (Australia)Pty Ltd  


Ray Lawler (Raymond Evenor Lawler) was born in Footscray, Melbourne, 23 May 1921, the second eldest in a family of eight. He left school at thirteen in the Depression days of the 1930s, to work as a labourer in a Footscray factory, a job he held for the next eleven years. It was during these years that he started acting and writing plays in his spare time, and several of his early works were presented by Melbourne amateur theatre companies. He first attracted wider attention as a writer when his play Cradle of Thunder was presented in Melbourne, after winning the National Theatre Movement's Jubilee Play Competition in 1952. By then Lawler had left factory work, and was eking out a living in professional theatre. In 1955 his tenth play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, shared first prize in the Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition with Oriel Gray's work, The Torrents. Sumner of the Seventeenth Doll was taken up by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, and presented by that organisation throughout Australia, with Lawler playing the role of Barney. This successful tour led to the Australian company being taken overseas for a London season, presented by Laurence Olivier, and The Doll (as it had become known), won the Evening Standard Award for the best new play on the London stage in 1957. The company then went on to play a season in New York, in conjunction with Laurence Olivier and the American Theatre Guild, but this was not a successits failure perhaps best summed up by The New York Times' critic, Brooks Atkinson: 'Since the Australians speak English and so do we, we assume that Summer of the Seventeenth Doll says the same thing to us as it does to Australians. But ... this theatregoer felt that the real quality was escaping him.' Since then the play has been translated into many languages and performed in many countries. Lawler stayed overseas for some years, and lived in Denmark, England and Ireland. Returning to Australia in I 975, to take up a position as an associate director with the Melbourne Theatre Company, with an agreement to complete trilogy based on The Doll. The first play, Kid Stakes, opened in December 1975 and the second, Other Times, in December 1976. The Doll Trilogy had its first full performance a the Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne, on 12 February 1977. Lawler has been married for over fifty years to actress Jackie Kelleher, whom he met when she was cast as Bubba in the first Australian wide tour of The Doll. They have two sons, a daughter, and three grand children.

Buy Plays with Doollee

Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.
AbeBooks.co.uk   AbeBooks.com   Stageplays.com   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.ca

---

whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template

below is a list of Ray Lawler's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

Adventures of Ginger Meggs         Bluff and the Fair, The         Breach In The Wall, A         Cradle Of Thunder         Godsend         Har's Bells         Kid Stakes         Man Who Shot The Albatross, The         Other Times         Piccadilly Bushman, The         Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll         Tram Stop 10!         Unshaven Cheek, The         Victoria Regina