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Michael Gow

MICHAEL GOW  (1955 - )

 Nationality:    Australian
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

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.

Research:    http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/105

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

         17         1841         All Stops Out         Astronaut's Wife, The         Away         Europe         Fortunes Of Richard Maloney, The         Furious         Kid, The         Latitudes         Live Acts On Stage         On Top Of the World         Sweet Phoebe         Toy Symphony

17

Synopsis:
Rite of passage play with a young girl facing up to a scary journey into adulthood. 17 is about madness and is filled with dreams and visions and a heightened sense of reality. It asks questions about what is madness, what is being an outsider, how do you tell who makes the rules up?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
ATYP Studio, Walsh Bay, NSW    23 Apr 2005

Organisations:
Australian Theatre For Young People

1st Published:
One act Play,    -

Music:
-

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:
absurdist One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/66301

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1841

Synopsis:
1841 is the year the last convicts were transported to Sydney from Britain.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Playhouse, Adelaide, SA    03 Mar 1988

Organisations:
Sydney Theatre Company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney, 1988   0868191957

Music:
-

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            Other:  with doubling

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/488

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All Stops Out

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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Rocks Theatre, The Rocks, NSW    20 Jul 1989

Organisations:
Australian Theatre For Young People

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney (1991)   0868193100

Music:
-

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            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/1882

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Astronaut's Wife, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Sydney    1984

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Away

Away
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

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stables Theatre, Darlinghurst, NSW    07 Jan 1986

Organisations:
Griffin Theatre Company

1st Published:

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/30423.
National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - acc.11865/12

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Europe

Synopsis:
A love-smitten young Australian travels to Europe searching for a French actress he had a week-long affair with during an Australian arts festival.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Princess Basement Theatre, Woolloongabba, QLD    14 Jul 1987

Organisations:
TN Theatre Company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney (1987)   0868191582

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/261

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Fortunes Of Richard Maloney, The

Synopsis:
In 'The Fortunes of Richard Mahony' Gow distills Henry Handel Richardson's great novel into an intense theatrical event, encompassing the historical sweep of the Eureka Stockade, the social drama of sudden, fabulous wealth and just as sudden poverty, and the intense private drama of a marriage battling madness, ilness, separation and finally death.

Notes:
Brisbane Festival 2002

1st Produced:
Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm, QLD    09 Sep 2002

Organisations:
Playbox Theatre company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney,    -

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  5            Other:  extras

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/18358

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Furious

Furious
The story of a playwright whose series of popular comic works has suddenly come to an end, as a dark, painful play begins to build within him. 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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay, NSW    06 Nov 1991

Organisations:
Sydney Theatre Company

1st Published:
in "Australian Gay and Lesbian Plays", Currency Press, Sydney (1994)   978-0868193625

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act. - - Gay, full length

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  9            Other:  Doubling possible, plus extras

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/13252

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Kid, The

Kid, The
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.

Notes:
workshop At the Australian National Playwrights Conference 1982

1st Produced:
Winter Theatre, Freemantle, WA    25 Aug 1983

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Sydney : Currency Press in association with the Nimrod Theatre Company, (1983)   978-0868190907

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Gay, one act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/11916

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Latitudes

Synopsis:
A Cairns busker plays her music on the Esplanade and observes the passing parade with brutal humour. A Sydney entreprenuer returns to Cairns in a blaze of highflying. A Brisbane woman treats us to a slide night of her unusual holiday to the shambling side of Far North Queensland. Each of these stories are woven together by character and place, each of them presenting a different view of Cairns and the region.

Notes:
one act plays by kathryn Ash, Mark Gaal and Michael Gow

1st Produced:
Cairns Civic Theatre, Cairns, QLD    12 Jun 2003

Organisations:
JUTe (Just Us Theatre ensemble)

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
one act plays

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/79219

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Live Acts On Stage

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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Stables Theatre, Darlinghurst, NSW    05 Jan 1996

Organisations:
Griffin Theatre Company

1st Published:
Australian Script Centre   978-0-9873929-8-5

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
90 min poetic tragi-comedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/26777

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On Top Of the World

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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay, NSW    26 Aug 1986

Organisations:
Sydney Theatre Company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney (1987)   0868191582

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/102356

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Sweet Phoebe

Sweet Phoebe
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

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Wharf Theatre, Walsh Bay, NSW    02 Nov 1994

Organisations:
Sydney Theatre Company

1st Published:
Currency Press, Sydney (1995)   978-0868194301

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/26400

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Toy Symphony

Toy Symphony
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.

Notes:
Winner of the 2007 Sydney theatre Awards in the category New Australian Work

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Company B

1st Published:
Currency Press, Australia >>>, 2008   978-0868198286

Music:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/70932

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