John Romeril

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Australian playwright

title: "John Romeril" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1945-births", "living-people", "apra-award-winners", "australian-screenwriters", "writers-from-melbourne", "members-of-the-order-of-australia", "patrick-white-award-winners", "australian-male-dramatists-and-playwrights", "australian-musical-theatre-lyricists", "20th-century-australian-dramatists-and-playwrights"] description: "Australian playwright" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romeril" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian playwright ::

John Henry Romeril (born 1945) is an Australian playwright and teacher. He has written around 60 plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, and is known for his 1975 play The Floating World.

Early life and education

John Henry Romeril was born in 1945 and grew up in Melbourne, living in Moorabbin until 1966. He attended Bentleigh West State School, Brighton Tech., and Brighton High Schools, and then undertook a BA at Monash University, graduating in 1970 with majors in English Literature and Politics.

Career

Over the course of his career, Romeril wrote plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, including stage, musicals, puppet theatre, pantomimes, and street theatre.

In 1968 he became involved with La Mama Theatre, which had been established in that year by Betty Burstall. In 1969 a group involved with the theatre founded the Australian Performing Group (APG) in 1970 established the Pram Factory. The APG went on to perform many of Romeril's plays, which were performed at the Pram Factory. Romeril also worked collaboratively with other APG writers, including Jack Hibberd and Tim Robertson.

His first plays, I Don't Know Who To Feel Sorry For (1969) and Chicago, Chicago (1970) were written while he was still a student.

bastardy In 1972, Romeril co-wrote a one-act play for four actors called Bastardy, based on the life of the main actor in the first production of the play, Jack Charles. Premiering on 23 August 1972, Charles played the main character at the season at the Pram Factory, with Peter Cummins, Jude Kuring, and Tim Robertson taking the other three parts. Charles plays a cat burglar who was struggling to get over his drug habit. The production was directed by Bruce Spence. The script of the play was published in 1982 by Yackandandah Playscripts,

The Floating World (1975) is his most admired play,

His later work is placed firmly in the context of Australia being part of the Asia Pacific region, including Japan.

He co-wrote the film script for One Night the Moon with Rachel Perkins, released in 2001.

Themes and style

Romeril is known for collaborating when creating his works, in a way that allows many others to contribute to the work.

His plays have examined many influences on Australian society, such as war, American cultural imperialism and national politics.

His style has been described as improvisational and musical, and is influenced by Brecht. His works frequently require audience participation, as is seen in the improvisational work Kelly Dance, where members of the audience members are invited to dance on the stage with the actors.

Awards and recognition

Romeril has been a writer in residence with Jigsaw Theatre Company in Canberra, and Troupe Theatre in Adelaide.

Other awards and honours include:

Some of his works have also been awarded, including Tokyo Henry (Playbox Asialink Playwrighting Competition, 2003) and Miss Tanaka (Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, 2002).

Selected works

  • A Nameless Concern (1968)
  • Kitchen Table (1968)
  • The Man from Chicago (1969)
  • Marvellous Melbourne (1970)
  • I Don't Know Who to Feel Sorry For (1973)
  • The Floating World (1975)
  • Bastardy, with Uncle Jack Charles (first performed 1972; published 1982)
  • Jonah (1985)
  • Kelly Dance (1986)
  • Legends (1986)
  • Definitely Not the Last: A rock'n'roll fable (1989)
  • Lost Weekend (1989)
  • Black Cargo (1991)
  • Love Suicides (1997)
  • Kate 'N' Shiner (1998)
  • Miss Tanaka (2001)
  • One Night the Moon, with Rachel Perkins (2001)

References

References

  1. "John Romeril".
  2. "Guide to the Papers of John Romeril [MSS 054]".
  3. [http://www.ozarts.com.au/artists/artists_literature/john_romeril/ John Romeril] {{webarchive. link. (2007-08-30 (OzArts Online) Accessed: 26 February 2007.)
  4. Browning, Daniel. (14 September 2022). "'I called him Uncle': Remembering iconic theatre great Uncle Jack Charles". [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]].
  5. "Guide to the Papers of John Romeril [MSS 054]".
  6. "Bastardy".
  7. (19 May 2015). "Bastardy".
  8. (24 July 2022). "NAIDOC Male Elder Of The Year: Uncle Jack Charles".
  9. Varney, Denise. (2011). "Radical Visions 1968-2008: The Impact of the Sixties on Australian Drama". Brill.
  10. Kunapipi]]'', 18(2), 1996.
  11. "Australian National Playwrights' Centre Award".
  12. (2006-05-02). "Playwright awarded UNSW Literary Fellowship". [[University of New South Wales]].
  13. "AWGIE Special Awards 1973-2018".
  14. "Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

1945-birthsliving-peopleapra-award-winnersaustralian-screenwriterswriters-from-melbournemembers-of-the-order-of-australiapatrick-white-award-winnersaustralian-male-dramatists-and-playwrightsaustralian-musical-theatre-lyricists20th-century-australian-dramatists-and-playwrights