Collaboration is the essential life-force of the theatre. Disparate roles work together to produce an experience that is ephemeral; but if successful, the memory may last a lifetime.

The adventure often begins with the Playwright, who drafts a blue-print of words and character and action that is then nurtured by a team and its nurturing wordsmith 'parent'.

Tommy Murphy is such a 'parent'. He is one of our eminent story-tellers and collaboration comes easy. It is a process he relishes. Perhaps it's being one of eight children that has fostered the skill.

Tommy Murphy is an award-winning playwright with recent productions in New York, San Francisco, Indiana, Los Angeles, Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney. He is the only playwright to win the NSW Premier's Award, a prestigious national writing prize, in successive years.

Tommy is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Director's course) and a former writer in residence at Griffin Theatre Company. His plays include an adaptation of Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, Holding The Man, Strangers in Between, Troy's House, Gwen in Purgatory, Saturn's Return, Mark Colvin's Kidney and Precipice.

His next play is Packer & Sons - a story that puts four generations of the Packer family on stage; men who loomed large over Sydney for nearly 100 years. It receives its debut season at the Belvoir Street Theatre from November 16th through to December 22nd.

Tommy sat down with me to discuss Playwriting, Process and the Packers.

Find more information on Packer & Sons at www.belvoir.com.au

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