John Misto

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John Misto
Born13 October 1952 (1952-10-13) (age 72)
Education
Occupation(s) Playwright, television screenwriter, novelist

John Misto (born 13 October 1952) is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, and fiction. [1] [2] [3] [4] His works have won "many awards including the Queensland Premier's Literary Award, three Australian Film Institute Awards, three Australian Writers' Guild Awards and a Gold Plaque at the Chicago Television Awards". [5] [6] [7]

Contents

Early life and education

John Misto began writing at the age of twelve and did his first television interview at ABC Television two years later. Much of his writing has been influenced by his strict Catholic family upbringing and a similar education at a Catholic secondary school in Sydney.

After graduating in Arts and Law from the University of New South Wales, he worked in the state public service as a Research Officer for the Privacy Committee. His experiences there laid the foundations for his television series, The Damnation of Harvey McHugh . [8] He left the public service to concentrate on working as a theatre and television writer.

Television writing

Misto completed a Diploma in Scriptwriting at the Australian Film and Television School in 1980. [9] He then joined the Grundy Organisation and worked as a scriptwriter on the popular Australian television series, The Young Doctors . Two years later he wrote his first telemovie, Natural Causes , a black comedy about ageing hippies and murder, for ABC Television. That work won an Australian Film Institute Award for the Best Telemovie Script and the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Best Original Telemovie. [4]

Further works for ABC Television included G.P. , Dancing Daze , Palace of Dreams , [4] The Cut, a six-hour series about a corrupt sports agent, The Damnation of Harvey McHugh and the telemovie Sisters of War . [10]

Misto has written extensively for children’s television. He penned several episodes of the children’s television series Dusty and Butterfly Island as well as the telemovie of Butterfly Island. [11] He also wrote the award-winning telemovie Peter and Pompey for the Australian Children's Television Foundation. [11]

He has written scripts for popular television shows such as the telemovie Heroes’ Mountain: The Rescue of Stuart Diver for Network Ten, [12] The Day of the Roses: The True Granville Story, [13] Mary MacKillop and Gordon Bennett [14] for Mike Willesee’s Australians, [15] A Country Practice, Dirt Water Dynasty and White Collar Blue. He also co-wrote the miniseries The Last Frontier , starring Linda Evans and Jack Thompson, which was screened on the CBS television network in the United States. [16]

Stage plays

Over the years Misto has written extensively for the theatre. His first play, Sky, was a monologue and was staged at the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli, Sydney. [17] It was nominated for the Sydney Critics’ Award for Best New Play of the Year and also received a commendation from the Australian Human Rights Commission. [7]

That was followed by the play, The Shoe-Horn Sonata (1996) which premiered at the same theatre, and was subsequently performed dozens of times around Australia, [18] [19] in London, and in Prague (in Czech translation), followed by three years of national tours around Australia and further seasons at the Ensemble and at the NIDA Theatre, Kensington, Sydney. The play was awarded the AWGIE Television Mini-Series Original Award, [4] the NSW Premier's Literary Award and the Australia Remembers National Play Competition. [20] The play was listed for twenty years as a study text for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate. [21] As at 2025 it is still being studied in Australian schools.

Misto’s next plays included Gossamer, which was based on the Cottingley fairy hoax of 1917 and which was played at the Ensemble and at the Fortune Theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand; [17] Dark Voyager ("about the turbulent relationship between Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe" [2] ); and Harp on the Willow. [22]

In 2008 Misto branched out into musical theatre biography when he co-wrote Peace Train: The Cat Stevens Story which had several national tours around Australia, [23] a sold-out performance at the Sydney Opera House and a national tour of the United Kingdom in 2017. [24]

In 2017 Misto wrote Lip Service about the life of American make-up millionairess, Helena Rubinstein and her war with Elizabeth Arden and Revlon's Charles Revson. Lip Service was staged in Sydney at the Ensemble Theatre and in Melbourne.

In the same year, Lip Service, with a new title, Madame Rubinstein, had a sold-out season at The Park Theatre in London’s West End [25] starring Miriam Margolyes and Frances Barber. Madame Rubinstein had two seasons and a national tour in the Czech Republic [26] and was staged in other Eastern European countries: Lithuania, [27] Belarus, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia (in the cities of Ekaterinburg and Norilsk), as well as in Israel. [28]

In 2022 Madame Rubinstein premiered at the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow [29] starring Russia’s leading actress, Vera Alentova, on which occasion Misto became the first Australian playwright to have a play staged at a commercial theatre in Moscow. As at 2025 the play remains in the theatre’s repertoire. [30]

Works

Television

Theatre

Works in printed form

Plays

Novels

Articles

Awards

References

  1. John Misto, australianplays.org. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 John Misto, oztheatrical.com. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  3. John Misto (1952- ), encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 AWGIE Award Winners 1968-2016, amazonaws.com. Retrieved19 September 2025.
  5. Origin Theatrical to represent the works of John Misto, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  6. John Misto, austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 19 September 2025.
  7. 1 2 John Misto, laterallearning.com. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  8. The Damnation of Harvey McHugh – From Here to Maternity (1994), aso.gov.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  9. Our alumni, aftrs.edu.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  10. Loiuse Schwartzkoff, "Courage amid the conflict", The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2010. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  11. 1 2 John Misto: The Screen Guide, screenaustralia.gov.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  12. Anthony Buckley, Behind A Velvet Light Trap, Hardie Grant Books, 2009, p. 316.
  13. The Day of the Roses (1998), screenaustralia.gov.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  14. General Gordon Bennett, misacor.org.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  15. Michael Willesee's Australians: episode guide, australiantelevision.net. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  16. The Last Frontier (1986), mubi.com. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  17. 1 2 Ensemble Production History, ensemble.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  18. THEATRE: The Shoe Horn Sonata – Limelight Touring Company, benallaartgallery.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  19. John Misto's 'The Shoe-horn Sonata' at Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, weekendnotes.com. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  20. John Misto: The Shoe-Horn Sonata, archive.org. Retrieved 19 September 2025.
  21. Senior Curriculum Handbook, stannies.com, p. 12. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  22. Paul Andrew, Harp On The Willow | Ensemble Productions, australianstage.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  23. Peace train goes national, news.csu.edu.au. Retrieved 19 September 2025.
  24. David Kary, Peace Train: The Cat Stevens Story, sydneyartsguide.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  25. Lip Service aka Madame Rubinstein, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  26. Madame Rubinstein, studiodva.cz. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  27. Madame Rubinstein, vsteatras.lt. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  28. Origin Theatrical to represent the works of John Misto, https://origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  29. Viktoria Sevryukova, mariinsky.ru. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  30. Review: John Misto's Play MADAME RUBINSTEIN is Staged in Moscow by Yevgeny Pisarev at The Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, broadwayworld.com. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  31. The Shoe-Horn Sonata, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  32. Harp on the Willow. The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 2003. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  33. Gretchen Miller, "Famous men caught in fairies web", The Northern Herald edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 May 1997, p. 11.
  34. Gossamer, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  35. Harp on the Willow, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  36. Dark Voyager, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  37. Madame Rubinstein by John Misto, thesoandsoartsclub.com. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
  38. Jason Blake, "Lip Service review: John Misto brings two legendary entrepreneurs to the stage", The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 2017. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  39. Lip Service, origintheatrical.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  40. The Shoe-Horn Sonata, worldcat.org. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  41. Madame Rubinstein, worldcat.org. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  42. Peter and Pompey, worldcat.org. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  43. The Devil’s Companions, worldcat.org. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  44. 1 2 John Misto, bloomsbury.com, Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  45. Newsletter - Photocopy of newsletter page, RAANC National Newsletter, Misto's heroes closer to their memorial, 1995, victoriancollections.net.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  46. John Misto | Best Play - The Shoe-Horn Sonata, calameo.com. Retrieved 18 September 2025.
  47. Newsletter - Photocopy of newsletter page, RAANC National Newsletter, Misto's heroes closer to their memorial, 1995, victoriancollections.net.au, Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  48. John Misto, smithandmacdonald.com.au. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  49. Patricia Edgar and John Edgar, patriciaedgaranddonedgar.com. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
  50. Australian Television: 1999 AWGIE Awards, australiantelevision.net. Retrieved 20 September 2o25.
  51. Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award Winners, sbwfoundation.com. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  52. 2010 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Winners, middlemiss.org. Retrieved 20 September 2025.

Further reading