Early life, education and career
Born in Sydney in 1953, Fleming is one of the six children of Drs Justin Fleming and Gwen Fleming of Sydney, Australia. His father Justin Fleming Snr, was a pioneer vascular surgeon who served with the RAAF during World War Two. [2] Mother Gwen Fleming (née Lusby), also a doctor, had served as one of the first women majors in the Australian Army Medical Corps during the War. [3] The couple met while serving at Concord Military Hospital, and married soon after the war, going on to have six children - Margaret, Paul, Justin, Judith, James and Peter. [4]
Fleming attended high school at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, a Jesuit college in Sydney. [5] Here he was taught english literature by Joseph Castley and Charles MacDonald, S.J., and the classics by Charles Fraser, S.J. Near contemporaries at the college included writers Gerard Windsor and Nick Enright and composer Stewart D'Arrietta. He was taught music by Lorraine Henderson, Julienne Horn and Tessa Birnie. After graduating High School, Fleming enrolled in Arts at the University of New South Wales, and attended part time acting classes with Hayes Gordon and Zika Nester at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney. In 1972, he joined Gemini Productions working in television and contributed scripts for The Godfathers , The True Blue Show (ATN 7), The Spoiler and The Young Doctors . [5]
In 1973, Fleming commenced part time studies in law at the University of Sydney, where he became director of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, with productions including The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and The Gondoliers. He worked as a Judge's Associate from 1974, and completed his first law degree in 1978. [5] He subsequently gained a Master of Laws with Merit from University College London. He was associate to District Court Judge John Lincoln from 1974 until 1978 and for some years was a barrister in Dublin and Sydney, before devoting himself full-time to writing. [6] Fleming wrote his first plays in the late 1970s, while still working in the law. He completed the manuscript for Hammer in 1978 and Doubted his Empire in 1979. [5]
Fleming is married to author and academic, Professor Fae Brauer. They have 2 children/stepchildren, Lara and Marcus and 2 grandchildren, Jura and Olieve .
Career as playwright
Fleming's first play, Hammer, was staged at the Festival of Sydney in 1981 and was followed by Indian Summer in 1982. In 1983, in the Sydney Opera House, Sir Robert Helpmann starred for the Sydney Theatre Company in the world premiere of Fleming's play The Cobra. [6] Helpmann portrayed the elderly Lord Alfred Douglas, reflecting bitterly on his notorious youthful relationship with Oscar Wilde.
In 1989, the Sydney Theatre Company produced Harold in Italy at the Sydney Opera House; it was later staged by the Teatr Studyjny in Lodz Poland. [6] The Deep Blue was staged at The Bush, London, in 1991 and the following year the Ensemble Rep Studios produced The Nonsense Boy. Fleming has twice been awarded the Nancy Keesing Writer's Fellowship to the Cité internationale des arts in Paris (1993, 1998), where he wrote The Starry Messenger and Burnt Piano (in French Le piano brulé). The latter was staged around Australia and went on to win the New York New Dramatists' Award in the year 2000 and opened in New York City in March 2001. It was short-listed for various awards including the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and won the Banff PlayRites Residency, Canada. [6] The playwright Harold Pinter was an admirer of Fleming's work, particularly the portrait of Samuel Beckett in Burnt Piano. Pinter described Fleming as a writer "of authority and distinction". [7]
Other plays include adaptations of Émile Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames (The Department Store) at Old Fitzroy and D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, 27 August 2003.
Fleming has been librettist and lyricist on Crystal Balls (Compact Opera/UK tour/Sadler's Wells, London), The Ninth Wonder (Sydney Theatre Company), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Savoy Theatre, London and UK tour), Accidental Miracles (WAAPA/Sydney Theatre Company/Cameron Macintosh), Satango (Griffin Theatre Company/Riverside Theatres/Vegas Theater Company), Ripper (Ensemble Theatre), Laid in Earth (Queensland Music Festival), The Merry Widow for Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia, and Whiteley for Opera Australia. Whiteley was nominated by the Writers' Guild for an AWGIE award for Music Theatre 2020 and an International Opera Award for Best New Work 2020. Fleming is creator and librettist on a new opera, Helpmann on Sir Robert Helpmann, and was commissioned by Opera Australia to write a new English libretto for Die Fledermaus.
In 2006, Fleming was made Writer-in-Residence by the Dr Robert and Lina Thyll-Dur Foundation at La Casa Zia Lina, Elba in Italy, where he translated Molière's Tartuffe (titled as The Hypocrite) from the original French into English. In 2007 he was awarded the Writer's Residency at Arthur Boyd's Bundanon, where he wrote Origin, a play on the subject of Charles Darwin, commissioned by the Melbourne Theatre Company. He was granted a residency at the Don Bank Museum, North Sydney and awarded the Tasmanian Writers' Centre Residency in 2008, where he wrote His Mother's Voice. [1] In 2011, Fleming was commissioned by the Bell Shakespeare Company to translate Molière's The School for Wives and by Ensemble Studio Theatre and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York, to write Soldier of the Mind, a play about Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Spanish neuroscientist.
In 2015, Riverside Theatres produced Shellshock and in 2016 Griffin Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare Company co-produced The Literati, Fleming's adaptation of Molière's Les Femmes Savantes . 2018 saw Dresden at KXT in Sydney, and The Misanthrope in Bell Shakespeare Company's co-production with Griffin Theatre Company; and in 2019, Bell Shakespeare Company toured his translation of The Miser . The Scream was shortlisted for the Silver Gull Play Award 2020. A new play, Doris Fitton was shortlisted for the Seaborne Broughton & Walford Foundation Playwrights Award 2021 and selected for Storytellers Festival 2023. Fleming was commissioned by Dr James Wall to write a new play, Visions.
Fleming has been vice president of the Australian Writers' Guild and served on the board of the Australian National Playwrights' Centre. His plays have been produced and published widely, including the UK, US, Canada, France, Australia, Belgium and Poland.
