Ron Blair (writer)

Last updated

Ron Blair
Born1942 (age 8081)
Occupations
  • Writer
  • adaptor
  • announcer
  • dramaturg
  • playwright
Known for

Ron Blair (born 1942) is an Australian writer. Among his best known works is the play The Christian Brothers . He helped establish the now defunct Nimrod Theatre in Sydney in 1970. He was also the Assistant Director of the South Australian Theatre Company from 1976 until 1978. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

Born in Sydney in 1942, Blair attended Christian Brothers' High School, Lewisham. While studying for a bachelor of arts at the University of Sydney, he was involved in student performances by the Sydney University Dramatic Society. [3] Early in his career he worked for ABC Radio. A freelance writer, he has written over a dozen plays. [4] He is married to actress and director Jennifer Hagan. [5]

Select credits

Related Research Articles

<i>Summer of the Seventeenth Doll</i> Play written by Ray Lawler

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is an Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne on 28 November 1955. The play is considered to be the most significant in Australian theatre history, and a "turning point", openly and authentically portraying distinctly Australian life and characters. It was one of the first truly naturalistic "Australian" theatre productions.

Nicholas Paul Enright AM was an Australian dramatist, playwright and theatre director.

Wesley James Enoch is an Australian playwright and artistic director. He is especially known for The 7 Stages of Grieving, co-written with Deborah Mailman. He was artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company from mid-2010 until October 2015, and completed a five-year stint as director of the Sydney Festival in February 2021.

John Henry Romeril 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.

Richard Bruce Wherrett AM was an Australian stage director, whose career spanned 40 years. He is known for being the founding director of the Sydney Theatre Company in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Maza</span> Australian actor, playwright, director and activist

Robert Lewis Maza, known as Bob Maza, was an Aboriginal Australian actor, playwright and activist.

Jennifer Compton is a New Zealand-born Australian poet and playwright.

Terence Osborne Clarke (AM) is a retired Australian theatrical director and composer who also worked as an actor, pianist, musical director, teacher and dramaturg. On Australian Day 2007 he was installed as a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts as a director, actor, writer, composer and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Duggan (playwright)</span> Irish-Australian actor and playwright (1862-1938)

Edmund Duggan was an Irish-born actor and playwright who worked in Australia. He is best known for writing a number of plays with Bert Bailey including The Squatter's Daughter (1907) and On Our Selection (1912). His solo career was less successful than Bailey's. His sister Eugenie was known as "The Queen of Melodrama" and married noted theatre producer William Anderson, for whom Duggan frequently worked as an actor, writer and stage manager.

A Hard God is a semi-autobiographical play by Peter Kenna.

Barry Kingham Oakley is an Australian writer.

Coralie Lansdowne Says No is a play by Alex Buzo about a woman's struggle for independence.

The Christian Brothers is a play by Australian writer Ron Blair first performed in 1975. It is a one-man play about a teacher at a Christian Brothers school. It was based on Blair's experience of studying at the Christian Brothers school in Lewisham, Sydney and has come to be regarded as an Australian classic. Peter Carroll performed in the original Nimrod Theatre production, which was directed by John Bell and designed by Larry Eastwood. The play has been revived a number of times, including the 1991 production at the Q Theatre, Penrith with Neil Fitzpatrick, directed by Helmut Bakaitis.

The Cake Man is a 1975 play by Aboriginal Australian writer Bob Merritt, notable for being the first play written by an Indigenous Australian person to be published, televised and to tour out of Australia. A telemovie was made of a 1977 performance of the play. The Aboriginal Theatre Company was formed by Bob Merritt and Brian Syron especially to produce the play for a tour to the United States in 1982.

President Wilson in Paris is a 1973 play by Ron Blair set during the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. It was also adapted for television by the ABC.

Swamp Creatures is a play by the Australian author Alan Seymour. He wrote it for radio, stage and TV. It was Seymour's first produced play.

Burst of Summer is a 1959 play by Oriel Gray. It won the 1959 J. C. Williamson's Little Theatre Guild Award, and was later adapted for radio and TV. It was Gray's last produced play.

John Croyston was an Australian writer, radio producer and director.

Aubrey Mellor is an Australian theatre director, dramaturge and teacher.

Robert James Merritt, known as Bob Merritt or Bobby Merritt and credited as Robert J. Merritt, was an Aboriginal Australian writer and activist. He is especially known for his play The Cake Man, and for founding the Eora Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts.

References

  1. "Ron Blair". Australia Plays.
  2. "Nimrod begins to redefine its identity". The Canberra Times . Vol. 55, no. 16, 702. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 19 June 1981. p. 10. Retrieved 27 September 2020 via National Library of Australia.
  3. "Ron Blair". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
  4. "Ron Blair". Currency Press. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
  5. "Ron Blair". AusStage. Retrieved 1 October 2021.