Carving in Snow

Last week, before a preview screening in Brisbane of the film version of Holding the Man , I joined writer Tommy Murphy for a public talk about how the story came to be, first as memoir, then as theatre, and now as film. It was lovely to be with Tommy, such a crucial figure in how this story has reached a wider audience, and to reflect on what is now a 20-year history adorning the 15-year relationship between Timothy Conigrave and the man he called his husband, John Caleo. Tim was an actor and playwright, but his final form was memoir. Following John’s death on Australia Day 1992, Tim was determined to write a book about his lover. In an interview with James Waites  for a National Library oral history project on HIV/AIDS in Australia, Tim says ‘The only thing I have to live for is these two things that I am writing, which I’d like to finish both of. One’s a play that involves stuff about AIDS but it’s not really about AIDS, and the other one is the book that I’d like to ...

Last night, La Boite Theatre Company hosted a fascinating forum called Towards Diversity . It linked two areas of current interest in the Australian theatre: gender equity and cultural diversity. Both, of course, speak to one of the leading questions of the forum: What are the forces that prevent our theatres from adequately reflecting the society in which they operate?  These two topics arise at this time because of special circumstances. On 24 April, the Australia Council released a report on Women in Theatre . It highlighted a very real problem of gender equity within Australian theatre. It's been a much spoken about topic since the announcement of Neil Armfield’s final season at the then Company B in September 2009, at which the sight of a stage full of bright young men, and just one woman, got people talking. The second topic springs from the upcoming appointment of a two year, fulltime Theatre Diversity Associate, to be shared between La Boite, Queensland Theatre C...