Stephen Sewell (writer)
{{short description|Australian playwright and screenwriter}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use Australian English|date=October 2011}}
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| name = Stephen Sewell
| caption = Sewell in Sydney, 2023
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1953}}
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| occupation = Writer
| agent = David Smith, Smith & MacDonald
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Stephen John Sewell (born 1953) is an Australian playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his play and later (1998) screenplay of The Boys.
Early life and education
Stephen John Sewell was born in 1953 into a working class, Catholic family in Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia.{{cite web | title=Stephen Sewell | website= AustLit | url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A4958 | access-date=10 February 2024}}{{Cite web |date=1982 |title=Adelaide Festival - Speakers and Readers in Writers' Week |url=https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/media/3747/1982-aww-guide.pdf |website=Adelaide Festival}} He studied science at the University of Sydney, before deciding to become a playwright.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Stephen Sewell |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A4958 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}
Career
His short play Kangaroo was presented at a Sydney fringe theatre in 1975. His first full-length play, The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea was performed at La Boite Theatre in Brisbane under the artistic directorship of Rick Billinghurst in 1977.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C269946 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}
His first major success was Traitors at the Australian Performing Group's Pram Factory in 1979,{{Cite web |last=Jo |first=Roberts |date=2004-04-29 |title=Politics - always timely |url=https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/politics-always-timely-20040429-gdxr5w.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240213085051/https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/politics-always-timely-20040429-gdxr5w.html |archive-date=2024-02-13 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=The Age |language=en}} followed quickly by Welcome the Bright World, directed by Neil Armfield at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney in 1981. In 1983 Armfield directed a production of The Blind Giant is Dancing by the State Theatre Company of South Australia. Also in 1983, BBC Radio produced a version of Traitors with David Nettheim.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Traitors {{!}} AustLit: Discover Australian Stories |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C257032 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}
Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America, A Play in 30 Scenes was directed by Aubrey Mellor at the Malthouse Theatre in 2003.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America : A Drama in 30 Scenes |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C473519 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}} Three Furies - Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon was directed by Jim Sharman for the 2005 Sydney Festival.{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Three Furies |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C529219 |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}
In 1998 the film version of his play The Boys, directed by Rowan Woods, was released.{{Cite web |last=Biron |first=Dean |date=2023-10-12 |title=The aesthetics of conservatism |url=https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-210/feature-dean-biron/ |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=Overland literary journal |language=en-US}}
Sewell's work looks at the nature of power in society, and shows his commitment to radical social change, promoting egalitarianism and social justice. He has been influenced and inspired by many thinkers, including Democritus, Marx, Lacan, Hegel, and Zizek. His plays show passion, rage, and intellectual rigour, but also humour and hope.{{cite web|title= The Hot Seat: Stephen Sewell, interview by Valerie Lawson | newspaper= Sydney Morning Herald, Arts Review |url= http://www.awg.com.au/artman/uploads/sewell_report.pdf |date= 23 September 2006 |access-date= 24 February 2008 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070829112620/http://www.awg.com.au/artman/uploads/sewell_report.pdf |archive-date = 29 August 2007}} He has said of his work, "No artist, no creator, ever sets forth without hope, even if the thing they create appears to be carved out of pitch black despair".{{cite web| title= Theatre at the End of History. A Weekend with Stephen Sewell, 6–8 October 2006 |publisher= Australian Writers' Guild |url= http://www.awg.com.au/artman/uploads/sewell_report.pdf |access-date= 24 February 2008 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070829112620/http://www.awg.com.au/artman/uploads/sewell_report.pdf |archive-date = 29 August 2007}}
Sewell was head of writing at the National Institute of Dramatic Art between 2012 and 2021.{{Cite news |date=25 October 2012 |title=Enhancing creativity through seven stages of transformation in a graduate level writing course—A mixed method study |work=Books and Arts |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187120301863 |access-date=2023-08-29 |via=ABC Radio National}}
He has won many awards, including winning of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award three times.{{cite web |title= Play Award |publisher= NSW Premier's Literary Awards |url= http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/awards-shortlists/play-award |year= 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120308084541/http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/awards-shortlists/play-award |archive-date= 8 March 2012 }} In 2004 Sewell won the Louis Esson Prize for Drama at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America: A Drama in 30 Scenes.{{cite web | title=The Louis Esson Prize for Drama: Winner 2004 | website= State Library of Victoria | date=2004 | url=http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/literary/pla/leprize/winner2004.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050622124948/http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/literary/pla/leprize/winner2004.html | archive-date=22 June 2005 | url-status=dead | access-date=10 February 2024}}
He is currently a researcher at the Australian National University.{{Cite web |last= |title=Dr Stephen Sewell |url=https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/sewell-s |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=Australian National University |language=en-US}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|nm0786601|Stephen Sewell}}
- [https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A4958 Stephen Sewell] on AustLit
- [https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/2217 Stephen Sewell] on AusStage
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Category:Australian screenwriters
Category:Writers from New South Wales
Category:21st-century Australian novelists
Category:21st-century Australian dramatists and playwrights
Category:Australian male novelists
Category:Australian male dramatists and playwrights
Category:21st-century Australian male writers