AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 5205929471247947355.jpg
Image courtesy of the NLA
David Williamson David Williamson i(A21523 works by) (a.k.a. David Keith Williamson)
Born: Established: 1942 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

David Williamson was brought up in Bentleigh, Melbourne, until the family moved to Bairnsdale, Victoria in 1954. He was educated at the Bairnsdale high school but moved to Melbourne for his last year. Apart from his enthusiasm for drama and literature, Williamson was also good at mathematics and physics, and he completed a mechanical engineering degree at Monash University in 1964.

Dissatisfied with his course of study, Williamson wrote satirical sketches for student reviews and the Emerald Hill Theatre. In 1964 he spent a year working at General Motors Holden but had little interest in car design. He continued to write after becoming a lecturer in mechanical engineering at Swinburne Institute of Technology in 1966 and studied part-time for a postgraduate degree in social psychology at the University of Melbourne. An active opponent of the Vietnam War, he became the inaugural president of the Youth Campaign Against Conscription.

Williamson saw his first play performed in 1968 when the Tin Pan Alley Players produced 'The Indecent Exposure of Anthony East', an unpublished play satirising corporatism. His first full-length play, The Coming of Stork, was performed in 1970 and adapted to film the following year. This process would be repeated for a number of Williamson's plays. By this time Williamson was lecturing in engineering and his new discipline, social psychology. In 1972 he resigned these lectureships to pursue writing full-time after the critical and commercial success of his plays Don's Party and The Removalists. More than twenty plays have followed this success, bringing Williamson numerous awards and exposure overseas.

Overseas productions frequently took Williamson to the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1978 he was Visiting Professor of Drama at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, for a semester. On his return Williamson moved to inner Sydney, which provided a more congenial climate and access to the centre of broadcasting, theatre and film activity. He became increasingly involved in a parallel career of writing screenplays for film and television that brought him international recognition.

Following a falling out with the Sydney Theatre Company Williamson promised his next play, After the Ball (1997) to the Queensland Theatre Company under Robyn Nevin. Williamson had spent increasing periods on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland during the 1990s and by 1997 had relocated to Noosa while retaining an apartment in Sydney.

In June 2005, after being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, Williamson announced his retirement from writing for the theatre. However, an adaptation of Geoffrey Robertson's 'The Tyrannicide Brief' had a reading by the Sydney Theatre Company on 7 April 2006, and his play 'Strings under My Fingers' was premiered at the Noosa Longweekend arts festival in mid-June 2006. With treatment restoring his health, Williamson returned to writing plays and in June 2008 a new romantic comedy, 'Scarlett O'Hara at the Crimson Parrot', was produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Williamson's plays explore the interactions within social groups such as academic departments, clubs or parties. The collision of temperaments within these groups produce dramatic situations which Williamson uses to satirize the emotional and moral frailty of Australia's educated middle-class. Despite severe criticism for this narrow cultural focus during the 1980s, Williamson has continued to write plays that filled theatres, exposing his audiences to the good and evil of human nature in an unapologetic Australian setting. Williamson wrote twenty-two produced scripts for film and television between 1974 and 1995.

Williamson received Honorary Doctorates of Literature from the University of Sydney (1988), Monash University (1990), Swinburne University of Technology (1996) and the University of Queensland (2004). His plays and screenplays have won many awards.

(Source: Adapted from Brian Kiernan 'David Williamson (24 February 1942- ), Australian Writers, 1950-1975, Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 289. Ed. Selina Samuels (2004): 325-334)).

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • David Williamson was included in the Bulletin's '100 Most Influential Australians' list in 2006.
  • Williamson also co-wrote, with Kristin Williamson (q.v.), the television series Dog's Head Bay. Although conceived as an ongoing series, only one season of 13 episodes was filmed. Season one was broadcast on the ABC, 16 August to 8 November 1999.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Home Truths : A Memoir Sydney : HarperCollins Australia , 2021 22953618 2021 single work autobiography

'The revealing and candid memoir of Australia's legendary playwright and screenwriter

'The definitive memoir of David Williamson, author of iconic dramas such as The Removalists, The Club, Don's Party, Emerald City and Travelling North, as well as more than fifty other plays, explores the life of the writer and the true stories and real lives that inspired his works. A powerful force in theatre since the 1970s, Williamson's plays have uniquely explored the pulse of our Australianness.

'After five decades of chronicling the blunders, mishaps and messes that he and his fellow Australians got themselves into, Williamson has penned his long-awaited memoir, Home Truths. It reveals the story of the man behind the work: how a childhood defined by marital discord sparked a lifelong fascination with the power of drama to explore emotional conflict; how a mechanical engineering student became our most successful playwright; the anxiety that plagued him as he crafted his plays; the joy of connecting with an audience and the enduring sting of the critics; and the great love story that defined his personal life.

'Fearless, candid and witty, Williamson also writes about the plethora of odd, interesting, caustic and brilliant people - actors, directors, writers, theatre critics, politicians - who have intersected with his life and work: from a young Jacki Weaver and Chris Haywood in the first Sydney production of The Removalists in 1971, to Nicole Kidman on the brink of stardom in the 1988 feature film of Emerald City, and lively dinners with political powerhouse Paul Keating; and from Graham Kennedy in the 1976 film version of Don's Party through eventful overseas travels with Gareth Evans, Peter Carey, and Tim Winton to a West End production of Up for Grabs starring Madonna, and the satisfaction of seeing his sons, Felix and Rory, tread the boards in several of his own plays.' (Publication summary)

2022 shortlisted National Biography Award
y separately published work icon Nearer the Gods 2018 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2019 13739067 2018 single work drama

'Isaac Newton’s laws of motion are the foundation of countless human advancements. This is the story of how one of the greatest moments of scientific illumination almost didn’t happen. 

'It’s 1684, the dawn of the Enlightenment. Bright young astronomer Edmund Halley must somehow wrangle the secrets of the universe from the brain of fickle and contrary Isaac Newton. At the same time he must wrestle with his faith and risk his home, family and reputation to find the money and means to share this beautiful, powerful theory with the world at large. 

'For all the celestial bodies and scientific laws named after them, it’s easy to think of our 17th Century giants of science as infallible geniuses. But here are our most powerful minds laid bare: riddled with self-doubt, squabbling over fame, and ensconced in bitter intellectual rivalries.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

2018 nominated Matilda Awards Best Mainstage Production
2018 nominated Matilda Awards Best New Australian Play
Managing Carmen 2012 single work drama Brent Lyall is a freakish young sporting talent. At the age of 23 he is already captain of one of the most powerful football clubs in the land. Managed by the legendary Rohan Swift (Garry McDonald), Brent's blossoming career, and the millions that come with it, seem assured. But Brent has an explosive secret which is on the verge of becoming public. So Rohan hires the brilliant psychologist Jessica to find out what Brent is trying to hide...but soon wishes he hadn't. (Source: Ensemble Theatre website)
2013 nominated Matilda Awards Best New Australian Play

Known archival holdings

Albinski 237
National Library of Australia (ACT)
University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy Australian Defence Force Academy Library (ACT)
National Film and Sound Archive (aka ScreenSound Australia) (ACT)
Holdings include rehearsal script for 'Helen' an episode of the ABC television series Certain Women (1973). National Archives of Australia National Archives Library (ACT)
Last amended 12 Feb 2020 10:35:54
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X