Max B. Richards (4 works by) (a.k.a. Maxwell Barry Richards; Max Richards )
Born: Established: 2 Aug 1942 Timaru ;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1973
The details of the two Max Richards have been mixed together - I will attempt to unravel them. PK 4/4/07 The manuscripts in Fryer Library will need to be added to AustLit - as they are not applicable to BAL, I have chosen not to create records for them. PK 4/4/07. There are no production details or history available for the author's numerous plays that have been performed but not published. Only that most of them appeared at La Mama, where he was resident playwright. PK 5/4/07. Completed for BAL pending review. PK 5/4/07.

BiographyHistory

Max Richards first started writing after he joined the Drama School in Christchurch, New Zealand. His work has been performed regularly at La Mama Theatre, Melbourne, where he became resident playwright in 1973. In March of that year his play 'Night Flowers' was disrupted in its run, after highly emotional debate erupted at the end of each performance. The play, about a lesbian relationship, was given another run in the theatre's Open Stage program later in the year, but it was boycotted by the Radical Lesbians and the theatre picketed. In 1977 his play 'Cripple Play' was presented at the Arts Theatre in London. Many of Richards' radio plays, drama scripts and screenplays are held in manuscript form at the Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

Notes

  • The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (2nd edition, 1994) wrongly lists this author as having published a selected work of poetry, Under Mount Egmont and Other Poems (1983). This book was, in fact, by another New Zealand writer with the same name who also moved to Australia (see Richards, Max q.v.).