Norman Price grew up in rural Queensland and moved to Sydney in the early 1960s to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). After some years of work in the theatre and television, Price undertook formal study of the theatre at the Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education and gained a Bachelor of Arts in 1977. Price then spent a year in London, Europe and the US before returning to Australia where he began lecturing in theatre at the University of Melbourne in 1981. He completed a Master of Arts in 1989 with a thesis on 'Writing in the Space'. His theatre research was greatly influenced by his supervisor, Hector Maclean, a Brecht scholar, and later by the French theatre semiotician, Patrice Pavis.
Price began writing performance texts in the early 1980s. In 1980 he wrote 'The Meditations' which he directed at Preston Technical College in Victoria. He also undertook work as a dramaturge and theatre director through the 1980s. Between 1989 and 1992 Price wrote two new texts, 'Strawberry Runners' and 'The White Rose Cafe', presented at stage readings at La Mama in 1993. When he moved to Queensland in 1993, he returned to writing, with texts such as 'The Other Mother' (1994), Barking Dogs (1997), 'Flat Out Like a Lizard' (1998), 'Marianne W.' (2000) and 'Blow Out' (2001). In 2001 Price worked on a multimedia project, 'Hand Luggage', with visual artist Bernadette Malouf. A community based performance project, 'A Sweet Life', was performed at Nambour Civic Centre. In 2001 three other texts by Price were performed: 'Strange Fruit' and 'Three Little Girls' were staged in Playlab's Bolthole and 'Looking Through Glass' was presented at the Skyline restaurant on Brisbane's Southbank. In 2002 he received a commission from La Boite Theatre to write Urban Dingoes (2004), and another text, 'Medea's Dress' was performed at the Bolthole. After moving to Brisbane, Price also lectured at the Morningside campus of the Southbank Institute of TAFE.
