Chris Tugwell

Chris Tugwell is an award-winning Australian dramatist, screenwriter and author[1] of English descent. Best known as a playwright, his most successful play was X-Ray, which he also produced. He was originally a dancer and actor, performing with some of Australia's most prominent Theatre-in-Education companies,[2] before turning to writing full-time. Tugwell is also a teacher of screenwriting and the author of the textbook, Dinosaur Theory.[3]

Chris Tugwell
OccupationWriter
NationalityAustralian
Alma materFlinders University
Notable worksX-Ray (play)
Dinosaur Theory (book)
Notable awardsCarclew Fellowship (1996)

Early life

Tugwell was born in England and moved to Australia with his family when he was seven.[4] His father was a successful architect and his mother was an amateur opera singer. He attended private schools in Adelaide and then Flinders University Drama Centre, where he studied acting with Zora Semberova and Yutaka Wada.[4] While still at university he performed as a dancer with the E-Motion Dance Company in works by choreographer Moshe Kedem and in the New Opera production Renard the Fox. His sister Sally was a founding member of the Australian Dance Theatre and later performed with Circus Oz.

Career

Chris taught high school English and Drama in the regional city of Whyalla, where he also wrote his first play. He returned to Adelaide and worked as an actor, writer and director with a number of theatre-in-education companies, performing in hundreds of schools across South Australia. His most notable appearance was in Magpie's world première season of British playwright David Holman's No Worries at the 1984 Adelaide Festival. He turned to full-time writing in 1984.

He has written more than fifty scripts for film, stage, radio, television, documentary and multimedia.[2] His work has been performed by such companies as Patch Theatre, Urban Myth, Magpie Theatre Company and The Acting Company.[2] His play Seasonally Adjusted was a showcase work at the 1987 Come Out Festival.[2] In 1984, Runaway toured regional NSW for twelve months.[2]

Tugwell was a writer for the highly successful ABC children's TV series Finders Keepers (1991),[5] directed by Scott Hicks.[2] His first novel for teenagers Kid Brother was published in 1994 and he was awarded the Carclew Fellowship (for writers for young people) at the 1996 Adelaide Festival of Arts.[2]

His stage play X Ray, about the plight of Australian David Hicks held in Guantanamo Bay, was named the 'sensation' of the 2004 Adelaide Fringe Festival and the 'highlight' of the 2005 Darwin Festival. A US production opened in November 2005.[6] A radio adaptation, commissioned by the ABC, went to air on Radio National's Airplay in November 2004[7] and was repeated in the 2005 and 2006 summer seasons[2]

He was a member of the South Australian Committee of the Australian Writers' Guild for sixteen years,[2][4] and Chair from 1996–2005.[2][4] He was on the National Executive from 1992 to 1996,[2][4] and was a founding board member of the Australian Writers' Guild Authorship Collecting Society (AWGACS),[2] and Chair from 2004 to 2007.[2][4] He was made a Life Member of the Guild in 2012.[2]

Tugwell also served on the Board of the Australian Script Centre for six years.[4]

Chris has run writing workshops around South Australia, including the well-regarded screenwriting course Pictures on Paper,[2] and has taught scriptwriting at the Adelaide College of the Arts since 1998. He has worked as a script consultant and dramaturg on numerous stage, feature film and TV projects and helped establish the Insite Unproduced Screenplay Competition for the Adelaide Film Festival.[4] His book Dinosaur Theory – uncovering a new approach to screenwriting (2012) is a distillation of 25 years as a teacher, editor and screenwriter.

In 2014 he produced, wrote and directed the short film Bastard.

Works

Plays
  • 2011: Finding Home[8]
  • 2003: X Ray[8]
  • 1995: River of Dreams
  • 1994: Landings[8]
  • 1991: Finders Keepers, parts 3 & 5 (television show)[8]
  • 1987: Seasonally Adjusted
  • 1984: Runaway

Books
  1. Tugwell, Chris; Bath, Maude (2014). It's Hard to Catch Goldfish with Paper Nets. p. 104.
  2. Tugwell, Chris (2012). Dinosaur Theory: Uncovering a New Approach to Screenwriting. CreateSpace. p. 154. ISBN 1475275781.
  3. Tugwell, Chris; Mitchell, Barry (2000). Writing for Film and television. South Australian Department of Further Education, Employment, Science & Technology. p. 195. ISBN 1865063169.
  4. Laughton, Verity; Tugwell, Chris (2011). Writing for Performance. South Australian Department of Further Education, Employment, Science & Technology. p. 135. ISBN 9781742821467.
  5. Starke, Ruth; Tugwell, Chris, eds. (1998). Solo Spots: Senior Drama Monologues. Oxford University Press. p. 138. ISBN 0195506405.
  6. Tugwell, Chris (1994). Kid Brother. HarperCollins Publishers Australia. p. 198. ISBN 0207182043.

Awards and honours
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References
  1. Australian Plays, Chris Tugwell
  2. South Australia Film Corporation Archived 6 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine, AWG awards Chris Tugwell with Life Membership, 29 August 2012
  3. Official website, Dinosaur Theory by Chris Tugwell
  4. Adelaide Screenwriter, Interview with Chris Tugwell
  5. Australian Television Information Archive, Finders Keepers: episode guide
  6. Sanchez, Aurelio (30 October 2005). "Real life inspires 'X-Ray'; Case of imprisoned al-Qaida suspect being staged at Gorilla Tango Theatre". Highbeam Business. Albuquerque, NM. Archived from the original on 7 February 2015.
  7. ABC Radio National, X-Ray by Chris Tugwell
  8. AusLit, Chris Tugwell
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